Review of Steve Munds’ Book, The Journey (Coming Soon)
www.goministries.net/shop/books/the-journey/
Steve Munds is no doubt a master storyteller! This book, as inspirational as it is, is one of the most entertaining books you will ever read. His true stories, in original Steve Munds style, will have you laughing your guts out loud one minute and crying your eyes with heartbreak the next. Steve pulls back the curtain with raw transparency and gives us a backstage view of a time in Church history when youth ministry was revolutionized, changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of teenagers around the world, setting them on their own destiny journeys.
For me, working on this book project, was a divinely-appointed, full circle experience in a couple ways. Steve shares a story of a powerful connection with Spencer and Cyndy Nordyke and Russ Taff at Youth for the Nations (YFN) summer youth conference in Dallas, TX. It was that event which supernaturally catapulted him onto the stage of national youth ministry. What Steve didn’t know in writing this book was that I was one of those hundreds of teenagers who attended that conference with my youth group, who loaded up in a church van and drove to Dallas, TX from a small town called Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I was on the fourth row from the stage and remember vividly how God rocked my world at that conference, confirming the call of God on my life. It was youth conference like nothing I had ever been to.
Fast-forward to January 2002. Out of high school, I pursued the call to ministry and at the time had been in full-time youth ministry for thirteen years, when I received a horrifying phone call that my husband, Leroy, was tragically killed in a plane crash on a youth ministry-related trip. He, too was a dynamic youth pastor. I had never known anyone personally so passionate about teenagers and with such innovative ideas to reach a young generation.
Now, fast-forward again to today, as I am working on publishing this book project, The Journey. As I’m reading through the pages, I’m realizing that actual and verbatim quotes, ideas, projects, mindsets, and youth ministry concepts that I had only heard my husband say, Steve is talking about first-hand. I realized it couldn’t just be coincidence. So, after rummaging through boxes and boxes of my husband’s old papers and things, I found them: actual documents from Steve Munds and his ministry at The Rockatorium, his concept of Teen Pastors, and the list goes on. I had no idea Leroy got so many of the ideas and concepts from Steve Munds’ personal playbook of outrageous youth ministry. All of a sudden, I found myself some twenty years later, being connected in my own personal journey to this awesome, wild, devil-booty-kickin’, youth world-changer, Steve Munds.
Only God knew Steve Munds would be one of my “God-dots.”
And so, . . . the legacy continues.
Laura-Lee Booth
Founder/President and Publisher
Blaze Publishing House