A Review of: Practicing Passion – Part 3

In Practicing Passion: Youth And The Quest For A Passionate Church, Kenda Creasy Dean addresses an integral part of youth ministry that tends to be over looked. Dean communicates a new way of participating in youth ministry by establishing the dimensions of Passion. She asserts that the core longings within youth for passion are seen in their longing for fidelity, transcendence and communion and they can find these this perfectly in God as well as being part of a community of faith who strives to imitate these traits. Dean asserts that a church without passion is like an amputee with the phantom pains of passionate suffering which motivates us to service.


Dean dispels that youth ministry’s primary purpose is to ensure the church of tomorrow. Instead it must create a place where passion is transferred from those who possess a passionate and vibrant faith to those who seek it. Dean asserts that “the passions of young people serve as signs of a deeper, human longing for love that is most fully addressed by the Passion of the Christ”. (15) Dean admonishes the church to serve as a community of disciples that display Christian disciplines and practices which act as scaffolding for the new faith that is being formed within youth. Adult Christians who display passion within their lives serve as living evidence of a life redeemed and become messengers who embody the message of grace.

By being consistently present in the lives of youth, adult leaders teach their students about the fidelity of God within the Christina life. Passion can be taught to youth thru avenues that relate to their world such as play, sabbath, and worship. Youth can quench their thirst for intimacy only within the passionate life found within love received and given to God. Youth realize innately that our creator knows the recesses of the youthful heart better that anyone else.

By teaching youth the paradox of the transcendence of God and that God still maintains imminence with the church leaders can instill a sense of awe within youth that will provide fuel necessary for a full passionate Christian life. The Church bears the responsibility to teach and display lives that display the power of the cross. Their influence can incite fervor within new believers that will lead youth to proclaim the grace they received. Passionate youth are vibrant witnesses of Christian faith who obsessively seek to carry on the tradition of practicing passion.

Dean, Kenda Creasy, Practicing Passion: Youth And The Quest For A Passionate Church. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004.