Christian Education

The following resources have been compiled by the librarians with specific regard to the field of Christian Education.

Reference Books

• Experiential youth ministry handbook. 2004. Curriculum Resource Coll. 259.23 L89e
  This innovative resource offers a ton of intentional activities with a purpose, specific program sequences, and adaptable templates for making games resonate with your students' minds and hearts. Offers suggestions and formats for everything from midweek meetings and small groups, full-day events, mission trips, retreats and camps, internships, games, and more.


• Evangelical dictionary of Christian education. 2001. Ref 268.03 Ev14a
  More than 850 articles integrate biblical and theological ideas with contributions from education, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. The articles explore the history, philosophy, and theology of Christian education and provide insight into educational methodology, learning theory, and practice.


• The Christian educator's handbook on children's ministry. 1998. Main Collection 259.22 C45
  This resource provides church workers with information on teaching approaches, program administration, and childhood development related to teaching children up to age twelve. Topics cover age-group characteristics, discipline, learning styles, summer ministries, and more. After exploring the biblical and historical perspectives on why the church is called to minister to children, the authors provide suggestions for developing primary goals and objectives for children's programs.


• The youth worker's handbook to family ministry. 1997. Curriculum Resource Coll. P.74 C54y
  Chap Clark offers highly useful information for involving teens in the church family and for custom-designing a family ministry program. This hands-on book offers to-the-point explanations of every aspect of family ministry. It provides a wealth of specific tools and ideas. And it's replete with quotes and statistics that can be used in parent seminars, retreats, and other events described in the book.


• Youth ministry handbook. 1994. Curriculum Resource Coll. P.26 T73y
  This resource guide helps religious leaders create and run successful and effective youth ministries in which youth, adults and church collaborate. This book presents four images upon which leaders can base their youth ministries. Emphasizes the importance of creating an intentional, relational, and programmatic youth ministry, of involving good adult role models and mentors, and of developing youth leadership. Also advises leaders on how to deal with teens, choose resources and develop programs, work with other specific ministry organizations, fund raise, promote youth fellowship-and make it work-through spiritual retreats, missions, and community service projects. Guide ends with ten common mistakes that leaders of youth ministry should avoid.


• Handbook of youth ministry. 1991. Main Collection 259.23 H19R
  Includes chapters on adolescence and culture, thinking and understanding, religion, communication and relationships, moral development and sexuality, and the research process with adolescent subjects, among others.


• Harper's encyclopedia of religious education. 1990. Ref 268.03 H23
  Contains nearly 600 signed articles by 270 contributors. Treats terms, tools, techniques, people, practices, history, and present debates in the field of religious education. Bibliographies after some articles.

Browsing the collection can yield surprising results in the research process. Try looking in the stacks around the call numbers 259.2 through 259.3 (Upper level).

Finding Books:

• Online Catalog
  • Find books, as well as a variety of other materials in the TU Libraries.
  • Use the Advanced search option to specify material format, campus, language, and date range.
• WorldCat
  • Listed under Essential Tools.
  • Find books, among other things, to request via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

Finding Articles:

• ERIC
  Covers all aspects of education. Links to the online full-text of most ERIC documents from 1993 to the present are now available. Offers citations and abstracts to journal articles and resources related to the field of education. Indexes curriculum materials, teaching guides, lesson plans, program descriptions, research reports, conference proceedings, plus articles from over 800 educational and education-related journals from 1966 to present.


• Professional Development Collection
  Covers all areas of education. Includes abstracts and indexing for 345 professional development titles. Full-text for over 430 journals covering the most current topics in the field of education.


• JSTOR
  JSTOR (Journal STORage) presents the searchable full text of the complete back files for over 100 important scholarly journals. Coverage generally includes the first volume through issues published prior to the most recent 3-5 years (current issues are not available in JSTOR). Includes journals for the following disciplines: African-American studies, anthropology, Asian studies, ecology, economics, education, finance, history, literature, mathematics, philosophy, political science, population studies, sociology, and statistics. Also search JSTOR via Google Scholar by including "+JSTOR" in the search.


• MasterFile Premier
  Provides abstracts and indexing for more than 3,200 periodicals on a variety of subjects, including education. Full-text available online for 1,500 titles, with some dating back to 1990.

Children's Resources: K-12

• Primary Search
  Level: Primary school focus for wide range of topics. Abstracts and indexing for over 120 magazines. Full-text available online for 40+ children's magazines, plus full-text for over 100 pamphlets. Also features the Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, the World Almanac for Kids, and the World Almanac of the USA. Designed for elementary school libraries and public library children's rooms.


• Middle Search PLUS
  Level: Middle-school focus for wide range of topics. Abstracts and indexing for 170 magazines. Full-text available online for over 50 frequently used titles, plus full-text for 115+ pamphlets. Designed for middle schools, K-8 and large elementary schools.


• MAS Ultra - School Edition
  Level: High school and junior college level, all general interest areas. Provides abstracts and indexing for over 500 general interest and research periodicals and the New York Times. Full-text available online for 200+ titles from 1990 to present.

Periodicals (Journals)

• Periodical Title List
  Search by journal title keyword for online full-text journals, and to see what we have in print in the library.


• Click here for a Education Subject Search in the Periodical List to find out what journals (and how many) we have available both in print and online. Click on the blue links to enter the actual list of titles. The numbers in parentheses beside the subject indicate how many journal titles are included in that subject area. You may also want to search by subject under Religion for Christian or religious perspectives.

Internet Resources

• Christian Education Resources (Webster University and Eden Theological Seminary)
  Contains links to reputable sites in four categories: General Christian Ed. Resources, Children's Ministry, Youth Ministry, and Adult Ministry.


• Yale Divinity School's Research Guide for Christianity
  Listed under Practical Theology, this site contains several Christian Education web sites that lead to educational resources from various organizations.


• Resources for Christian Teachers
  As declared at the top of the page, "The purpose of this web site is to provide free and low cost resources for school teachers, home school, and Christian children's ministry". There is a menu to the Right, as well as a scrollable menu in the middle of the page. Both of these menus will get you to separate pages with activities, links, and other materials for the classroom.


• Education Coffeehouse.com
  Divided into several categories, this site provides links for educators to professional associations, curriculum, tuition management, and miscellaneous resources.


• Education web sites (Ultimate Christian Resources Center)
  An impressive portal with links to a great many Christian education web resources, for any level or type of education you could be interested in.


• Christian Education web directory (Surf-in-the-Spirit)
  Grouped by type of education, activity, and type of resource, this site leads to a number of interesting and potentially useful educational resources.

Research Tools

• RefWorks
  A citation management program that allows you to collect and organize citations, create bibliographies and works cited pages, and format papers and bibliographies to a specific citation style.


• CREDO Reference (formerly xreferplus)
  A conglomeration of specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias that allows you to search for definitions and encyclopedia articles, as well as develop ideas for expanding or refining a research strategy.

Citation Help

• MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 2003. Ref 808.027 G35M
  The standard source for citation style in literature and writing, published by the Modern Language Association.


• WorldCat.org
  "Cite this item" within individual item record lists the citation in APA, MLA, Chicago and more.


• Also, contact the Writing Center at writingctr@taylor.edu or visit them on the Portal under the Academics tab.

Product descriptions on this page are incorporated from book reviews and product descriptions from various sources.

Ask-A-Librarian for more information

Created by Lana Gottschalk, Reference Librarian

Last revised May 1, 2008

Specific Christian Education Course PDF Guides

CED 421 Handout