Authentic Community: Achievable?

Do you think that teenagers feel like they don’t belong in the total community of faith but rather in their age group only?

What do you think blocks the transforming integration of relationships from belonging in total community?

How good and pleasant it is when brothers (and sisters) live together in unity!

Psalm 133:1

The church uses the term "community building" to describe various ideas. Community building, for some, is synonymous with playing games or participating in mixers. For others, it is images of small group discussions and weekend retreats. Some picture the refreshment table for light conversation, while others think of it strictly in theological terms.

A dictionary defines community as "a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and have a common cultural and historical heritage." This definition can be understood to mean that a community is a neighborhood or perhaps a gang. However, the working definition used for this paper is: "The community is a close-knit, loving fellowship with a common commitment to God and each other. It embodies a brotherhood and sisterhood. The 'household of God' is a family in which all are brothers and sisters. It involves sharing with someone in something, participating, and engaging together in what others also share; it means holding in common. It signifies fellowship and partnership, a shared participation in Christ." Biblical support for this definition includes: 1 Corinthians 1:9, which states, "God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful"; Colossians 2:19, "He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow"; Ephesians 4:16, "From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work"; and Ephesians 5:30, "For we are members of His body." Community helps us understand the elements of oneness in Christ. Two of the most apparent are unity and oneness. A community is a group of people who are one with each other. Another relevant word is commune: "to talk or dialogue intimately," from which communication derives. Community also suggests communion, which describes the sacred Lord’s Supper and means "the act of sharing or having something in common."

In the Christian community, what we have in common is faith in Jesus Christ. Christians are one in Christ. It is not membership in a particular church or adherence to a set of beliefs and doctrines that make us one in Christ. Many groups share common belief systems. What makes the Christian community one in Christ isn’t common beliefs, but God’s power. When a person becomes a Christian, he or she mystically becomes one with other Christians by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14). Is this enough? The Christian community must go beyond the mystical or spiritual reality to be a practical, functional reality. It must be lived out and practiced among Christians who come together in groups.

In student ministry, community building takes on a special meaning and importance. Perhaps the best way to describe community building in student ministry is friendship. A youth group that builds community is a group whose members develop significant and lasting friendships. Group members grow to like each other and enjoy spending time together. Each person feels accepted as a part of the group regardless of background, status, economic situation, physical appearance, school, or ability. The youth group encourages and demonstrates community to new friends and strengthens old friendships. This group grows up-close and personal and celebrates the joy of knowing and serving Jesus Christ together. But does such a group exist? Can such a group exist?

Although a perfect community may never be attainable, any youth group can become more of a community than it is now - more unified, accepting, loving, and Christ-like. In one youth group I pastored, I witnessed the bonding of friendships between poverty and street-oriented teens with both middle and upper-middle-class teens. The teens became friends even though they were from 9 different high schools and 12 different junior high schools. Often, I ran into groups hanging out with each other from different economic levels or school systems in the mall. So, the real question is: Can such relationships extend themselves beyond the walls of the youth room into the pews of the sanctuary? Can these relationships exist transgenerationally?

In essence, is it true that teenagers do not feel like they belong in the total community of faith but rather in their age group only?

Community building is important because the Bible teaches that it’s important. The Scriptures encourage God’s people, the community of faith, to love each other, to care for each other, and to live together in harmony and peace.

In John 17, Jesus prays for the future church. In His prayer, Jesus expresses His deepest desire for "all those who will believe in me." What does He pray for? He could have prayed that the church would grow in numbers. He could have prayed that the church would be politically powerful. He could have prayed that the church be spared persecution. Instead, He prayed: that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me...May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:21,23). Jesus cared deeply about the Christian community. When we work to build unity and oneness in the church, we help to express the truth that God sent Christ to our world so that we might know Him and might be in relationship with Him.

Many years ago, I met a girl named Rebecca. She was having a struggle with her weight. During an evening youth meeting, she told us about her anguish and the relationship of despair with her mother over her weight. She shared that her mom wanted the weight off and that until it was, she would remain grounded and receive no privileges. Later, in a private conversation with her mom, I asked if there was any other solution. She stated she was not going to budge on the weight issue, that it was unbecoming. Rebecca never lost those 20 pounds, and she and her mother grew very far apart. And if that wasn’t enough, Rebecca chose to categorize all adults into the same box; adults will only accept you if you meet their expectations, including appearance. Before her world stopped with the weight issue, Rebecca was a young girl who was extremely spoiled. She got whatever she wanted; she could come and go whenever she wanted; she had very little parental accountability; thus, she didn’t respect adult authority but rather involved herself in her youth culture, causing major age-segregation. Rebecca isolated herself from all life, contrary to her age. Rebecca didn’t just happen to discover this unfortunate value system; she learned it from her parents and the people her parents associated with (the church). She had a solid foundation for distrusting adults. Why? She was rejected by adults. For her, there was no difference between the home environment and the church environment.

The church must be a place that’s radically different from the world. If the church cannot offer young people like Rebecca an alternative to what they find in the world, there’s no reason for its existence. Rebecca should have been able to look forward to attending church each week because it’s the one place in the world where physical appearance or expectations don’t matter. It’s the place where she is accepted, loved, included, and made to feel like an important part of the church. That is what the Christian community is about, and that is what Jesus prayed for in John 17. He wanted then, and He wants today, that His people demonstrate a supernatural love and unity to the world. M. Scott Peck states, "Community is currently rare." Modern life has robbed people of the ability or desire to live in community with others. There was once a time in history (I am told) when people did live together in close-knit communities. But in today’s world, the kind of natural community that our ancestors enjoyed is rare indeed. Robert Bellah writes, "Isolation and fragmentation have become the order of the day." What has occurred over the years is that the family has become much more mobile and is experiencing a loss of extended family.

In today’s individualistic world, the average person feels alone and lonely, even in a crowd. Peck writes, "Our hometowns may well be geographical collections of human beings with tax and political structures in common, but precious little else relates them to each other. Towns are not, in any meaningful sense of the word, communities. And sight unseen, based on my experience with Christian churches in this country, I can be fairly confident that each of the churches in your hometown is not likely to be much of a community either.

It is unfortunate that churches more often reflect or mimic changes in society than offer viable alternatives to them. Dwayne Huebner of Teachers College, Columbia, recently asked, "Why does the Church put the young in classrooms with their peers and a teacher to be instructed in ways modeled after secular education? Is it because we do not know how to be with them in religious ways? Because it is easier to try to teach children what to think, instruct them in what to feel, and tell them how to believe than to be with them and share with them that which is ours, that upon which we live our lives and find our meaning? Isn’t living religiously with others inherently educational? If we focus on being religious with others, do we need to attend to schooling? What does it mean to be together religiously? What does it mean to be a community of faith? Dr. Peck has rightly pointed out, community is rare even in our churches. People talk a great deal about the loss of community in modern society, but few know what to do about it. I remember the day the church council decided that busing children and youth from two government housing projects to the church would be discontinued. These kids were stunting the spiritual growth of our church children. These kids were damaging the paint on the walls and were leaving the restrooms in a mess. We just can’t invest in them any longer, stated the church council. These same kids that the church was writing off had been a part of four other churches before ours. They lived in one- and two-bedroom apartments where they and their parents (the majority single parents) bunched up with other families in the same apartment. It wasn’t unusual to find 3 or 4 families (3 or 4 adults and 10 - 12 children) living in a two-bedroom apartment. Essentially, the kids lived in circumstances that communicated failure to them on a 24-hour-a-day basis. They would go to school, be labeled, be placed in a learning disability classroom where they could goof off, and return home with failing grades. They have already experienced failure at home and school, and now, they would fail at church life too. I know many teenagers prefer to believe that they could have succeeded if they’d tried, rather than trying and finding out. After all, to try is to risk failing. These kids didn’t have any desire to try again because they had already failed and had been written off so many times. They were apathetic. The community of faith could have provided these kids with a much-needed opportunity to be successful. Instead, we abandoned these kids, yes, in a very sad way, we communicated to them they cannot excel in society or for God, so go ahead and behave badly. God help us in our unbelief! In retrospect, I should have found an alternative solution to help these kids with their faith. The first finger of blame I point at myself.

Cheers, a popular past television series, features a theme song with these words: Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. And they’re always glad you came. You want to be where you can see troubles are all the same; You want to go where everybody knows your name. These lyrics could describe a church, but instead describe the local pub, a bar. The tragedy is that bars often do a better job of making people feel wanted and accepted than do many churches. People need to be part of a group where "everybody knows your name."

The church is in a strategic position to offer the world that kind of place, where true community can become a reality.

In several surveys, I asked teenagers to respond, and I found some startling similarities with the resources used, including Westerhoff III, Peck, and Bellah. In the survey, teenagers honestly stated they feel lonely (83%) in church. And when one question specifically asked, "Who are the unpopular in your church?" They answered those who do not match up economically, socially, or spiritually. They even have descriptive names for their subculture labeling. Again, teenagers do not just happen into values; they learn them from their parents and other adults. Can teenagers experience community in the total community of faith when some cultures are prejudiced against? No way!

Is it true that teenagers do not feel like they fit in the total community of faith, but rather in their own only? Yes, indeed, teenagers do not feel like they belong in the total community of faith (clarification: some teens (9%) do feel like they belong in the community of faith because they fit the church image; they have grown up in the church since birth). And more importantly, the values teenagers learn carry over into the youth group itself and, often, alienate certain peers they identify negatively in their subculture (i.e. the geeks, nerds, brains, metal heads, druggies, potheads, and hoods).

The hypothesis holds up, so there is a problem. The problem is, in question form, what is it that blocks transformed assimilation of relationships from belonging in the total community?

Community building with youth is especially important at the end of the 20th century and as we move into the 21st century, because today’s young people are unlikely to find community anywhere else. As long as youth groups spend most of their time competing, they will never accomplish community. Youth groups ought to be able to experience the healing effects of Christian fellowship. Caring youth workers will want to restructure their ministries and programs to provide some deliverance for teenagers who are stressed out by living in a highly competitive social system. They will want to provide an environment in which acceptance doesn’t have to be earned, in which young people will feel loved without having to prove themselves, and in which the measurements of success so important in high schools, sports, grades, and popularity will be ignored.

Brennan Manning, a Roman Catholic preacher, told a story about something that happened to him on a retreat with some nuns. He had conducted a variety of sessions with these nuns and had found them responsive, except for one particular nun. She remained stone-faced and unmovable, contributing nothing toward any of the sessions. At the closing gathering, Brennan asked the group, "Would any of you like to share something special that has happened to you this weekend?" It was then that this withdrawn nun spoke. "Something wonderful happened to me last night. When I went to bed, I had a dream. And in that dream, I was in a beautiful dance hall. The women were all wearing lovely gowns, and the men were dressed in formal attire. This rather interesting and intense man came and asked me to dance with him, and, as we danced together, I realized that he was Jesus. Halfway through the dance, Jesus leaned over and whispered in my ear. Do you want to know what he said to me?" The rest of the group sat at the edge of their seats and could hardly wait. "He said, ‘Catherine, I’m wild about you.’ Then he hugged me, and the dream was over." If there’s anything that every struggling teenager needs to hear, it’s the good news of how special he or she is to the Lord. If there’s anything that those in the community of faith should try to communicate to the average kids who come to the church, it’s that Jesus is wild about them.

Traditional family structures, where community was almost always found, are gone. A 1940 census reports that more than 70% of all American households included grandparents living in the home. By 1980, that figure had dropped to 2%. Stephen Glenn says that ours is the first civilization in history to reverse its lifestyle in a single generation. In the past, children came home to living rooms filled with dialogue and interaction with parents. Now they come home to empty houses and family rooms filled with TV sets. This lonely generation of modern teenagers is forced to fill the emptiness of their hearts with videos, movies, music, drugs, alcohol, and, sometimes, when these fail, suicide. David Breskin writes, "There’s no extended family around for him, not with geographic mobility for which Americans are famous. The moving is hard on him. He must keep readapting to new environments. One teen suicide in Houston tree'd himself and left a note: ‘this is the only thing around here that has any roots."

Churches that want to meet the psychological, emotional, and spiritual needs of today’s lonely and abused adolescents must design a strong program encouraging Christian community. Especially teenagers want a place where everybody knows their name.

According to the survey, teenagers (64%) responded by saying they believed the best way for them to meet other people was through friends. They (91%) also said they would attend church activities more quickly because they can go with somebody else. Only 8% said they would go on their own. Adolescents have reached a point in their development as human beings when they have a special need for the kinds of relationships that community building provides. Young people leaving their childhood behind seek out others who will validate them and give them positive feedback about themselves. The questions they are asking: "Who Am I?"… "Am I Okay?"…and 'Do You Like Me?' can only be answered in community with others. Having friends is the very lifeblood of adolescence.

I believe relationship building within the total community is ineffective because of the existing and prevalent attitude of Mc-Christianity. Society is interested in a quick fix. Within the church, we are more interested in changing behavior. We want people to meet our list of requirements for holiness before they become a part of the community. My grandfather told me of a story that happened, much to my disbelief. About 50 years ago, a prostitute came into the church’s sanctuary for Sunday evening service. However, before she was able to sit down, she was escorted to the altar located at the front of the sanctuary. It was there that two men, mind you, took tissues and wiped away her makeup and removed her jewelry. Following this act of artificial holiness, she was allowed to sit down and participate in the worship service. To be candid, I would have left! At a youth convention, I provided leadership. Some of the boys wore heavy metal t-shirts, long hair, and earrings. A week later, I received a letter from a pastor who reprimanded me for allowing those boys to be dressed so inappropriately for a Christian youth convention. He instructed me to establish a dress code and to strictly enforce it by sending anyone home in the future who did not abide by the code. My question is: Are we trying to make someone holy before they have even repented? Holiness cannot come before conversion, and conversion, more often than not, will not come before the community of faith extends love and acceptance. Our approach ought to be life-changing. We no longer see the transformation of lives. Instead, we see people conforming externally to a list of rules so they can belong. How can relationships be transformed when we take so little interest in each other? We are more willing to spend $75.00 for some books or a seminar for our kids to read or attend to learn God’s word, rather than take the time and teach them ourselves. Technology has interrupted our ability to build relationships. Technology, though good in many instances, distances us from human need. We are supposed to be a peculiar people. Instead, we copy from society and, ultimately, become like society. We are a content society. Because we live in an information age, a technological age, we have removed ourselves from people and have become as impersonal as computers. We have to start feeling again. Relationships/community isn’t developed through a quick fix mentality. There is no such thing as Mc-Love, Mc-Pain, or Mc-Faith. Somehow, in the hustle and bustle, the church has forgotten how to process pain, love, and faith. The church must once again return to articulating what people are feeling. The church that hands a visitor a list of requirements for holiness can’t possibly identify with that person’s hurts. People have Bible knowledge; we don’t need revival for content. Instead, we need a revival of connecting our thoughts and feelings with our actions. There would be no reason for Christ, for the pain He endured, His death, or His resurrection had there been no sin. Genuineness of emotion can be seen in the cry of the baby as Savior; in the cry of the Savior over the death of a friend; and in the cry of the Savior hanging on the cross. The church must become eager to be people builders, but first, the church must learn to be people themselves. Robert Schuller states, "The church is not a haven for saints but a hospital for sinners." A time investment can only minister to pain, can only provide opportunities for love, and can only challenge people in their faith. I remember in elementary school, we would recite the Pledge of Allegiance. There is a line that now causes great consternation in my spirit. It is: One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." When even the church decides whom they want to attract, who they want to invest the offerings in, and who they want to be part of the church’s image, liberty and justice are cheapened. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. John H. Westerhoff III discusses a group of people entitled "The Maypole Dancers." He says these people are frustrated that the church is not nourishing/nurturing faith. He says they are critical of the church’s rites and rituals as being meaningless and lacking reality. The church’s life rings untrue. Its actions are devoid of significance. These people envision a change in church and culture by developing a different society and a different expression of religion. These people want a community that shares their perceptions and supports their way of life. He says these people can’t go home (church) anymore. These people need another place they can call home. Essentially, these people are not really excited about the current condition of the church. As we look at the make-up of the mainline church, we find few twenty- and thirty-year-olds in the church. There is also a decline in teenagers. If this trend continues at its alarming rate, the church may experience extinction. Relationships are blocked and are unable to be transformed because of the quick fix mentality, because of the decline of the extended and nuclear family, and because the church is trying to change people from the outside rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to purify people from the inside. Teenagers are lonely and need the compassion of the community of faith.

What must be done to change the hypothesis and the problem? I hope that the following strategy will only be a beginning.

I don’t believe the strategy of assimilating relationships in the total community can be philosophized or theorized. I believe it must be practical and applicable. A proper ministry design must provide opportunities in all types of church settings (meetings, classrooms, sanctuary, service, work days, fellowship dinners, etc.) that enhance relationship building between youth and adults. Am I on the right track?

David Elkind writes: "Children come together mainly in play groups, and friendships are often determined mainly by who lives nearby. Who gets to play or not to play often depends upon who gets there first, or who has the toys or the equipment. Among teenagers, however, belonging to a group is determined by such qualities as social status and ethnic background. As a consequence, many children suddenly experience, as young teenagers, the full impact of social prejudice. This is one type of peer shock, the shock of exclusion. Second, social interaction among teenagers is different from that among children. When children socialize, their interactions are generally cooperative and centered on a common activity. Among teenagers, socialization is much more complex and multi-layered. Friendships are based on mutual trust and loyalty. Because young people are still relatively inexperienced in these complex relationships, however, they often get hurt. They discover that their trust, their loyalty, or their generosity was not reciprocated but rather used and exploited. Teenagers, therefore, experience a second type of peer shock, namely, the shock of betrayal.

The church can no longer communicate to young people the attitudes of exclusion or betrayal. Instead, young people must be assured and have their importance affirmed within the community. Search Institute reports, "48% of 8,000 fifth through ninth graders responded that they worried "very much" or "quite a bit" about "how well other kids like me." And, 45% were very concerned about "how my friends treat me." The study found that networks of friendship become essential for support and advice on how to cope. Wouldn’t it be great if young people would depend on the wisdom of adults rather than solely on their peers? I have met teenagers who would never tell an adult about their family struggles at home or about their contemplation of suicide. However, they would share this information with a friend, a peer. Adults are the last ones to know, yet they have the greatest amount of information that will help a young person work through their struggles. We'd better take the time now while we still have it. Tomorrow may be too late.

In George Gallup’s survey of unchurched youth, young people indicated a deep yearning for a relationship with other caring youth and with God. He writes, "Spiritual nourishment is one of the highest goals that young people presently have." Friendship is the key to filling the deep hunger of today’s youth for deep relationships and spirituality. The survey with 110 youth from three congregations and one para-church ministry supports this statement overwhelmingly. 92% of all the teens surveyed stated they attend church and participate in youth activities because of friendship.

Jesus provides the model for drawing people to him by touching their needs. In the book of John, Jesus looks into the depths of a Samaritan woman’s life and promises her: "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13b-14). Jesus touches upon the woman’s need for both a relationship with God (John 4:19-26) and with other people (John 4:16-18). The Gospel touches one of the deepest needs of humans - relationships. Howard Clinebell articulates: "We human beings do not just have relationships. In the profound sense, we are our relationships. Our personalities are formed by the significant relationships of our childhood. We carry these relationships within us throughout our lives. For better or worse, we are, as the Bible puts it, "members of each other." The will-to-relate is more powerful than the will-to-pleasure (emphasized by Freud), the will-to-power (emphasized by Adler), or the will-to-meaning (emphasized by Frankl). This is because it is only in meaningful relationships that we can satisfy our human need for pleasure, power, and meaning, or, for that matter, satisfy any other psychological needs. The quality of our ongoing support system and the quality of our inner lives enhance or diminish each other reciprocally.

Youth group relationships provide the essentials for two important goals. First, they reach the youth already attending church. Second, they reach out to friends of the church's youth. Thus, relationships developed throughout the church community will not only reach youth (and hopefully their families) for growth in the youth group but will establish them in the whole life of the church. Youth ministry can no longer survive within the confines of the church walls and operate parallel to the church life; it must be integrated into the whole life. If this isn’t done, upon high school graduation, teens will continue to fall away from the church because they haven’t been integrated into the church community and have outgrown the youth community. If the church wants to keep its young people, it must provide opportunities for them to develop and nurture relationships within the whole community of faith.

The survey has revealed characteristics teens believe to be essential to nourishing relationships. They list: care, understanding, acceptance, time, and listening as being the most important factors. As long as the church wants people to dress, behave, and believe the way they do without any personal investment in the lives of others, the church will not be a community, nor will it be effective in reaching the lost for Christ. The church must involve itself in intentionally guiding human beings in their relationship to God, self, others, and the created order. This type of learning involves 1.) a mature confrontation that stimulates and guides growth; 2.) a shared recognition of individual giftedness; 3.) an intergenerational relationship that guides continuous sharing of the faith; 4.) the use of symbols which accurately express our relationships; 5.) the context and method which includes human beings, their world, and the truth of Scripture; and, 6.) the continuous integration of the faith into all areas of life. Humanity seeks meaningful relationships because humanity has been created for relationships. We live in a day that demands critical teaching as we move from the twentieth to the twenty-first century of Christianity. Throughout history, there have been times in which the flames burned bright in learning, and then, there were times in which the flames were almost extinguished. We must understand our past, as well as the present, to survive and be victorious in the future. We must never lose sight of the goal of Jesus. The goal of Jesus is to have a relationship with His people. David Stone tells a story of a dog-food company that called a meeting of all its employees. At the meeting, the president of the company shouted out a series of questions to the employees: "Which dog food company makes the most nutritious dog food in the world?" With one voice, the employees shouted back the name of their company. "And which dog food company has the best marketing program in the world?" Again, the employees responded with the name of their company. "And which dog food company has the best employee incentive program in the world?" Again, the employees proudly identified their company. After several questions like this, the president asked, "Why, then, aren’t we selling more of our dog food than any other dog food company in the world?" The room grew silent. Finally, one man stood up and said, "It’s because the dogs don’t like it. Sometimes the church is a lot like that Dog Food Company. Most churches have excellent resources, great programs, and the Good News of the gospel to proclaim, but young people are staying away by the millions because they simply don’t like it. Their felt needs are not being met. They need a place where they will feel accepted and validated and where they will find true friendship. And it isn’t just young people.

My grandfather and I were talking at the dinner table tonight about the reasons he attends church. He is unable to stay awake during a morning worship service, so he attends Sunday school only. I asked him about that. He said the reason he still goes at all is because of the friendships he has. It isn’t for spiritual growth; it is for relationships. Thus, the strategy for developing assimilating relationships must be designed to intentionally provide opportunities for relationship building for teens with adults. These opportunities can include: 1.) opportunities to discover each other; 2.) opportunities to play together; 3.) opportunities to communicate with each other; 4.) times for affirming each other; 5.) the gift of time; 6.) opportunities to serve together; 7.) opportunities to learn together; 8.) opportunities to worship together; and, 9.) opportunities to minister with each other.

As teenagers learn basic helping skills and learn to use their spiritual gifts, they will also learn what it means to be the Church, the body of Christ. The Church must involve young people in ministry. The Church must teach them how to listen to each other, to support each other, and to pray for each other. The Church must create a climate favorable to community building. And, the Church must remember that intimate caring and sharing don’t grow overnight, but it’s this kind of community that is worth striving for.

If the Church hopes to pass the baton of leadership to the next generation so the work of the Church can carry on, then the Church must impact its young people by building lasting relationships that play, study, work, pray, and serve together.

Bibliography

Generation To Generation, John H. Westerhoff III and Gwen Kennedy Neville, United Church Press, Philadelphia, 1974.

Christian Nurture, Horace Bushnell, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1906.

The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, MacMillan, New York, 1959.

Christian Life Patterns. The Psychological Challenges and Religious Invitations of Adult Life, Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and James D. Whitehead, Doubleday and Co., Inc., Garden City, 1979.

Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1954.

Living In Christian Community, Arthur G. Gish, Herald Press, Scottdale, 1979.

The Different Drum, M. Scott Peck, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1987.

Growing Up in America, Anthony Campolo, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1989.

Adolescence and Youth, John Janeway Conger, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1973.

Adolescent Spirituality, Charles M. Shelton, Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1983.

Up Close and Personal, Wayne Rice, Youth Specialties/Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1989.