Faith in Youth podcast is live

Episode 1: The Past, Present and Future of Youth Ministry and Youth Ministry Research

In this first episode of the Faith in Youth – podcast a conversation with Professor Marcel Barnard, a professor of Practical Theology at the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam. He is the director of the OJKC, the Dutch Research Centre for Youth, Church and Culture. In this role, he has been involved in many academic theological researches and publications regarding youth and youth ministry.

In this podcast you will hear conversations on starting youth ministry research; how do you start youth ministry research from scratch when there is hardly any theological research tradition and academic knowledge base in the field of children and youth in your context? Marcel Barnard describes the start of the OJKC and the process of investing in research on children and youth in liturgical and other faith practices, peer-learning in small groups and how children ‘learn’ about faith. Also, you will hear some of the findings of these researches, in particular the research on identity formation of orthodox youth.

Other topics in this podcast are the relation of theology and empiric sciences in youth ministry research and what colors the theological dimension in this kind of research, the role of normativity in youth ministry research and the contribution of children and young people to theology.

Also in this podcast, you hear thoughts on the future of youth ministry and future topics on the agenda of youth ministry research.

About the podcast

Published podcasts feature conversations about the past, present and future of youth work research, children's worship, and outreach to children and young adults in Lebanon. More podcasts will be published in the coming months.