David F. White is the C. Ellis Nelson Professor of Christian Education at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. He is author of Practicing Discernment with Youth, and coauthor of Awakening Youth Discipleship: Christian Resistance in a Consumer Culture. He was the editor of the Pilgrim book series Youth Ministry Alternatives. David is an ordained United Methodist minister who served for over twenty years as minister with youth at congregations in Mississippi, Kentucky, Alaska, and California.

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Dreamcare: A Theology of Youth, Spirit, and Vocation helps parents, youth workers, and congregations cultivate purpose and vocation in youth and young adults. Recent findings disclose a pervasive sense of purposelessness that threatens young adults' health and well-being, and also the common good. The good news is that research shows all young people also have an often hidden sense of purpose that can be noticed, named, and nurtured by parents and communities. This volume supplements research with findings from Emory's Youth Theological Initiative (YTI), which identifies four pathways--desire, joy, compassion, and responsibility--by which young people discover a sense of purpose. Growing from research at YTI, this volume provides concrete suggestions for how Christian communities might engage young people in practices to cultivate a sense of purpose, including narrative resources by which to make theological sense of their impulses of desire, joy, compassion, and responsibility.