The latest research about youth ministry and its actual effect on the lives and faith of young people can seem disheartening, and the data tells us that something has to change. Kenda Creasy Dean, the Mary D. Synnott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained United Methodist pastor in the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference, has a few ideas on what we can learn and what we should remember about our Christian roots: that the Church itself started as a social innovation movement. 

In addition to teaching in practical theology, education, and formation (specifically youth and young adult ministry, Christian social innovation, and theories of teaching), Dean works closely with Princeton’s Institute for Youth Ministry and the Farminary. Dean is the author of numerous books on youth, church, and culture, the best known of which include Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (Oxford, 2010), Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church (Eerdmans, 2004), and The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry with Ron Foster (Upper Room, 1998).

She has directed numerous grants on youth, innovation, and the church, including The Zoe Project (2017-2021), and was co-director with Harold Masback of The Joy and Adolescent Faith and Flourishing Project through Yale’s Center for Faith and Culture. In 2013, she co-founded Ministry Incubators, Inc., an educational and consulting group that supports Christian social innovation and entrepreneurial ministries. A graduate of Wesley Theological Seminary, she served as a pastor in Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey and as a campus minister in suburban Washington, D.C. before receiving her PhD from Princeton Seminary in 1997.

Resources: 

Princeton Seminary

https://www.ptsem.edu/people/kenda-creasy-dean

Ministry Incubators

https://ministryincubators.com/about/who-are-we/kenda-dean/

instagram.com/mincubators

Zoe Project

https://zoeproject.ptsem.edu/

Fuller Studio

Re-imagining Church as a Missional Incubator

https://fullerstudio.fuller.edu/re-imagining-church-as-a-missional-incubator-kenda-creasy-dean/