Few issues push our buttons as a culture more than race relations. While the Church may often pretend the conflict does not exist, in reality we have a responsibility to engage and respond to the difficult dynamics of race in the U.S. The movie Crash takes a unique look into these dynamics, and Dan and Jude help us navigate the movie and its implications for ministry in this article.
Kara Powell interviews Rudy Carrasco, Executive Director of Harambee Ministries in Pasadena, CA, on Indigenous Urban Leadership Development.
What value do our typical short term missions trips add to the communities we serve? What real transformation happens in our students? Does our short-term work help or hinder the work of long-term missionaries? These are the tough questions being asked by researchers and youth workers across the country, and questions worth asking of our own ministries!
Backwoods or central city, your students identify with some kind of community as “their” space. Have you ever considered the levels of meaning attached to those identifications? This article takes a look into the roles of “place & space,” specifically in urban contexts.
Jude Tiersma Watson and Dan Hodge teach a seminar on developing indigenous leaders in urban youth ministry contexts.
Why do Black and Hispanic students who do well in school seem to lose friends? Reviewing recent social science research from Harvard, Dan gives us some interesting thoughts for reflection on race and education.
Who are the youth you consider developmentally “at risk” in your church or neighborhood? In contrast to the individualism that has guided most work with kids who are labeled this way, Jude Tiersma Watson offers an approach based on ecological development theory and a theological principle of belonging. These insights affect the way we view ministry with ANY kind of student.
Why is it that so many white suburban youth are so into hip hop culture? Dan Hodge explores author Bakari Kitwana’s insights into Black popular culture and its powerful influence on non-Black adolescents in his new book, Why White Kids Love Hip Hop.
What are clusters and what can I do about them? What is “middle adolescence”? Chap Clark sits down with a group of youth workers to discuss his book Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers.
