book coverYouthministry360 has recently released a resource for students who are new believers: New,First Steps for New Christ-Followers. It’s a 104-pages, four-week devotional with loads of extra info that can be used both individually and with a group, though the latter has obvious benefits.

Andy Blanks did a pretty good job with this I must say. The tone is friendly and warm, but not too popular. The devotionals are solid and offer a good basis theology. I really, really liked that Andy kept stressing how it wasn’t about knowledge, but about the relationship with God.

The extra resources at the end of the booklet are really good, like some info on the Bible, a Bible timeline and important people from the Bible. Everything is well designed and I like the styling with the different fonts and backgrounds (note: it’s not full color, but black-and-white with one support color).

I think for a new believer this would give a solid introduction into Christianity. I do think however it would be preferable to use New in a group setting. Even though Andy has taken great care to make it as easy as possible and to avoid church language (though some words remained, like righteous, devotion and Scripture), it’s just not that easy to comprehend everything by yourself.

New is priced at $9.99 on the YouthMinistry360 site, which I think is a bit on the high side if you’d want to buy it in bigger quantities, but it’s a good investment.

Note: Andy sent this book to me for free, with the choice for me to review it or not. I was under no obligation to write a review and it certainly didn’t have to be positive. Just saying.