Postmodernism and Youth Ministry: An Introduction

There are a number of ministers today that are unaware of the characteristics of postmodernism and of how it affects our young people. This book is written for all who work with youth and young adults in ministry; be they youth minister youth pastor director of religious education Sunday school teacher high school or college campus minister or pastor or pastoral associate. It is an introduction to and framework for youth ministry and postmodernism. By bringing together and synthesizing the present literature on postmodern theory and guides for youth ministry this book begins the discussion and lays the groundwork for a more comprehensive model and study for the future of youth ministry with a postmodern generation together with ideas for the working youth minister to begin implementation today. All of us who are involved in youth education or ministry are indebted to Scott Kopp for his intense and vibrant writing on the culture that so deeply influences our young people today: Postmodernism. He speaks with pastoral kindness of the forceful challenges to Christianity that arise for youth today. And thankfully he--out of his own pastoring as a youth minister--suggests paths we can walk with our young Christians in order for them to embrace their Catholic faith authentically with a deeper Christian wisdom. --Robert L. McCreary OFM Cap Adjuct Professor of Spiritual Theology St. Mary Seminary Cleveland Ohio. In an age whose self-appointed prophets scream God is dead!; where objective Truth is replaced by subjective truths; where the big stories (metanarratives) are rejected as totalizing and oppressive--Kopps work insightfully shows that postmodern youth yearn for an encounter with the Transcendent; that their openness to otherness leaves them open to the radically Other; and that the authentic Christian big story can be experienced by them as inclusive open and liberating. Two postmodern thumbs up! --Donald F. Lippert OFM Cap._ Lecturer in Philosophy_ Catholic Theological Institute _Port Moresby _Papua New Guinea Scott Kopp is Campus Minister at Archbishop Hoban High School in Akron Ohio. Kopp holds an MA in Theology from Walsh University in North Canton Ohio and has led numerous retreats and mission trips to Appalachia Mexico and Ghana West Africa.