Happy Halloween!  Happy Feast of All Saints!

Father Austin called my attention to this video,  He got it from  Deacon Greg who posted this video from Busted Halo. (all worthy web sites)

If you want to e-mail kids and key adult volunteers with a little catechetical something-something on this weekend, I don’t think you could do worse than passing along the hyperlink: http://www.bustedhalo.com/features/the-saints-on-halloween/

Meanwhile, St. Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the internet, pray for us!

I do have much love for the readership of the Catholic Youth Ministry Blog!

That readership has certainly grown since the transformation of the website and our little e-news announcement.  I’m very thankful that this does seem to be a service for you that elicits your attention.  If you believe that is the case, please share the good news and let someone else know!!!!

The new comment function has been the most important improvement for me!  We are all now swapping opinions and my voice is no longer the sole voice found here…. That’s so cool!

Commenter Chris Weber from Muscatine, Iowa uncovered the mystery of the new bumper music that has been attached to all recently posted media.  (Hey, did you note that we are gathering all the media links on one page? That link can always be found in the red menu bar right below the banner.)

And. . .  Congratulations to Orin Johnson (from Oddwalk Ministries) who took the prize in the U R contest.  His Ewe Arrgh story (found in the comments section of that post) was funny enough on its own….  but when he provided artwork as well – - – well, that just takes the prize.

Speaking of which, there is now an official prize for all contests here at the Catholic Youth Ministry Blog.  As an aficionado of graphic novels (that’s comic books, folks), I remembered Marvel Comics infamous "No Prize."

Both Chris and Orin should be watching their in-boxes this morning in anticipation of their glorious prize (suitable either for framing or bird cages!) which is awarded for "meritorious service to the cause of Catholic Youth Ministry Blogdom."

So, here’s to November- – - not so halloween-ish scary!   We’ve got the National Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis locally as well as the annual USCCB meeting.  We’ll have our own Baltimore Youth Catholic Conference down in Ocean City, MD as well.   I’m thinking that there will be plenty to blog about, youtube produce, and share in the upcoming weeks!  Stick around for the ride!!!

From across the pond, my blogging friend, Ian, has pointed to the "the most idiot proof way yet" of downloading Youtube videos.  He instructs to "click here, type in the URL of the Youtube vid’ and select mpg as the file type to convert to. When it’s finished, click ‘save to file’  and it will be on your desktop."

trying to get podcasts to work….  spent a portion of the morning…  will come back to it. 
UPDATE: (for everyone but commenter and wise-guy Sharon) Podcasts are now up.  Seemingly, it was an error caused within our engineering department, but our service department, our IT, and our catering services depaprtment all collaborated in resolving the issue.  Meanwhile, everyone is aware that Thursday is the last day to get in on the UR contest, right????

We are keeping in the pattern of posting up media on Wednesday.  Two we have two more podcasts for you from the handful of interviews we collected this summer at the The Institute in Adolescent Catechesis which was blogged about back in August.

While there, Susan Dorfmeister, director of the Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry in Dallas, stepped outside for a brief podcast.  Susan is upbeat about adolescent catechesis, indicating that “our legacy is a positive legacy… There are young people who can speak and articulate and live the life of Jesus Christ because of those who risked to be our front of a new field of the lay ecclesial minister, the youth minister.”

Also meet John Gencarelli from St. Leo’s in Omaha who advocates for the whole community to come together to learn together and learn from each other. He is well aware that teens want catechesis presented in a fun way, but also believes that what they really want is content, they want to know what make being Catholic different.

Just a note… I try as best as possible to edit goof-ups, umms, and ahhs out of the podcast.  I kept the flubbed intro for John however because he seemed so entertained by it.  “Gencarelli- sounds just like it’s spelled.”

We missed the milestone a week ago, but (by all best estimates and counting), we passed 2500 blog postings with this posting. It is a good opportunity to check-in if we are "on message," so let’s take a look at a wordle. 

What’s a wordle?

Well, they are a favored toy of blogging friend Father Austin! But, in anticipation of a better definition, they are also wonderful “word clouds” created from text. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

After a quick review over the weekend of what was on the site, it seems as if we are on message – Church, youth, young people, ministry, catholic are all prominent.  (Jesus and God could certainly be less assumed.) Nonetheless, so far, so good!

ARLINGTON, VA — "Kids have to pray hard but they play hard too," Deacon Matthew DeForest said. "We have to meet them where they’re at." The Catholic Youth Rally is an annual event held by the Arlington Diocese, which covers all of Northern Virginia. The theme for this year’s rally was "Get Your Faith On." "The main purpose of this is to bring all the youth together at the beginning of the [school] year," said Kevin Bohli, the head of youth ministry for the Arlington Diocese. "We want them to think of the church as more than just their parish." More here.

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Some 8,000 youth leaders will converge  on Nov. 29 to kick off a nationwide drive to heighten Bible awareness among the youth.  Dubbed "Y! Explode: The Bible Adventure Series," the one-day event was organized in response to findings that more than half of Filipinos do not even have a Bible. It is in response to this reality that the organizers have come together and decided to come up with a deliberate youth scripture engagement program…that will convey to the Y Generation the transformative message of God’s Word in a more interactive fashion. More here.

ST. LOUIS, MO — Members of the youth group at Mary Queen of Peace Parish got a close look at the lives of their less fortunate brothers and sisters at a recent weekend Survivor Service Retreat. "It is an awesome experience," said Kathleen Davis, a member of the Webster Groves parish and mother of two high school students who participated in the retreat. Davis, who leads the youth group, was one of 12 to15 adults who accompanied about 40 teens through a day of service projects and night of experiencing how a homeless person lives. More here.

ROME, GA — St. Mary`s Catholic Church is sponsoring a `fire truck pull` fund-raiser at Richard B. Russell Airport/Towers Field on Nov. 16 with youth groups from all area churches invited to lend a hand and shoulder. "The idea is to have as many church youth as possible come out and in teams of 10 for high school youth and teams of 12 for middle school youth, they will pull a 39-ton ladder truck 12 feet`, says organizer Marc Clay. More here. 

STRASBOURG, FRANCE — A Holy See representative spoke to some 300 Italian youth who are this year’s winners of a contest organized by the Italian Movement for Life. The theme of the ’07-’08 contest was "Europe and Human Rights: We Youth as Protagonists."  The young winners participated Wednesday in a Mass celebrated by Monsignor Giordano. During the homily, he told them, "It seems a closed, gray and cloudy sky has extended over Europe. An open, blue sky cannot be seen. It seems a gaze toward eternity, toward paradise, is lacking." "Our faith," he continued, "urges us to seek the mystery, the beauty and the truth that gives meaning to life. Unfortunately, Europe […] seems to lack the courage to seek solutions beyond materialist proposals. Perhaps because of this, the number of suicides among youth is increasing." More here.

The National Catholic Youth Conference will be held in Kansas City November 19-21, 2009.  The theme this year in the is Christ Reigns.   The NFCYM has a downloadable promotion video at www.nfcym.org/ncyc.

Are you planning on going?  What is your motivation?

Will you not be going?  Why not?

If you have taken groups before, will be be traveling with a larger delegation, a small group, or probably the same size?  What are the factors you believe will be influencing your decisions regarding group size?

What are you thinking, folks????

During this month, I have made pitches regarding not going it alone in catholic youth ministry and involving many others to make it all happen.  Here’s even more motivation…  to quote the internal thought of the Clinton campaign of 1992, "It’s the economy, stupid."

Newsweek‘s religion commentator and resident rabbi Marc Gellman looks ahead:

The impact of the financial crisis on the election will end on Nov. 4. The effect of the financial meltdown on America’s churches, synagogues, temples and mosques will not end for some time to come.

For the most part, our current dire economic straits will not cause the changes to America’s religious institutions I am about to enumerate. Rather, the 2008 meltdown will merely accelerate the changes that began to reshape American religion in the last part of the 20th century. Robert Putnam in his "Bowling Alone" echoed the work of other sociologists in describing the collapse of both religious and secular communal affiliations and the rise of a new more isolated and lonely civic culture.

More here.