Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches to Y&C Ministry, Part 2: Finding a Theological Way Forward

Abstract

In part 1 the concepts of top-down and bottom-up approaches were introduced as a helpful way of analysing the landscape of youth and children’s mission and ministry. This second part begins to suggest a constructive solution to the question of bringing the top-down and bottom-up together which understands both divine and human action in and of the individual. James Loder’s appropriation of Chalcedonic descriptions of divine-human connection come together with his analogia Spiritus and understanding of transformation to provide a way of bringing together top-down and bottom-up approaches which can be understood as a form of ‘spiritual structuration.’