catapult magazine

vol. 8, num. 19 :: 2009.10.02 — 2009.10.15

Those who grew up in the Christian church could kvetch for hours about goofy exercises and discussions supposedly designed to enhance the teen spiritual journey. What’s good about youth group? What’s not so good? Where do we see imaginative work being done to engage teen-agers in the Church?

Feature

Embracing teenagers

by Kate Oswald

A proposal for serving youth more effectively in the church.

Editorial

Bringing up Bart

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

Imaging youth group as an expression of what we are for.

Articles

The permanence of youth group

by Willem de Ruijter

A reflection on why I kept going back again and again.

Conversation: “Trust Fall”

by The *cino Community

Your opportunity to contribute thoughts about youth group -- the good, the bad and the chubby bunny.

Gallery

Show Me Something, Saturday Down on Bourbon Street

by Raymond Blanton

In case you missed it the first time

Interrupting God

by Meredith Kathryn-Case Gipson Hoogendam

Two conversions become reflected in two different lexicons and perceptions of language.

An ordinary day

by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma

A review of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, a film depicting a high school shooting that is alternately sensitive and detached.

Move over, Sweet Valley High

by Kate Bowman Johnston

A top ten list of young adult fiction books for grown-ups.

The freedom, the pain and the just desserts of nerdiness

by Bill Boerman-Cornell

Middle school lessons, for better or worse, become life lessons.

Weaving the web

Bible Porn

Killing the Buddha

Erik Hanson on how sometimes corrupting children is a religious duty.

Columns

Tiebreaker

by Andrew Rogers

A tribute to the fall of a baseball team and a season.

daily asterisk

Even in a country you know by heart
its hard to go the same way twice
the life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural correction is to make intent
of accident. To get back before dark
is the art of going.

Wendell Berry
“Traveling at Home” from Traveling at Home

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