The PHAT STAR™ TUTORING INTERVENTION:
A Collaborative Community Intervention
Rene D. Rochester

The purpose of this study is to examine how THE PHAT STAR™ TUTORING INTERVENTION (PSTI) program influences church member's attitudes and participation in community outreach among diverse populations; the academic progress, mental formation and learning readiness of underachieving middle and high school students; parental/guardian participation in the educational progress of their children; and teacher's attitudes toward underachieving students from diverse populations.

Zip Codes And A Rolodex: Increasing The Social Capital Of Urban Youth
Bruce Main

               With youth from under-resourced communities often inheriting social networks with limited social power, the urban youth practitioner can play an important and vital role in helping youth create a network of relationships that transcend their neighborhoods and ultimately create a future of expanded choices.  Borrowing concepts found in what social scientists call social capital theory, this article explores the necessity of relational networks and their potential impact on human development.

Divergent Realities: The Home And School Lives Of Haitian Immigrant Youth
Fabienne Doucet

               Youth ministers are increasingly faced with populations of immigrants in their churches and communities. This paper provides a broad context for understanding some of the developmental issues facing all immigrant youth, as well as some of the familial processes that are activated in migration. To focus the discussion, an overview of the home and school experiences of Haitian youth are highlighted. Implications for working with immigrant youth in general, and Haitian youth in particular, are provided.

A Neighbor To Be Known: Recognizing Difference And Otherness In Youth Ministry
Eduardo M. Ramirez

               Becoming sensitive and respectful of others, especially those different from ourselves, including those outside of our own cultural zones, is a critical quality for youth ministers. Natural human tendency is to accentuate one culture and ignore others, or affirm one by degrading another. Youth ministry must become a laboratory that provides an environment of receptivity to others, and youth leaders must become models of that respect, willing and capable of creating opportunities where teens can learn to embrace such differences.

Spiritual Formation In The Lives Of Korean-American Youth
Danny Kwon

               The process of acculturation in the lives of second generation Korean-American youth includes some distinct and specific processes that impact the extended families, values, and spiritual formation of these young Americans, their parents, and church leaders.

Voices From The Fringes: A Case For Prophetic Youth Ministry
Calenthia S. Dowdy

               Rap music emerged as a response to social conditions in the south Bronx. Young urbanites took up the mantle as rocks that cried out about unjust circumstances in their home cities. Many are the post-industrial prophets of a new generation, in the vein of Isaiah, Amos, Nehemiah, and Jesus, they point to corrupt power structures, all the while being ignored, disregarded, and demonized by those in power. But just as early prophets of Israel were relegated to the fringes for their refusal to be complicit in the face of evil, so too are contemporary rappers of social justice relegated and dismissed. In Listening to these modern day prophets, we find that some of their messages correlate to the Bible's call for a whole gospel message.