FACULTY - Jeremy Myers
Associate Professor
I’ve been teaching at Augsburg College since 2006. My approach to instruction includes a faithful, honest and critical look at people’s lived realities while simultaneously attempting to seek and proclaim meaning, truth and hope within the context of that reality. This is also how I approach my discipline of Youth and Family Ministry. Therefore, I will often incorporate the insights of sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and ritual studies into the class’s theological process.
Augsburg is an outstanding place to study youth and family ministry for a few reasons. First, we have two full-time faculty devoted to the major. Many colleges don’t even have one. Second, the Twin Cities are home to every possible type of church you could imagine. This allows you to experience house churches, mega-churches, traditional churches, alternative churches, immigrant churches, bilingual churches; you name it! It is a great place to study the church. Third, Augsburg is more diverse than any other ELCA college. This means you will learn more about your faith and world by being in relationships and conversations with people who are quite different from you, and yet quite similar. Lastly, Augsburg has a strong emphasis on exploring vocation – God’s call for our lives. This, I believe, is the most critical question facing youth ministry these days – How do we help young people understand how God is calling them today? Augsburg is deeply committed to that question.
My areas of research include adolescent experiences of God’s presence and activity, how adolescents construct theology, contemplative youth ministry practices, interfaith youth work, and a vocational understanding of adolescence.
Publications
- “The Freedom of a Teenager: Vocation and Service Learning as the Future of Youth Ministry,” Dialog: A Journal of Theology 47, no. 4 (2008), 327-338. (Co-authored with Mark Jackson)
- “Adolescent Experiences of Christ’s Presence and Activity in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” Journal of Youth and Theology 7, no. 1 (2008), 27-43.
- “Discipleship Happens,” Connect: Journal of Youth and Family Ministry (Spring 2008), 5-6.
- “Backyard and Beyond,” The Lutheran 20, no. 2 (February 2007), 34-35
- “From Practical to Practicing: A New Adjective for Youth Ministry,” Clergy Journal 81, no. 5 (March 2005), 6-9.
- “Got Questions?” The Lutheran 16, no. 3 (March 2003), 40-43.
- “Rooting Youth in the Spirit,” The Lutheran 15, no. 7 (July 2002), 32-33.
