Andrew Root - Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker: A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together

2014 by Andrew Root

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

Ebook edition created 2014

Ebook corrections 03.31.2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4412-2131-5

To Owen,
who is so much like the ten-year-old
who lost Mr. Wolf

Contents

Preface

B ooks are always written for someone. Usually the best books are written for the author. Especially theological books, I believe, need to be written for the author by the author. The reader is blessed by participating in the ministry of the theologian who is brave enough to wrestle with God for faith as he or she writes. The very classic theological texts of the Christian tradition like Athanasiuss On the Incarnation , Augustines Confessions , Luthers Freedom of the Christian , and even Barths Epistle to the Romans seem to be written first and foremost for the author.

This book you hold promises none of the impact of those listed above. Yet this book too was written first and foremost for me. This book comes out of great joy. It allowed me to sketch out something that I had seen in the life of Bonhoeffer that no other Bonhoeffer thinker had directly addressed. In this project I devoted the time and concentration to dive headlong into the history of Bonhoeffer, a story that has intrigued me for nearly two decades. It also allowed me to show something about Bonhoeffers life that I deeply hope is a blessing to many ministers out in the day-to-day struggle of standing with and for young people.

So it is true that books are for the author, but they must also be let out into the world to become books for others as well. This book is first for the youth worker, the minister to youth. It is a book that explores how Dietrich Bonhoefferthe great theological mind of the twentieth century that lived his faith all the way to deathwas a youth minister himself. As a matter of fact, this book shows that there is nearly no time between 1925 and 1939 (the core of Bonhoeffers life) that he was not doing either childrens or youth ministry. My great hope is that this book is a gift to youth workers, showing them that their calling stands on the broad shoulders of Bonhoeffer. In these pages they will not only see Dietrichs own youth work, but I hope they will also be inspired as I seek to tease out the ramifications of Bonhoeffers thought for their own ministry today.

So while this book is first for the youth worker, it is also for Bonhoeffer scholars. While for youth ministers I offer the encouragement of revealing Bonhoeffer as one that goes before them, to Bonhoeffer scholars I hope to reveal a lacuna in Bonhoeffer discourse. There has been no thorough examination of Dietrich Bonhoeffers youth work, and often conversations about it have been presented in order to make other points. For instance, discussion of his Sunday school leadership in Harlem has not engendered conversations about why this young man always chose youth ministry over other forms of ministry. I offer this book as just such a study of the centrality of Bonhoeffers youth work.

When books move from being for the author to being for others, there are usually intermediaries, or even midwives, that help this move to occur, checking on the health of the project to make sure it is fit for the world. I have been blessed with such people in relation to this project. Dirk Lange, my colleague at Luther Seminary, was so kind to give time from his sabbatical to read through this project. Dan Adams, an American pastor ministering in South Africa, also took the time from writing his own thesis on Bonhoeffer to read this project. Ive been blessed in the last seven years to travel often and to meet so many faithful ministers of the gospel across the world. Dan was one of these people, and his insight as a budding Bonhoeffer scholar and youth minister was rich. I would also like to thank Bob Hosack at Baker, who saw the vision for this book. Robert Hand at Baker also provided significant help in making this project more readable. Thanks also to Erik Leafblad for the hard work on the index. But finally, my biggest thanks goes to Kara Root, who is always the first to read anything I write and provide insight on argument, style, and direction. I first studied Bonhoeffer in seminary with Kara, so it only makes sense that in this full-length book, her fingerprints would be all over it.

Youth Ministry and Bonhoeffer

Finding a Forefather

T he room was packed with youth workers, and I knew their presence had nothing to do with me. I was brand new in the youth-ministry-presenting world, and, for the most part, these youth workers had no idea who I was. I had already done an earlier breakout session at this big conference, on a topic directly related to youth ministry, like Caring for Hurting Teenagers or something similar. During that session, my room, ready to receive hundreds, saw only a trickle of twenty or so skeptical participants walk in, spreading themselves from one end to the next as if it were a competition to always keep a dozen chairs between them. The largest collective stayed near the door, comforted that if things went lame they could make it down the hall to another presentation before long.

I was expecting pretty much the same for this second breakout session, and my inner forecaster expected the drought of participants to not only continue but worsen. After all, the first presentation had been more directly on the practice of youth ministry, on the practical . And if there was anything that the youth workers at this conference wanted, it was the know-how of the practical.

As I readied my computer for this second presentation, shifting cords and moving keynote slides, a trickle of youth workers already began to enter the room. Soon the trickle became a steady stream that surged to become a flood. Now youth worker after youth worker sought seats before they disappeared into the humanity of one another, sliding by each other to grab a chair in the middle of rows. All these practical, thirsty-for-know-how-and-new-ideas youth workers were cramming themselves together, coming to hear something promising no practicality at all; they had no idea who I was or how this topic would help them. Nevertheless they cameand only because my title read, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Youth Ministry.

As I concluded my fifty minutes of rambling, youth worker after youth worker lined up to talk to me. Yet almost none had a question; rather, they stood to give a confession, saying to me, Hey, thanks; Bonhoeffer is my hero, or I came because I just find Bonhoeffer so interesting. I stood for nearly an hour hearing one after another confess how this German man had impacted them. Many explained in shameful candor that they actually knew little about Bonhoeffer, but that the little they knew drew them in deeply and impacted them significantly.

Bonhoeffer and Youth Ministry

It was clear that day that youth workers were not unlike so many others who find intrigue and inspiration from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer ranks high on nearly every list of influential Christians; and across very distinct groups (whether liberal or conservative, mainline or evangelical, youth worker or senior pastor), nearly all include Bonhoeffer in either their formal or informal pantheon of impactful leaders.