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Reviewed by Greg Pimlott. He serves as the pastor of Mohawk United Methodist Church in Mohawk, Indiana. Youth Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Youth Ministry Abingdon Press, 2009 The role of youth pastor is clearly complicated. Youth pastors are often the youngest member of a pastoral staff, and often inherit a ministry isolated from and ignored by the rest of the congregation. Their ministry often focuses on persons who are changing in every aspect of their lives, uncertain in their faith, beliefs, and values, and are constantly moving in and out of the community as their age or interests change. In his new, thought-provoking book, Houston Heflin describes these aspects of youth ministry and describes youth ministry as akin to “flying in a plane that loses cabin pressure.” That is, in order to adequately guide youth and minister to their spiritual health, people involved in youth ministry need to make sure that their own spiritual health is in order. To address the complexities of the role of youth pastor in a congregation, Heflin offers an overview of ten aspects of the role of the youth minister, divided into five sections which describe a wide spectrum of interest and abilities: Evangelistic Missionary and Discipling Teacher; Pastoral Shepherd and Organized Administrator; Bold Prophet and Compassionate Priest; Spiritual Friend and Equipping Recruiter; Visionary Leader and Faithful Teammate. While none is mutually exclusive of the other, Heflin shows how the youth pastor must keep all these aspects of youth ministry in balance to maintain a vibrant ministry. For example, the amount of time spent on administration detracts from the amount of time spent as pastoral shepherd, and a youth pastor who is gifted at being a spiritual friend to youth must also take care to spend sufficient time equipping and recruiting adult volunteers to support the youth ministry of the church. Heflin identifies each of these aspects of youth ministry as being rooted in Scripture, modeled throughout Christianity, and evident in Jesus’ own example. Each aspect is the subject of one chapter of Heflin’s book. The ten aspects Heflin identifies are fleshed out through a blend of biblical references to events in Jesus’ life, stories from the Bible, scholarly analysis of the role of the youth pastor in congregations, as well as stories from Heflin’s own life and the lives of other pastors and youth—many of which are quite compelling. Rather than being a how-to book of helpful tips for creating a dynamic youth ministry at your church, Youth Pastor gives those in youth ministry an opportunity to evaluate their own leanings and preferences in the various aspects of youth ministry and celebrate those with which they have been most gifted, while reminding them to pay attention to the ones for which they may have lesser gifts or less interest. A helpful exercise at the end of the book invites readers to place themselves on the five loose spectrums created by the five pairs of youth ministry aspects, as well as offering questions to guide readers unsure of where they might fall on each spectrum. Youth Pastor would be a useful book for a lead pastor to read with the youth pastor at her or his church. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter offer opportunities to explore the aspect examined in the chapter, and these would serve as useful springboards for conversation about the youth pastor’s role in the larger ministry of the church. In addition, Heflin describes a conversation he had with the adult volunteers in his youth program in which he asked them to circle the one role in each pair that was most important to them in their youth pastor. Some of the adults circled all ten! Such a conversation would be useful in discussing the role of the youth pastor in any church, as well as beginning to be realistic about the limitations of any individual human being in ministry. 
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