first, i love the new, clean look of The Youth Cartel site. adam felt our initial site (only 6 months old!) needed a facelift.

there are a few cool new things in the store worth a mention:

one’s a cool freebie: a “gospel of john” sampler of The Way bible. you can see the amazing design of this bible, and read some sample selections. it would be very difficult for me to be more pleased with this puppy. hope you’ll check it out, and consider getting copies for the high schoolers and young adults in your life (we really had young 20somethings in mind when we were creating the content, but that means that most high schoolers will dig it, because it is not juvenile or patronizing). for this free sampler, click here, and scroll down. you’ll see the download link.

then, a couple other things. when we were raising funds for the extended adolescence symposium, we offered mp3s of the day and an abridged ebook of that content, to people who supported the event at various levels. we’d only asked the presenters or permission to use their content for that purpose, so we’ve been telling others, as they inquire, that we can’t get them those resources.

but one of the youth workers who really wanted the mp3 and ebook contacted one of our presenters. to make a long story short: all the presenters were extremely gracious and have given us permission to make this stuff available.

you can download the mp3 of the entire day for twenty five bucks.

you can download the nice-looking ebook, expertly abridged (all written content from the event – just not all of it) by paul martin, for ten bucks.

or you can download both the mp3 and the ebook for thirty.

rock it — that’s some good stuff!

so, i was working on a project i couldn’t say much about for more than a year. occasionally on facebook i would mention that i’m working on a bible, and people would jokingly ask if i was re-writing it. nope, instead i was just playing a role in creating what i think is the most amazing young adult (16 – 30 year old) bible available today.

when i was in middle school, i carried a copy of The Way. it was the groovy bible, baby, with awesome hippie lettering on the cover. really, it was the very first youth bible, and broke a million barriers. heck, i was watching vera farmiga’s amazing movie, higher ground, the other day, and the 70s version of The Way was used in a scene.

a month after i left YS, back in the late fall of 2009, tyndale publishers contacted me, asking if i’d help them think about a new bible for young adults, reviving the old The Way brand. they brought me in for a day of consulting, where we talked about the needs of today’s teenagers and young adults, and dreamed about what a helpful bible could be like. in early 2010, at tyndale’s request, i created a proposal for what the project could be like, including a bunch of elements. they loved it; and in september of that year, we signed an agreement for me to be the general editor.

it was an absolutely massive project. from early january of 2011 through late august, i had a deadline every three weeks. i recruited a primary writing team of 3 others (and myself), and an additional 150 or so contributors. i worked to concept all the pieces, and got them into good enough shape for the remaining editorial process at tyndale. i also recruited and worked with a team of talented photographers to select hundreds of gallery quality black and white photos to compliment and illustrate the 400+ extra-biblical elements. the result (with massive contribution from the editorial and design teams at tyndale) is a bible, in the new living translation, that i am completely proud of, and would love to see in the hands of any high school or college student. it really is that good.

the more than 400 additional elements are very carefully designed to help connect the reader with The Way of Jesus.
Elements include:

- Book intros that connect biblical content with the life of young adults today.
- This is my Story segments written by young adults seeking to connect their stories with The Way of Jesus.
- What I Wish I’d Known segments written by seasoned Jesus-followers, reflecting back on their own young adult years.
- Lament segments — honest cries to God expressing a particular question or dissatisfaction with the way things are.
- Living in The Way segments providing short links between the biblical text and real life today.
- Hundreds of gallery quality black & white photographs complementing and illustrating various segments.
- Interactive QR codes that lead the reader to additional online content and opportunities for engagement.

Contributors include: myself, Tash McGill, Crystal Kirgiss, Holly Rankin Zaher, Seth Barnes, Mike Hogan (of the David Crowder Band), Chris Hill, Gary Haugen (IJM), Matt Maher, Rich Stearns (World Vision), Ginny Olson, Austin Gutwein, Alex Harris, Phyllis Tickle, Charlie Peacock, Dan Kimball, Frederica Matthewes-Green, Scot McKnight, Jeanne Mayo, and dozens more.

The Way will release about april 1. but when i got back from my silent retreat in the desert the other day, i had an email in my inbox from adam mclane, my partner in The Youth Cartel, sent to our email list. the email was offering a pre-sale special:

A Special Pre-Sale Offer

We’re selling 3 different editions of The Way in our online store.
Soft-cover (Retail: $24.99) Our price, $20.99
Hard-cover (Retail: $29.99) Our price, $25.99
Leatherlike (Retail: $44.99) Our price, $38.99
Pre-order any combination that totals 10 copies or more of The Way and Marko will send along a personal note. (If you’re interested in 40 copies or more, please contact me, adam, for an even bigger discount.)

One of the fun things about our online store is that any order over $65 automagically gives you free shipping. In this case, that’s just a couple of copies. Cool, right?

Three Reasons to Pre-Order The Way From Us
1. Your order supports the ministry of The Youth Cartel.
2. I love to commit my buddy Marko to writing lots and lots of personal notes. It’s good for his soul.
3. My kids, 8 & 10 years old, pack every order from our store. Not only are they really good at it, you just might get something special in your box. You won’t get that level of awesome from Amazon.
To take advantage of this pre-sale deal, click here.

we hope to have a sample pdf on our site soon, so you can see how freakin’ amazing this thing looks. there’s really nothing like it on the market right now — visually or content-wise.

recently, rusty and barry from the student minister podcast interview me about my new book for parents, understanding your young teen: practical wisdom for parents. my part starts about 13 minutes in, and lasts about 30 minutes long. i had a nasty chest cold that day, and sound a bit like a male joan rivers; but, whatever.

we talk about early adolescent development, cognitive development, masturbation, doubts, and a bunch of other stuff. hopefully it will be helpful to you.

you can stream the podcast by clicking here.

a wonderfully thorough review of my latest book, understanding your young teen, on zack weingartner’s blog. a bit from the beginning:

The first time a parent came to me as the youth group leader to ask for parenting advice was crazy. It was crazy for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason was that I was only 19 years old and the student in question was 14. I had nothing to say, mostly because I had nothing to offer – I was trying to figure out how to respond to the Elders’ request that I take my lip ring out and stop dyeing my hair green.

The reason that Marko’s new book “Understanding Your Young Teen” is so important is because it goes a long way towards closing the gap in the kinds of conversations that parents and people who work with young teens have to have, both with the teens themselves and with one another. The content of the book is a training for parents (the subtitle after all is “Practical Wisdom for Parents”) but applies so wonderfully to my everyday world working with middle school students and their families that I must rave about it. Here goes:

and from the end:

This book isn’t just a quick read and put on the shelf book. It is a field guide and handbook for anyone that has the best in mind for a young teen, or a group of young teens. My kids are little, but this book will come back into play for me in a whole new way in just a few years. If you are a parent of a young teen, or a soon to be young teen this will profoundly impact your parenting, your home – your entire life. If you teach this age or pastor this age of teen – you will learn more that you can imagine and have to underline and re-read to grasp it. Marko is a voice for a change in understanding and changing the way we do everything in ministry – and now in parenting – that none of us can afford to ignore or miss.

you’ll have to click through for all the rest!

dr. kara powell, youth ministry professor at fuller seminary, executive director of fuller youth institute, author of tons of books (including the sticky faith series), is also a good friend and former co-worker of mine. so, i suppose i shouldn’t be too surprised that her review (part 1 here) of my new book for parents, understanding your young teen, was so warm and kind (not that kara would ever compromise her academic impartiality in the name of friendship… well, yes, she would).

here’s a portion of her first post on the book:

The first is Marko’s one-word definition for middle schoolers. According to Marko, when he asks parents and leaders to define young teens in one word, some of the answers he gets back are: stressed, immature, confused, impossible, fun, potential, emerging, spontaneous, and unpredictable.

None of those are un-true, but Marko’s best one-word definition for the young teen experience is “change”. I’ll admit I’m biased because that is also my best one-word definition, but nonetheless, as Marko says well, “The life of a middle schooler is all about change. As previously noticed, it’s the second most significant period of change in the human lifespan.”

If you know a young teen, this isn’t a surprise to you. You know that they are undergoing monumental internal, developmental changes (e.g., cognitive, physical, relational, spiritual).

Interestingly, one of the things we have learned during our Sticky Faith Cohorts is that change is hard. Even when it’s a good change, even when it’s a change you (or someone else) wants to make, it’s still hard. As Dr. Scott Cormode at Fuller regularly reminds our Sticky Faith Churches, “Change involves loss.”

When we look at the 12 or 14 year-olds (and maybe even 16 and 18 year-olds) around us, it can seem like they are gaining so much. In the case of young teens, they are gaining new freedoms, social skills, intellectual abilities, and even faith experiences. Yet they are also losing something: they are losing some of the simplicity of their earlier childhood, some of the lack-of-stress that comes from not paying attention to social dynamics, and even some of the confusion that comes from trying to juggle two or more thoughts simultaneously (especially when those are abstract thoughts).

i like kara’s reminder that the massive change of the young teen years is a change of opportunity and gaining things, as well as a change of losing things. i often remind parents, when i’m speaking to them about these issues, that while their young teen might not be able to put words to it, they all carry around substantial, unarticulated fear connected to the changes their experiencing. this is why it’s so critical that parents (and youth workers) are constantly–really, i do mean constantly–working to normalize the experience of middle schoolers.

(btw: kara and her partner in crime, brad griffin, co-authored a ‘bonus chapter’ in understanding your young teen on new research about young teen girls.)

this is the final post in this series of 2 sentence book reviews. part 1 was fiction, part 2 was general non-fiction, part 3 was a combo of young adult fiction and graphic novels. this time around i’m covering christian non-fiction and youth ministry.

i allow myself (with a few exceptions this time) one sentence for summary, and one sentence for opinion.

Christian Non-Fiction

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir… of Sorts, by Ian Morgan Cron
5 stars
Autobiographical stories of a unique childhood with a tyrant father, with spiritual commentary. Cron’s writing is about as good as it gets in Christian publishing, and his storytelling and reflections make this a “c’mon, you’ve gotta read it” book.

Liberate Eden, by Greg Fromholz
App: 5 stars
Book: 3 stars
Book-as-app about our connection to creation, I think. The app is the most creative thing I’ve seen in publishing in a long time, but the actual book is wordy and wanders (it actually annoyed me).

The Day Metallica Came to Church: Searching for the Everywhere God in Everything, by John Van Sloten
5 stars
Adventures at the intersection of Bible and culture. Fantastic insights, particularly the author’s concepts of bible and culture as both co-illuminating and counter-balancing.

Youth Ministry

Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids, by Kara E. Powell and Chap Clark
4.5 stars
Researched-based and practical help for parents who desire for their children’s faith to last beyond the teenage years. some amazing chapters and some ok-to-good chapters, but overall highly recommended (i’m recommending it to parents constantly).

Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults: Life-Giving Rhythms for Spiritual Transformation, by Richard R. Dunn and Jana L. Sundene (releases march 3, 2012)
4.5 stars
i’m departing from my 2 sentence approach for this one, because i wrote an official endorsement for it:
When it comes to young adults, the American church seems to be stuck between hand-wringing (“Why are there no 20somethings in our church?”) and finger pointing (“Why don’t those people grow up?”). Neither of these responses are particularly helpful. Thankfully, Sundene and Dunn sidestep this lose-lose response and suggest a relational approach, not a program. Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults is praxis at its best: research and theologically informed, yet real-world practical.

As For Me and My (Crazy) House: Protecting Your Heart, Marriage, and Family from the Demands of Ministry, by Brian Berry (release march, 2012)
5 stars
slight variation on my 2 sentence approach, here are the last two sentences of the foreword i wrote for this helpful book:
In this fantastic book you’re about to read, Brian doesn’t position himself as a model or an expert, but a fellow traveler. However, you could do a lot worse than to learn from the imbalanced-yet-sustainable, full life of this author, my friend.

a bonus review!!

Awkward Family Photos, by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack
4 stars
just what it says. hilarious.

part 1 of this series included reviews of five fiction books, and part 2 included reviews of four general non-fiction books. this time around, i’m covering two categories: young adult fiction, and graphic novels.

my approach: one sentence of summary, and one sentence of opinion.

YA fiction

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
5 stars
(Surely you know) Future world teenage girls fights for her life in a government sponsored death match. Worthy of the hype, completely.

Catching Fire (Hunger Games, book 2), by Suzanne Collins
4.5 stars
Victorious teenage girl from the first book inadvertently launches a revolution. The weakest of the three, but only because it’s primary purpose is to set the stage for the final book.

Mockingjay (Hunger Games, book 3), by Suzanne Collins
5 stars
Teenage girl is the reluctant face of the revolution that may or may not be corrupt. Fantastic wrap-up to the trilogy.

Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life, by James Patterson
2 stars
Young teen guy figures out how to survive middle school. A 4th grader might enjoy this offensively juvenile, complete rip-off of Wimpy Kid: really, James Patterson?

Graphic Novels

The Walking Dead, vol. 15: We Find Ourselves, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
3 stars
The gang settles into a new outlook: thinking about the future (while, of course, avoiding zombies). I love this series; but there wasn’t enough plot advancement in this edition.

The Death-Ray, by Daniel Clowes
5 stars
Less-than-average teenage boy discovers he has superpowers, and a death ray gun – but how to use them? I love Clowes understated style, completely other than “comic books.”

Hark! A Vagrant, by Kate Beaton
5 stars
A (surprisingly long) collection of hilarious comics set in historical settings. Time mag called this one of the best books of last year, which is surprising, but accurate if best means original.

yesterday, i reviewed 5 fiction books. today, it’s general non-fiction. remember, i allow myself one sentence for summary and one sentence for opinion.

Kicking Ass and Saving Souls: A True Story of a Life Over the Line, by David Matthews
4.5 stars
Amazing selfish-to-selfless true story of a guy who lives more adventure in a decade than anyone else in their lifetime, told by his nerdy middle school buddy. Fantastic stories and good writing, but the main character’s transformation – while beautiful – left me wanting a bit more exploration.

We Are All Weird, by Seth Godin
4 stars
The ‘normal distribution’ has flattened, leaving a higher percentage of people outside the norm. As seems to be the case with all of Godin’s new mini-books, this is a brilliant insight, worth reading, that still only warrants half as many words.

Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction, by Matthew Kelly
4 stars
The idea of work/life balance is a joke: satisfaction is a better goal in work and personal life. I wish the book had more stories (it gets very dry); but I completely resonate with the thrust of this well-worth-reading book.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, by Michael Lewis
5 stars
A country-by-country romp through the global financial crises of the past few years, addressing the question, “if a country were found themselves in the dark with a pile of cash, what would they do with it?” True storytelling at it’s best, and full of insight, even though it’s a tad depressing at times.
(thanks to luke macdonald for sending me this as a christmas gift!)

i started something new with my book reviews earlier this year, and i liked it: 2 sentence book reviews. i allow myself one sentence as a summary of the book, and one sentence of opinion. it’s a bit like tweeting a book review, i suppose, though i’m not counting characters.

i was a bit behind on writing these, so have 22 books to review! i took a couple hours while on vacation in vegas last week to crank these out. so, while i know my blog traffic goes down when i publish book reviews, i’m giving this week to it anyhow!

today, we’ll start with 5 fiction books:

The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman, by Bruce R. Robinson
3.5 stars
Coming-of-age story of a young teen boy in England in the 50s, whose already dysfunctional family is falling apart around him. The cover is better than the book; but then, it’s an exceptional cover.

Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
4 stars
Set in the future where most of life plays out in an immersive, online environment, a group of teenagers race to best an evil corporation in an MMOG with enormous rewards for a single winner. Way better than I expected it to be, I couldn’t stop reading this thing.

A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
4.5 stars
Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of stories with loosely interconnected characters, set across multiple decades and locations, revealing each character’s obsessions and longings. Brilliant in just about every way, but left me wanting a bit more of a plot at times.

Damned, by Chuck Palahniuk
5 stars
The perpetually bubbly pre-pubescent middle school daughter of wealthy celebrities finds herself in hell and wrestles with the realities of her new surroundings while trying to understand her place in her former world. Way, way, way beneath the extremely thick and garish brushstrokes of setting and context (which will both make you laugh and repulse you), Palahniuk delivers a surprisingly gentle story of a teenage girl individuating from her parents.

An Object of Beauty: A Novel, by Steve Martin
5 stars
The rise (and partial fall) of a charismatic, people-using young woman in the world of fine art auctions. Learn all about fine art collecting and auctioning while following an interesting storyline; but it’s really a morality tale about greed, motivation and priorities.

my latest book, understanding your young teen: practical wisdom for parents, is officially available! i’m stoked. it’s my first book written for parents, and covers a wide variety of developmental issues about middle schoolers, as well as practical implications for parenting.

here’s the official description:

Between the ages of 11-14, adolescents experience one of the most significant periods of change they’ll face during their lifetimes—physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. Mothers and fathers of young teens are presented with new challenges in understanding, communicating with and parenting their kids during this time in their lives. Understanding Your Young Teen offers insights on early adolescent development, new research and cultural changes, and practical applications for parenting and living with young teens. Mark Oestreicher has worked with young teens for nearly three decades, and is also the parent of two teenagers. Based on his research and experience, this book is presented to parents of young teens as a conversation from one parent to another. With transparency about his own experience parenting, and examples from his extensive involvement with thousands of other young teens and parents, Understanding Your Young Teen dives into the developmental realities of early adolescence. Oestreicher educates parents on the latest research and cultural shifts that affect their children, revealing opportunities for faith formation in the lives of young teens.

we’re selling it at a discount on the youth cartel store. if you want to buy a bunch of ‘em for parents in your ministry, let me know, and we’ll see about doing something special for you (like, a note for your parents, or me skyping into a parent meeting, or maybe even special pricing). i spoke to a group of 50 parents at bay presbyterian church in bay village, ohio, on the content of the book, last weekend. had a great time with them.

here’s the full cover (you can click on it to see it larger)…