Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker by Andrew Root, Part 1

Most of you know my passion for Bonhoeffer. Fewer may be aware of my long engagement in youth work. My major in college was youth ministry and I’ve been in full time and part time youth ministry in stents at different times.

When I saw the title of this recent volume on Bonhoeffer by Andrew Root I knew I wanted to read it: Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker: A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together.

I too had been struck by the theme of youth work in Bonhoeffer’s biography. I too had thought of how interesting it would be to research this underappreicated aspect of Bonhoeffer’s life. Andrew Root has beat me to the punch and it is just as well – he’s more qualified!

I do consider my work with undergrads at North Park University to be a continuation of a clear call I discerned as a late teenager to the ministry to youth. However, I’m not anymore, although I have been, in the day to day of ministry to “kids” (to use the preferred term my the reviewer) in the context of the church. So I asked one of my best friends Pete Sutton to write this review.

Pete is the Middle School Pastor and Director of Student Ministry at my church, Christ Community Church. I’ve know Pete a long time. He was a summer intern for me back in 1996 when I was the Middle School Pastor at Christ Community. Since then Pete has served in churches in FL, OH and for the last 7 years has been the Middle School Pastor at Christ Community. Last year Pete was promoted to the director role and now oversees all ministry to Middle School, High School and College, which represents hundreds of kids and students. I’m proud of my friend.

His review will be in two parts.

Part 1

Bonoeffer has been claimed and embraced by just about every Christian from every theological stream, from conservative to liberal, high church to independent. But no matter in which stream one puts Bonhoeffer, Root persuasively demonstrates that he was a youth worker at heart. In fact, the claim Root makes is that Bonhoeffer is not just a youth worker, but the “forefather” of a new kind of youth worker that he and Kenda Creasy Dean promote in their book, The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry.

Part one of Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker contains a thorough overview of Bonhoeffer’s life, beginning with his childhood and unique family dynamic through his founding of Finkenwalde and eventual martyrdom. Root follows various theological threads along the way which demonstrate sensitivity to young people and illustrate how Bonhoeffer viewed young people. He writes, “In fact, especially with the early Bonhoeffer (pre-1939), it is hard to find a time where he did significant theological work outside of his ministerial embeddedness in youth and children’s ministry,” (loc. 582).

Three insights stood out more profoundly to me. In this first post, I will give the first of the three.

Root’s understanding and application of Bonhoeffer’s idea of “place-sharing” with young people is significant. He writes,

Bonhoeffer knew that to be these boys’ place-sharer he needed to see, to experience, the relationships (whether tense or resilient) that made the boys. To know their person he needed to know them through the family. In our own youth ministry of place-sharing, Bonhoeffer reminds us that in doing the hard work of visiting our young people’s homes, we are blessed with seeing them more deeply, understanding the shape of their most important relationships. And seeing them through their relationships we are invited, almost compelled, to share in them by being in relationship with them. (Loc. 1500)

This should really be nothing new to any youth worker worth his or her salt. But what was so encouraging and profound was the theological foundation beneath it. Whereas youth workers are often accused of just “hanging out” with kids, Root’s Bonhoeffer affirms the real ministry taking place when we enter into a young person’s world.

More to come . . .