| Testimonials - what our members say |
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Existing members of the IASYM have this to say about the benefits they receive
from membership. To join up now, click
here.
IASYM has had a profound impact on my understanding
of the global differences in youth ministry and youth ministry education, thus
enhancing my own teaching. Through the bi-annual conference, journal,
and website, IASYM provides a wonderful breadth of discussion across international
lines that can not be found elsewhere.
In my work with students at Moorlands College UK I have
found this Association invaluable. To my knowledge it is the only organisation
that seeks to promote professional dialogue about international youth ministry.
It has a non denominational bias, holds excellent conferences, promotes stimulating
web "chat" and seeks to have fun!! If you are serious about enjoying
theology and youth work it's an essential......Join it!!
I have been a member with IASYM for the last 2 years
and it has been a tremendous resource for me! I’ve been involved in youth
work for the last 11 years and there’s has always been some BIG questions of
where can I learn more? Where can I be challenged in my thinking as a youth
worker? Is there anyone else doing anything in youth work? [As I’m stuck in
my little world!?#*@!] So, the association has been very helpful in ministry
as a whole and even more so to network with likeminded leaders who are committed
to the next generation ; to be challenged in my thinking and most of the time
to learn from very well educated and passionate leaders all around the world!!
Still learning!!
The IASYM website is an invaluable tool for youth ministry
professors, trainers and directors. It collects the combined wisdom of cutting
edge ministry and thinking for those who realize the need to stay abreast and
learn about the changing youth culture and appropriate responses. Links from
this website are impressive. The contents of the association's journal, research
and studies, can be seen by all; members can actually read these professional
articles. contained in various issues of the journal. Information about conferences
is also to be found at this site. This is a most important global network for
those taking youth ministry seriously.
Across the board my association with the IASYM has very
been positive. The journals ( both in print and web-based) are very good. But
perhaps what I appreciate the most is the sense of relationship and international
connectedness, which I have experienced through the conference (which I have
found to be of high caliber) and the yahoogroups email service. These
media have given me a greater sense of the similarities and differences that
we face regarding youth ministry issues around the world. This is particularly
helpful for me as an American in the light of my tendency towards an insular
thinking. Thanks to all involved! You broaden my world.
For a youth ministry lecturer such as myself the IASYM
is an exciting and valuable community. I know of no other network who together
engage in the issues, directions, practices and theology of ministry to this
emerging generation and the education of their pastors and leaders. And it is
global! The IASYM forces me out of my comfortable, Western paradigm and into
a world of ideas, experiments and serious theological scholarship from women
and men from all over this global village. It is a place where the status quo
is both critiqued and defended, new thoughts are launched and ancient practices
are rediscovered. All for the sake of a more authentic missional dynamic. This
association truely is a global network of peers who benefit from interchange,
cooperation and challenge. One which I very much appreciate. It enables me to
be 12,000 kilometers from someone and yet close to their ideas, furment and
dreaming. It is the centre of the fringe! It is my conviction that the IASYM
has been raised so as to see youth ministry graduate from programs and numbers
towards making disciples of a generation... and if that is going to happen then
the teachers of the pastors and leaders had better communicate and plot and
sharpen together!
IASYM is an association that offers its members a wide
knowledge on the immense ministry done with, for and to the young people in
different parts of the world. It is an interfaith and ecumenical association
where each member respects the faith traditions of the other and wants to promote
this ministry to, with and for the young. It is also the first of its kind wherein
theoreticians and practitioners come to discuss and promote the growing discipline
of youth ministry at an international level. It is an open but critical environment
wherein one is offered possibilities to test and verify some new aspects or
elements of theories, foundations and methodologies with regard to youth ministry.
As a pastor and youth worker, I find the IASYM website
an invaluable source of information and help in my ministry and professional
work with young people. It puts one in touch with the latest trends and, more
importantly, thinking in this essential area of ministry. I am UK based,
but work also in Africa and USA, thus the international dimension of the site
is essential. IASYM is a blessing to the community and one can only applaud
the hard work that has gone into ints creation and success. Thank you.
About four years ago, I began to realize that I had a
decidely United States view of youth ministry. Because I wanted to broaden my
horizons and gain a greater understanding of youth ministry on a global perspective,
a friend suggested I join IASYM. I attended the 2000 conference and was genuinely
blown away by the rich diversity of thought and practice I encountered. Most
importantly, I gained new friends who continue to shape my understanding of
and practice of youth ministry.
IASYM is a good avenue of exploring and forming
working and informational contacts with youth workers and scholars in various
parts of the world. I have benefited from various ministry perspectives
expressed in the group discussions as well found joy in sharing my experiences
with others.
The most important thing for me is visiting the bi-annual
conference, this is very inspiring, both the lectures as the contacts with collegues
all over the world. It inspired me to set up a christian youthworkers education
and a dutch conference for christian youthworkers, plus a lot of ideas for my
work with Youth for Christ. I used the yahoo-group several times to get some
information and ideas about international developments regarding my work.
IASYM is the only global conversation of its kind, designed
for professors and practitioners of every theological stripe who take theology
and young people equally seriously. Blessedly, this conversation takes many
forms--an active online community, challenging academic conferences, a journal
dedicated to theology and adolescence--so I can participate in ways that address
my changing needs as a parent, pastor, and professor of practical theology and
youth ministry. IASYM provides fresh streams for me as a theologian, and fresh
energy in the form of cherished colleagues and provocative discussion. It has
been an extraordinary professional investment.
For me to be part of IASYM and the benefits I derived
from it can be summed up in 3 words: a. connection: IASYM gives
me the connections with people who shared the same concerns and interest of
working with young people. Through reading the emails and discussions of the
members it enables me to enter into a discussion with like-minded people.
b. information: From time to time, my search for info. related to Youth
ministry ends with IASYM; c. assimiliation: IASYM provides a platform
for me to assimilate thoughts and ideas with interested people.
The benefits derived from this association are:
(1) It enlightens memebers on a lot of issues concerning the youths; (2) It
makes the youths world one global village; (3) It makes members to travel to
other countries of the world,and inventualy get used to their culture; (4) It
gives room for friendship.
Being an iasym member is helpful in bringing an international
dynamic to understanding of youth ministry issues. The journal is an opportunity
to access contemporary research that challenges both thinking and practice.
The e mail discussion group is often thought provoking and also an opportunity
to gain information on resources that one might not otherwise be aware of.
IASYM is a great network with a wide range of resources
available for anyone interested or involved in youth ministries. It is
a place to connect with one another who share similar vision and passion,
and to contribution to one another skills and knowledge for the advancement
of His work around the globe.
I'm honored to be part of IASYM because of the diverse
perspectives it brings to practicing theology in diverse contexts of youth ministry
around the globe. There are growing numbers of global youth forums around the
world but as I preused the IASYM members, it truly demonstrated a global body
of leaders rather than simply Westerners who are doing youth ministry around
the world. My theological understanding of Christian leadership is seriously
enhanced by my brothers and sisters from a group like IASYM. I'm grateful to
be part of this group.
I have been involved in IASYM since its inception and
have enjoyed tremendously the Oxford conferences. I now have a world wide network
of colleagues and I am so thankful for the interaction among us as the months
go by.
As a School Chaplain the association provides me with
a forum where I can be challenged, stimulated and encouraged to be more
effective in Youth Ministry. The worldwide network of membership also offers
a fantastic opportunity for sharing ideas and stretching ones vision.
The benefits of being a member of the Association are:
1. to be part of an international forum and to be exposed to experts in youth
and family ministries in different denominations and countries. 2. to
be able to receive papers of the international and national conferences.
3. to receive the journal is a bonus. 4. to be able to network with people
who are actively involved in youth and family ministries.
The Oasis / Spurgeon's Youth Work and Ministry course
really value the work of IASYM. The most helpful element is the journal. It
provides up to date thinking on a variety of issues connected to youth ministry
that helps enable a constructive dialogue between students and tutors involved
in the course. It also has the potential to demonstrate clearly the skills of
critical thinking and analysis within the field of youth ministry, skills which
we encourage the students to develop for themselves.
IASYM is, quite simply, the primary place of international
connection for persons committed to thoughtful, theologically reflective youth
ministry.
The value has been: The fact that I can be involved
with the chat room and get the backdrop of where youth leaders are at in their
thinking an din the personal lives; The fact that the journal gives the most
up to date information on th the latest trends in youth work across the world;
The fact that we are part of a growing genx community and staying in touch as
a boomer!; The fact that we can be coached by email is also great; Being kept
on top of things as they happen is cool
The great preacher Spurgeon once said, ''It seems odd
that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves
should think so little of what He has revealed to others.'' As much as
we like to think we're innovative and cutting edge in doing and teaching youth
ministry, we're often more culturally bound than we realize. Interacting with
youth ministry thinkers representing various cultures gives me a broader view
of youth ministry that challenges my thinking, exposing me to what God's doing
through others in many geographical locations. I also love being able
to e-mail a question to the group like, "where can I find the best information
on what God's doing in training student leadership?" As Solomon taught
us, in a multitude of counselors there is safety.
It's been very encouraging to be part of this website:
to be part of a global villiage of leader believers with big ideas, thoughts,
plans and visions. Not just that, but people who are actually making it happen.
I can get an idea of what 21st century leader believers look like (ironic though
that is). I don't say much because I feel so theological ignorant and out of
it when I read some of the stuff that's written. But I really enjoy being on
the fringe. And when I am at a lifestage where I can get more actively involved
again, I will have a good grasp of what is happening in the alternative church
world leadership (maybe it's just a perception but I do think the members seem
to represent an alternative church leadership culture) of which I would like
to be a part.
I have loved it cause it continually makes me think about
stuff, it pushes me to think about the theology and how it impacts todays society,
and how it impacts the way I operate within youthministry. It has just been
greatly refreshing for me to read the articles and follow some of the discussion
to see that there are other people out there who are thinking through youthministry
from a theological level and thinking of/have been in youthministry long term,
rather than just treating it as a stepping stone to become "the real thing"
(the minister of a church). So all in all, IASYM pushes me to think and to read
more, and I find it really encouraging, honestly what more could you want.
I never leave a gathering with my mind totally settled;
the challenging perspectives and shifting paradigms don't allow for that to
happen. I believe that this is God-honoring, to challenge and affirm one another,
to encounter vastly different philosophies and approaches to the practice of
ministry with youth, so that we may be sharpened intellectually and deepened
spiritually. The genius of the association is the palpable bond which unites
us, superceding that of many other similar organizations. The love of Christ
which indwells us, and the clear sense of vision which calls us, overcome barriers
of culture and custom and we experience a genuine sense of community as we wrestle
with the theological practice of youth ministry.
From the underside of the world and a long way from many
northern hemisphere countries, it is good to catch up with news from members
around the globe. I am amazed at how many people are involved in youth ministry
at an academic level. My geographic and academic isolation is decreased considerably.
It is also great to hear from other "underside" countries like South
Africa that join in a colonial understanding of contextual theology.
For those involved in youth ministry, I think it is invaluable
to be a member of ISAYM. As our world continues to become interconnected and
the diversity within our culture continues to grow, I find that IASYM informs,
challenges, and propels me to be a part of God's solutions versus remaining
in my own corner of the world and doing little. I think IASYM's voice and influence
will continue to grow as others join and shape the conversation.
To join up now, click here. |