Wrestling with Rest: Inviting Youth to Discover the Gift of Sabbath
Busyness is a sickness of the soul that affects many today—and it is especially detrimental to young people, who are finding their identity shaped by ongoing resume-building, constant digital communication, and unceasing activity. The last thing they have time for is rest. But rest—Sabbath—is necessary for youth, not just because of who they are socially, emotionally, and physiologically, but because of who God has made them to be and wants them to be.
Nathan Stucky shows that rest challenges youth whose identities are rooted in productivity, efficiency, achievement, and accomplishment. For them, the notion of Sabbath grace both appeals and disorients. Yet through the Sabbath, God invites young people into an identity rooted and grounded in the grace, life, and provision of God. Wrestling with Rest offers biblical and practical advice for helping youth to discover their God-given identity, in which they can truly find rest.Rachel Held Evans
— author of Searching for Sunday and Inspired
“I didn’t know how badly I needed this book until I read it. I’ll be thinking about (and acting on) the ideas I encountered in these pages for months and years to come. What a gift of a read.”
Mihee Kim-Kort
— author of Outside the Lines
“Nate Stucky does a courageous and beautiful work in this book delving into Sabbath. It is a breath of fresh air in the midst of the more recent deluge of self-help, self-care, ‘unplugging’ programs that often miss the crucial center of rest, and why we rest, and that is to simply be God's beloved. Nate gifts us with a rich reminder through story, biblical texts, and an accessible theological framework that will deepen our relationships to God, to our own selves, to each other.”
Jeff Chu
— author of Does Jesus Really Love Me?
“Stucky shows us that at the heart of this gift of Sabbath is a truth we want to hear yet struggle to believe: God loves us.”
Mike McHargue
— co-founder of The Liturgists and host of Ask Science Mike
“Wrestling with Rest offers concrete strategies for leaders to guide learners to push back against the do-it-all, success-oriented culture we live in.”
Mike King
— President/CEO, Youthfront and author of Presence Centered Youth Ministry
“Please read this book, not only to help the young people in your lives, but for the sake of your own life.”
Andrew Root
— Luther Seminary
“Stucky’s wisdom is needed for just this time. If you draw from his wisdom it will change your ministry.”
Product Details
- Title : Wrestling with Rest: Inviting Youth to Discover the Gift of Sabbath
- Authors:
- Stucky, Nathan T.
- Dean, Kenda Creasy
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 2019
- ISBN: 9781467457187
Nathan T. Stucky serves as director of the Farminary Project at Princeton Theological Seminary. An ordained Mennonite, Nate has a special interest in the role of community formation and Sabbath in the educational life of the church. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Janel, and their three children.