Many different resources seek to serve teenagers and the caring adults that interact with them, but few over the last 25 years have delivered that goal as much as Handbook on Counseling Youth by Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler.
Designed as a menu of fifty topics, the Handbook enables pastors, youth leaders, and other believing adults a window into issues that American adolescents deal with on a regular basis.
If you ever struggle with the “ordinariness” of life, if you ever struggle with having to do the “mundane” things, if you are ever disappointed because your great hopes and plans and dreams seemingly have not materialized in the necessities of living, then you are encouraged to read Gene Veith’s book on vocation. Dr. Veith clearly and with refreshing simplicity explains Luther’s understanding of the biblical doctrine of vocation, and Veith explains how this doctrine impacts our everyday life.
As a young basketball coach, I worked with fifth grade to eighth grade students, focusing on the basics of the game and drilling the fundamentals. As I taught more advanced students, I built on those fundamentals and instructed at a higher level. One joy for many coaches is the acquisition of more knowledge to teach their players. I harvested basketball knowledge everywhere I could find it, even to the point of traveling with a box of three-ring binders full of sketched offenses, defenses, drills, and game plan elements.
“The decline of the knowledge of the Holy has brought on our troubles.” This is just one reason that A. W. Tozer states as to why this topic is important. If we think about it in our own lives, how often do you think about the nature of God? Or meditate on who He is and what His attributes are? Many of our beliefs as well as our worldview depend on these answers. How we view God influences how we respond to Him. We can see this every day in our current culture where many of the issues and controversies we deal with as Christians stem from what people think about who God is.
In Family Vocation: God’s Calling in Marriage, Parenting, and Childhood, Gene Veith teams up with his daughter, Mary Moerbe, to add another book to the list of books Dr. Veith has written on the topic of vocation. His book God at Work is a good introduction to vocation, the idea that God calls us to various callings in life and works in us
