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From High School to College: Book Recommendations
1. Firstly, every church kid going off to college, it would seem to me, ought to have read a bit in the basic nature of the Christian faith, and maybe owning a good study Bible or having a Bible handbook or biblical overview. Of course, most high school kids don't read that much, let alone books from the Christian bookstore. Their exposure to Christian books are mostly likely limited to an inspiration book sent their way by Aunt Tillie upon graduation (and it may be just as good that they most likely ignored it) or something recommended by a youth pastor or Young Life leader or such. Could be cool, maybe not.
Either way, many haven't been well-grounded in the basic Christian convictions, what we believe and why. I don't think they have to have read C.S. Lewis or Augustine (though Mere Christianity is a wonderful book or audio cd for the thinking senior) but something to assure that they have the basics down and have begun to develop the habits of devotional and informational reading about the faith. Paul Little's little books, Know What You Believe and Know Why You Believe are ideal for just this purpose. I recommend the Life Application Study Bible (which comes in a variety of translations - I'm partial to the ESV) because the thematic overviews of each book of the Bible are clear, the practical study notes are usable and helpful, and the character studies and charts are designed to maximize practical application. I think it best shows why a study Bible is useful with notes that are usable, interesting and edifying.
Depending on the seriousness and level of Biblical literacy I could, of course, suggest lots of very useful and colorful guides to Christianity 101 and/or intro to the Bible. Feel free to call me. I wish more parents would pursue this. I think it is a shame that too few youth have been mentored into the habits of reading books together and have not been systematically taught (and enculturated) into basic Christian doctrine. Even a brief little book like John Stott's classic Your Mind Matters would be a great tool to help seniors recognize that God calls us to think about our faith.
2. Next, I think that it is urgent that perhaps their senior year of high school and especially over the summer before college, as youth are making that transition developmentally and seeing themselves as entering a new phase in life, that we capitalized on their natural eagerness to see themselves as more mature by preparing them for more intentional Christian discernment of life and times, offering resources that would help build into their worldviews not only an imagination of what God may do in their lifetimes, but just how important it is to "think Christianly" and be intentional about developing a Christian world and life view.
I think stuff as diverse as Camplos' little youth book — four very good sermons entitled, You Can Make a Difference to the newly re-issued Susan Schaeffer Macaulay's fun How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig, or Os Guinness's oh-so-important, serious classic, The Call, would be useful. There is even a little Jabez-sized small hardback which lifts three chapters from this, with a one page new introduction for younger folks in times of transition (read: graduates) that would be a very user-friendly little give away; it is called Rising to The Call: Discovering the Ultimate Purpose of Your Life. Although it isn't pitched at all to a teen audience, Paul Marshall's handbook for living out the Lordship of Christ in every zone of life is a fabulous and very readable resource to consider a Christian perspecti ve in everything from work to play, learning to the arts, technology to politics. I can't say enough about it's rare and fun articulation of a Christian worldview, creatively called Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God's Creation. I believe it is still the best introduction to a lived-out, distinctively Christian worldview.
Specifically written for teens, I really like the wonderful collection of varied pieces, each co-written by a teenager, called Way To Live: Christian Practices for Teens edited by Dorothy Bass and Don Richter. It collects various lifestyle habits and practices showing how a God-centered view shapes and forms the very ways we do ordinary stuff. There are chapters on everything from work to play, food to clothing to speaking, dating, truth-telling, each construed and given new meaning out of a broadly-based Christian vision of life. (I think the chapter on work, for instance, is very, very useful for those thinking about choosing a school and/or major! Or those with summer jobs, of course.)
Heck, even some of the pop culture studies get at this in a way that is so refreshing for most teens that they are eager to check out books like Romanowski's Eyes Wide Open: Finding God in Popular Culture; The Gospel According to the Simpsons or The Gospel According to Tolkein or perhaps How the Movies Helped Save My Soul. That these enter their world of media and offer a uniquely Christian evaluation is new and amazingly helpful for a student who previously saw little connection between Sunday and the real world. Maybe my vote for the best great book of this sort that would fill this need is the nicely done, and not difficult New Way To Be Human: A Provocative Look at What It Means to Follow Jesus by Charlie Peacock. With a forward by Jon Foreman from Switchfoot, it is a very cool choice these days.
I know there are not many resources on doing Christian career counseling for youth — I recommend Career and Calling: A Guide for Counselors, Youth and Young Adults by Ginny Ward Holderness (Geneva) which gives programmatic ideas for youth workers and parents. At the very least — and the summer before college may be a bit too late to start — it is essential to have them even consider that God cares about their vocations and that their major ought not to be picked simply on the question of job availability or status, but should be asked theologically in terms of discerning God's call.
So helping students begin to think about a Christian take on life itself — a broader worldview and sense of purpose — is the second kind of book. Some of the chapters from Your Work Matters to God by Doug Sherman & William Hendricks (NavPress) would certainly be fruitful, too.
3. Thirdly, at last, I do think that it would be really important to help a student who has under her belt some of these kind of ideas (the basics of the Christian faith and the biblical story and the beginnings of a whole-life Christian worldview, and hopefully owns a couple of books to show that reading this kind of material is truly important) to next read a book or two or three in preparation for leaving home and entering the college experience. If churches or parents do offer these kinds of books to their high school graduates, they should offer them as Christmas gifts when they come back to visit over the holidays of their first year.
Here are a few of those kind of books. I know that for many families, this may be the only Christian book the student will read that summer, so I have picked some that don't necessarily presume much advanced knowledge of the faith, but that offer more than a devotional aimed at students. I think that these could be read easily by a student in the high school to college transition.
A Heart for Truth: Taking Your Faith to College by Greg Spencer (Baker, $11.99). I highly recommend this often — and think it is a gem! It has some funny cartoons (although the cover is pretty drab) and the chapter titles are mature yet clever. I think this is a gem of a book, richly written, thoughtful, caring and very good on a variety of aspects of the college experience. It brings an awareness of literature and film, so it avoids the uncoolness factor, and the substance is solid, if nuanced, including quotes from diverse authors like Buechner, Chesterton or L'Engle. The ending chapters on faith in the classroom, writing papers for professors who may be hostile to the faith and such are very strong.
Incredible Four-Year Adventure by John & Chris Yates (Baker, $12.99). The subtitle captures the casual mood of this solid book written by two very handsome, smart young men who recently graduated from prestigious schools: "finding real faith, fun and friendship at college." So, more than the Spencer title, this is practical, clearly helpful about specific details — getting along with your roommate, choosing a fellowship group, budgeting your money and such. I think this is a bit more chatty, written by former students (rather than Spencer, who is a professor). And the faith perspective is unabashedly evangelical, practical and clear. With blurbs from the likes of John Stott and Steve Garber, this is squarely in the best of the evangelical tradition and it is surely very accessible.
How To Stay Christian in College by J. Budzieszewski (think, $13.99). It doesn't get much "hipper" than this very cool new edition. Although postmodern in format, it is anything but — Bud is a very rigorous thinker and heavy in his warnings against relativism and such. Charles Colsen regularly promotes this and it is considered a "must-have" sort of resource for many. Although he equips students to think discerningly (critically) about the ethos of the liberal university, he nicely talks of routine stuff like dating, devotional habits, roommate issues and daily stuff, too.
Chris Chrisman Goes to College by James Sire (IVP, $12.00). I love listing this although not everyone is quite ready for a book like this. It is written mostly as a novel. Chris (raised in a fairly sheltered church in a fairly ordinary middle-American small town) goes off to college and meets some folks that he is surprised to meet — some kids who smoke pot and some kids who are not Christians, even an international student. Hmmm. He is confronted with a lived experience of new beliefs, pluralism, relativism. The first day of class, he meets professors who hold forth on viewpoints and philosophies that run counter to his previous beliefs. After the first chapter or two, Sire, ever the teacher, enters with a non-fiction explanation of what is happening to Chris, walking the reader through the lessons to be learned. The novel picks up for a few more chapters — Chris goes to an evangelical fellowship group, meets other kinds of believers and such — and then again Sire has a chapter narrating and unpacking the experience. Although this is written for first-year students to help them reflect worldviewishly on the "relativism, individualism and pluralism" that they necessarily will face at college, and although the novel is clever and largely accurate, it still may be a bit much for those without an interest in these kind of deeper evaluations of the collegiate experience and the philosophical challenges to the faith that may exist. If a student hasn't read or been taught to think about faith in this kind of whole-life way, and hasn't heard that Romans 12:1-2 requires a ment al transformation in order to be culturally non-conformed, then this call to stand firm may just not resonate much. Still, for the philosophically-minded student, this book could be a life-line. How many titles look at Christian worldview and critique the philosophical culture of our times, all written in an easy-to-read novella about a kid with a name like Chris Chrisman? Wooo-hooo!
How To Keep Your Faith in College by Abbie Smith (VMI Publishing, $12.95). It is a collection of interviews she did with a variety of folks at college (including several prestigious, large universities). She chatted with folks who blossomed and grew in their faith during their college years, who took their faith seriously and stood their ground. She highlights stories from fraternities, sports teams, academic clubs, residence halls. She tells of students and their struggles with everything from anti-Christian professors to roommate difficulties; she holds up Christian practices of on campus worship and racial reconciliation. In other words, these are examples and wisdom from st udents who have been there, living out their faith in the campus setting. It is a nice resource to use.
Many parents and students will spend time thinking about how to maximize the college years. But if we don't think seriously about how to transition the faith from childhood to adulthood we have put the cart before the hoarse. In the words of Jesus, "What does it matter if a man gains the whole world and looses his own soul?" The next few year are crucial. Let's not miss the opportunity God has given.
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