In between work on the the Tiny Office and March Madness we’ve been busy releasing cool stuff over at The Youth Cartel.
Finding Jesus in the Old Testament
Eric Ballard
Official description…
It can be difficult—at a glance—to reconcile the Jesus we see in the New Testament with much of the Old Testament. But when we dig deeper, he is there, in the lives and stories of some of our most beloved Old Testament heroes. These ten youth group sessions for middle school and senior high youth groups include studies of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samson, Hosea, David, Adam and Eve, and Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz.
About a decade ago I read a lot of Spurgeon sermons. I mean, a lot of them. And one of the things I learned from old Chucky was that no matter where you are in the text, you start with the text and end at the cross. I’m not saying that Eric did this with Finding Jesus in the Old Testament, I’m just saying that one of the things I like about this new curriculum is that it’ll help youth workers do that. I’ve got a personal thing that we should be teaching students way more Bible than we do about topics of the day… so it makes my heart happy when we can get teenagers in the Bible and help them see Jesus in the midst of it all.
The Real Jesus – A Devotional
Jen Bradbury
After a year-long journey researching what teenagers really believe about Jesus, youth worker Jen Bradbury began to notice familiar gaps between common beliefs about Jesus and what the Bible actually tells us about him, culminating in her ground-breaking book, The Jesus Gap: What Teens Really Believe About Jesus. Now, in The Real Jesus, Bradbury addresses the questions head on in a book specifically written for youth themselves: Who is Jesus? Was he God? Was he human? What did he teach? What did he do? Did he sin? And why did he die?
These 50 devotional readings will bring the reality of Jesus to life for the teens in your life, helping them answer the same question he asked his friend, Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” The readings can be digested daily, studied by section, or powered through in just a few sittings. Each reading also contains quotes from real-life teenagers and questions to guide the reader into deeper personal reflection.
I loved Jen’s first book, The Jesus Gap. From the moment I heard her research… basically revealing that the Jesus often taught in youth ministry isn’t actually the Jesus found in the Bible… I loved it. She provides a much-needed revelation about my point above that we tend to teach too many felt needs and too many topics instead of teaching teenagers how to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. That said, I’m not just a guy who likes research: I like the “so what” part more. In The Real Jesus Bradbury takes the learnings from The Jesus Gap and reverse engineers it into 50 devotionals that help students connect deeply with the Jesus of the Bible.
So… this is some of my favorite stuff coming out right now. What’s something new that you’ve found that you like?
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