Teaching Outside the Box: Five Approaches to Opening the Bible With Youth

Tired of resorting to gimmicks and games to spice up your same-old way of teaching the Bible to teenagers? Rather than tweaking the way you teach, get out of the box and discover fresh approaches for helping youth experience the implications of the gospel. 

In Teaching Outside the Box, Andrew Zirschky invites you on a journey with Jeremy Bevins, a fictional youth worker who discovers five unique approaches to teaching scripture with help from a crusty octogenarian, Seymour Mathetai. Weaving Jeremy's story and his own insights as narrator, Zirschky provides vivid explanations and examples of each teaching style: instructional, community of faith, interpretive, liberation, and contemplative. 

With an emphasis on how the work of the Holy Spirit and the role of the teacher are conceived differently in each approach, Teaching Outside the Box provides both theory and curricula that will change the way you use the Bible in the faith formation of adolescents.

Andrew Zirschky (Ph.D. Princeton Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology and Youth Ministry at Memphis Theological Seminary and serves as academic director at the Center for Youth Ministry Training in Brentwood, Tennessee. He has 20 years of youth ministry experience at churches in Idaho, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Tennessee.