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From a Ministry for Youth to a Ministry of Youth
Aspects of Protestant Youth Ministry in Sydney 1930–1959
by Ruth Lukabyo
Preface by Stuart Piggin
Series: Australian College of Theology Monograph Series
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
At a time of unprecedented secularization and declining church attendance, youth ministry in the twenty-first century should be doomed. So why is Protestant youth ministry in Sydney vibrant, and in many places growing? This book sets out to answer this question, which is of such importance for the future of the Australian church.
A pioneering model of youth ministry evolved in the 1930s and was already flourishing in churches, schools, and university by the 1950s. Its early high point was the Billy Graham Crusade of 1959, which may legitimately be seen as an Australian youth revival. The new model broke with past practice by cultivating ministry leadership by young people, by promoting peer groups to nurture and share faith, and by fostering ministry collaboration between young men and women. The model, used by theological conservatives and liberals alike, and has proved both enduring and fruitful.
This book will engage with the model of youth ministry and the religious experiences of young people in Sydney. By reading it you will not only learn from the significant achievements of young people in the past but be better equipped to creatively consider new methods of ministry for the twenty-first century.
Ruth Lukabyo lives in Sydney and is a senior lecturer and the dean of women at Youthworks College. She is involved in the theological education of children’s and youth ministers for the Anglican Church.
“Ruth Lukabyo’s historical investigation into youth ministry in Sydney is fabulous. This study certainly fills a gap in our knowledge. In doing so it highlights a considerable area of neglect, and so initiates a new vista of research. The story is compellingly told and the analysis acute. Contemporary practitioners will benefit from not only learning about the past but also reflecting on the suggestive implications for their current practice.”
—Bill Salier, Principal, Youthworks College, Sydney, Australia
“A sympathetic but not uncritical local study of youth ministry in a key center of the global evangelical movement, this engaging book has no parallel in the historiography of evangelicalism. It will be essential reading for people everywhere who are interested in evangelism and the practice of youth ministry, in both the past and the present.”
—Geoff Treloar, Reader in the History of Christianity, Australian College of Theology, and author of The Disruption of Evangelicalism
“Against a backdrop of increased secularity since the 1960s, youth ministry has been an under-explored source of Australian evangelicalism’s continued vitality. This important study explains how a distinctive and confident culture of leadership by young Christians developed from the 1930s in Sydney’s university, schools, and church fellowships, laying a foundation for the remarkable 1959 Billy Graham crusade.”
—Hugh Chilton, Vice-President, Evangelical History Association, and author of Evangelicals and the End of Christendom: Religion, Australia and the Crises of the 1960s
“This fine study makes sense of the present by examining the past. In particular it calls on the churches to sustain and improve their ministry to young people. I was both encouraged and challenged by reading it and warmly commend it.”
—Peter Jensen, former Archbishop of Sydney, Anglican Church of Australia
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