Building Cathedrals

As a young urban youth worker, Ted Travis was captivated by a question posed by Christian community development pioneer Dr. John Perkins: "How do we build incentive in inner-city youth, motivating them toward Christ and a life of meaning and purpose?" Over the next 30 years, Ted wrestled with this question as he and his wife Shelly ministered to hundreds of teens in Denver's Five Points neighborhood- an inner-city community facing the daunting challenges of poverty, gangs, crime, and unemployment. Along the way, Ted pressed biblical principles and tried-in the-trenches strategies into a philosophy of youth leadership development he calls "transformational discipleship." In Building Cathedrals, Ted shares his blueprint for transformational discipleship (as well as accounts of its profound impact on young people) and exhorts today's youth workers to reimagine their ministries and raise up a new generation of visionary urban leaders.