Book Review of Building Your Volunteer Team by Devries and Stratman

Building Your Volunteer Team: A 30 Day Change Project for Youth Ministry
by Mark DeVries and Nate Stratman
ISBN 978-0-8308-4121-9
IVP Praxis
Reviewed by Clint Walker

I was a youth pastor in some form for 13 years. For the last 7 years I have been a solo pastor of churches in Colorado and South Dakota. The last three school years I have been assisting with our youth ministry program while serving as the pastor. If I were to jump back into youth ministry again, I would grab a hold of this book and run with it, implementing the 30 day plan at some point very early in my ministry at my new church.

This book is written by the fine folks at Ministry Architects, a wonderful, thoughtful, research based operation that offers the best in consulting ministry for churches striving to build and grow their youth program. My experience with this organization was very affirming and helpful in my ministry. This book will be a great resource for people eager to build a team of youth ministers, and who at the same time are unsure on how to accomplish that lofty goal of building a ministry team.

Each week has a particular segment of this job to work on, and each day has steps to take in order to build the team in a month. By the end of the month, you should see progress. The back cover guarantees the process. If you purchase the book and don't like the results after thoughtfully implementing the steps, simply return the book and get reimbursed.

This book needs to be on every pastor's bookshelf, and every youth minister's bookshelf as well. It is just that helpful of a book.