When God Shows Up, A History of Protestant Youth Ministry in America by Mark Senter III is an appealing read that shows how youth ministry developed in America from the early nineteenth century through the first decade of the twenty-first century. The book provides an excellent overview of the movement and is written in an engaging style. Senter uses the metaphor of “jazz” to propose that Protestant youth have often improvised their styles of ministry. Like jazz, he says, youth ministry “has proven to endure, has distinctive structures, has fit into the culture of the day, and has attracted an outstanding cast of leaders” (2). He uses this structure to present the history of youth ministry. He argues that youth ministry practices go through fifty-year cycles of rise and decline; he then presents four such cycles, from the antebellum period through the late twentieth century.

A book of this size cannot cover everything, and there are gaps in the history of youth ministry that the author acknowledges are not covered. Many African-American congregations taught their youth to be involved and to lead. Their involvement included both spiritual and political components. This important aspect of the history of youth ministry needs to be developed further. Another gap is in the impact of women such as Mrs. Marshall Roberts and Lucretia Boyd on young women. Camps are also a major part of youth ministry history. Attending a Youth for Christ summer camp conference with thousands of other teens in the mid-1950s, I saw firsthand the impact that program had on youth.

Many of the major statements in the book are unsupported by cited sources. The author appears to want the reader to accept his conclusions and interpretation of the events concerning the movement–but occasion- ally he does not cite sufficient sources for the reader to weigh the historical evidences. A few examples are as follows:

• The claim is made that the youth rallies led by Percy Crawford and Jack Wyrtzen were made up of about fifty percent adults. No source is mentioned for this claim, and having personally attended some of these rallies in the mid-fifties this was not my experience.

• Senter says that Jack Wyrtzen did not attend an organizational meeting for Youth for Christ held in Winona Lake, Indiana in 1945 because he “distrusted structures other than his own” (265). This may be true, but where does this information come from? And how do we know that this was Wyrtzen’s reason for not attending?

• It is claimed that the response of the Son City rallies were “far more effective than Youth for Christ rallies had been” (269). Again, no proof is cited.

• Senter suggests that Southern Baptists did not widely employ youth ministers until the 1970s (208). Having served two Southern Baptist churches as a minister of youth in the 1960s and having been part of a Southern Baptist organization of youth ministers with more than one hundred members during that time, I must question that claim.

The epilogue includes a section titled “So Where Do We Go from Here?” Senter asks ten questions that grew out of his research into the history of youth ministry. He is concerned that we avoid the mistakes of the past. Here is a sample: “Youth ministry in America totally misses close to three-quarters of the adolescent popula- tion in America. How will Protestant youth ministry change to meet that challenge?” (312)

These questions are important to consider as we look to the past to inform the future. The one ques- tion I do not understand is number 10: “Where does youth ministry find its theological grounding?” (313). No matter how much youth ministry must change, the theological foundation must always be the Word of God. Despite these concerns, this book provides an important and engaging contribution to our under- standing of Protestant youth ministry in America and a guide for the future.

Brian C. Richardson, Ph.D.  is the Basil Manly, Jr. Professor of Church Ministries The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Journal of Discipleship and Family Ministry 1.2 (2011).  Click here for the PDF version of this article.]