Youth

What resources have you tried and want to recommend? We would love for you to share them here. To include your suggestions, email us at Elizabeth@EpiscopalColorado.org.

Children and Youth Formation Calendar (password protected) >


Communications – Staying Connected

Check out this 60-minute webinar, Staying in Touch with Youth, to learn tips and best practices for communicating with youth and parents. It’s time well spent as you prepare to start up the new year of formation. (18-Aug-2017)


Pinterest Boards – Follow Us!

Search Faith Formation Episcopal Colorado and click Follow. We have boards for:

  • Prayer life
  • Inspirational quotes
  • Fun resources
  • Icebreakers
  • Crafts and games
  • Lent and Advent

…for both children and youth.

Have your own Pins you would like to see included? Please share them with us at Elizabeth@EpiscopalColorado.org!


Prayer Life

The online d365, with its format of Pause, Listen, Think, Pray, Go, provides daily scripture readings, reflection, and prayer for young people. Users can subscribe through email or download the app. The format is succinct and engaging, start-to-finish requires about five minutes.

Call On Me: A Prayer Book for Young People is a thin volume of prayers for all occasions, written especially for youth.


Confirmation – Suggested Resources for Youth Confirmation Classes

I Will With God’s Help

This is a six-session series, but can be made into twelve. This program has an easy-to-use, easy-to-lead format. It comes with a leader’s guide and a guide for adults, youth, and mentors. The program emphasizes that confirmation is a personal choice and isn’t something that should be forced on anyone. It also does a nice job of using baptism as grounding, but emphasizes that baptism is in itself a complete sacrament. It shows that confirmation is a deepening and not a graduation.

My Faith, My Life

This is also a great resource that can be made into a six or ten session program. It suggests doing a retreat with the six-session option. This material seems better suited to a leader who is willing to spend more time with the curriculum and may want to tailor it more. There is a website companion, but not a youth journal. It also stresses baptism and explains that confirmation is not the graduation. It does, however, use language that feels like confirmation is expected of everyone in the church.

Faithful Questions

This makes an excellent companion resource. Youth aren’t always comfortable asking questions about faith and this resource asks the questions and considers responses from multiple angles.

Call on Me

This is a book of prayers written especially for youth. It can be used as a personal prayer book or a prayer resource in a group.

About Confirmation in the Episcopal Church in Colorado

For more information about confirmation, visit the Diocesan Confirmation Page.


Youth Leadership

Cultivating Teen Leadership Skills

How can you develop teen leadership skills as a regular part of youth ministry? Developing Teen Leadership by Dan Appleman is an easy-to-read, practical guide for youth leaders and volunteers. It is broken down into two main sections, Guiding Principles and Techniques, and includes a section on Topics to consider such as working with troubled teens and taking care of yourself. Highly recommended!

Youth Design Team

Each year our fall and spring diocesan youth gatherings are planned and run by students on the youth design team. Teams range from 4-7 youth and 2 adults from all over the state. If you are interested in being on the team or have someone you know who may be interested, contact Elizabeth Cervasio, Missioner for Children, Youth, and Campus Ministries at elizabeth@episcopalcolorado.org


Book Resources and Curricula Recommendations

Below is a bibliography that offers hints about youth ministry and how to engage youth in meaningful conversations about life, the universe, and spirituality.

Grapple: Tackling Touch Questions about God, Others, and Me

Grapple, with series for both middle and high school students, invites youth to “grapple” with touch topics in meaningful ways, respecting kids’ inquisitive minds and need for Christ-centered biblical depth. Each session is designed to work for a one-hour gathering. Some topics in Smart Decisions include:

  • What Does God Want?
  • What if Everyone’s Doing It?
  • Isn’t it My Money?

These Are Our Bodies

These Are Our Bodies addresses foundational issues for how we are called to have conversations about our sexuality within a faith community. Looking at sexuality through the lenses of growth and change, we can explore values and intentionality. Individuals and churches can use this technique to build upon this theological grounding. Curricula, with leader guides, parent books, and participant books are available for preschool and elementary children, middle school students, and high schoolers.

“There is an urgent need across the Church for faithful, honest conversations with young people about sexuality. Finally, we have the sturdy resource we need to hold them. Honoring the inherent tension between the beauty and the complexity of the God-given gift of human sexuality, These Are Our Bodies is written for real people with real lives. It invites parents and church leaders into the serious, hopeful work of integrating body and soul.”
– Lisa Kimball, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Lifelong Learning, Virginia Theological Seminary

Doing Girlfriend Theology: God-talk with Young Women

By Dori Grinenko Baker

This resource Can be adapted for all ages and genders. It is a wonderful way to have an all ages group where you can integrate the youth and adults in your parish to have deeper meaningful relationships that build and sustain the life of the parish.

Practicing Discernment with Youth: A Transformative Youth Ministry Approach

By David F. White

This is by far one of the best frameworks recently out. This method of inciting discussion not only takes the conversation to a deep level but also develops tools of self discovery and inquiry to the time-old question of “what do I want to be when I grow up?” and “where do I belong?”

OMG: A Youth Ministry Handbook

Edited By Kenda Creasy Dean

This is a good beginner’s guide to young people and ministry with and to them. It gives a full curriculum for a Sunday youth program.

Adventures in Missing the Point

By Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo

This is a wonderful constructive and critical resource for critiquing the common view of society’s Christianity and how to discuss some of the more difficult topics in Christianity. I highly recommend using it with your youth as you use salt in a recipe at first — just to taste until the flavors of the food really open up.

Finding God in the Movies: 33 Films on Reel Faith

By Catherine M. Barsotti and Robert K. Johnston

This is a great tool that unpacks visual parables in our culture and brings them into our world of faith and church. It’s a great excuse to pop some popcorn and watch a movie with your awesome youth.

What did we miss? Let us know your favorite resources so we can pass them on to others. Contact us at Faith@EpiscopalColorado.org