just finished branded by katherine turpin.
the sub title is adolescents converting from consumer faith. she has a very clear perception of the power of consumer culture in the formation of and funding the imagination of young people. turpin takes wesley’s notion of ongoing conversion and applies it to the challenge of how to help young people’s imagination be formed by the alternative of a christian faith that runs counter to a culture predicated on the logic of consumption. i guess it’s the big challenge anyone in youth minsitry faces. the danger of course (which so often happens) is that with good intention young people just hear adults rubbishhing their world. mean time young people can’t help but notice that those very sam adults seem to be living quite nicely in a consumer culture…
i liked the use of ongoing conversion and the honesty with which turpin describes the challenge. she talks about being multi-faithful – ie. we are all caught in the tension between the imagination/worldview that comes from our faith and the imagination that comes from consumption. and she proposes a gracious and gentle way of helping the process of conversion. the main strategy is small circles of grace which she descibes as
a way station along the path of conversion for young people, a place to breathe, to be formed, to celebrate new visions, and to be connected with others who share them. i call these small communities circles of grace both because they are a gracious space of transformation for participants and because they embody the possibility of gracious alternatives to a broader culture.
i hope/feel i am in one of those in grace. it’s not just young people who need to be part of such a circle of grace. this is a really good book. i think this combined with practising passion and contemplative youth ministry would be an amazing approach to youthwork. my only slight criticism of the book is that it doesn’t have enough on the presence of god in culture. we need to be communities of resistance but we also need to be communities of engagement and presence…
Jonny thanks for this excellent review. I have read Practising Passion and Contemplative Youth Ministry. Guess I just need this now to complete the set!
Great review, that book seemed to miss my radar completely. Contemplative Youth Ministry is the best book I have read on youth ministry so if it’s in that league I’ll have to grab a copy.
there’s another book I would recommend also called branded – http://www.amazon.com/Branded-Selling-Teenagers-Alissa-Quart/dp/0738208620
“the danger of course (which so often happens) is that with good intention young people just hear adults rubbishhing their world”
This is definitely a concern. When I do try to challenge my students to stand against the consumer culture, it’s clear that they’d rather do anything but! To be able to swim deeply in our consumer culture is for many the definition of success and “the good life.” Thanks for the book review!
thanks for the review. i’m been working through the book for some time now and feel more & more that people need to be reading her book.