Heart Soul Mind Strength
Details
Heart Soul Mind Strength, by Jenny Baker
£9.99 Published in 2008 by Monarch Books ISBN 978 1 85424 899 2
More and more in church culture we're getting comfortable with an understanding that worship is not just about singing; it's much bigger and wider. Sung praise is a great form of offering praise to God but it's not the only form.
If like me, you get this idea, like it, and want to model it in your youth work, but at the same time want ideas and support in this, I'd really recommend Jenny Baker's book 'Heart Soul Mind Strength; 50 Creative Worship Ideas for Youth Groups'.
The book, as the title suggests, is a practical resource of different worship activities that you can use in your youth group. Jenny's activities fall into 5 different categories; prayer, worship, the Bible, contemplative, and team. Within these five are a wealth of excellent ways of encouraging your young people to ‘connect' with God.
I'd really recommend this book, as I've found it helpful in many areas; particularly in coming up with activities that are going to suit a group at the stage where they are at. For example, if you have a particularly active younger youth group you will find some of the higher energy activities helpful.
If you have a group where you want to incorporate corporate praise, but feel it's either inappropriate or you have limited resources to do musical praise then these activities will provide you with great tools to get your group interacting with God in ways that aren't limited by those boundaries.
It's also a great practise to model integrated spirituality with your young people. What I mean by this is that by doing these type of worship activities with your youth group, you begin to show them how all sorts of activities can have spiritual significance. A by-product to doing these activities in a group can hopefully be your young people recognising and understanding how we can interact with God in the every day world, outside of the designated times we set aside in meetings.
Reviewed by Becca Dean, Youth Pastor at Carpenters Community Church, Chorleywood
Short links
http://www.albandys.org.uk/go/heart_soul_mind_strength
http://www.albandys.org.uk/go/318