About | Bibliography

Sam Magdalein
Playing Games with God
7 min readAug 16, 2016

Excerpts from Playing Games with God: How to Avoid Shallow Youth Ministries and Find a Biblical Group for Your Kids. Print version is available here.

About The Book

Just like all schools are not the same, all youth groups are not the same.

But how can parents know that their kids are going to a good, Biblical youth ministry? And what makes a group “Biblical”? In “Playing Games with God,” Sam Magdalein lays out a simple framework that parents can use when searching for and examining a youth group for their teens.

But what about modern youth ministries? Parents may have a feeling that something is wrong in these churches, but can’t quite put their finger on the problem. Sam includes a thorough examination of the foundations, philosophies, drivers, and everyday practices of modern youth groups. Using numerous quotes from youth ministry seminary textbooks, lessons plans from youth ministry conferences, ministry resource books, and articles, you’ll read in their own words what modern churches are actually doing with our kids.

About The Author

Sam Magdalein answered the call to preach in 1997 when he was 17. Since 2002 he has served as the Youth Minister at Bible Believers Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where he lives with his wife and two children.

He holds a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Pensacola Bible Institute, and a Master of Theology degree from The Bible Doctrine Institute.

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Excerpts from Playing Games with God: How to Avoid Shallow Youth Ministries and Find a Biblical Group for Your Kids. Print version is available here.

Copyright © Sam Magdalein 2016.

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Sam Magdalein
Playing Games with God

Sam Magdalein has been the Youth Minister at Bible Believers Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida since 2002.