Throughout this week, we will be “airing” segments of our Youth Contact meetings, conducted over the previous two weekends. The full ArchBalt resources is now live here.

Our theme for the training was Salt and Light. How do we help young people to preserve the faith?  How do we fully reflect the prism of Christ’s light?

Georgina and I wrap up the Salt portion of  the day by pointing towards the vision set by the National Initiative on Adolescent Catechesis which “calls for nothing less than re-imagining current faith formation and pastoral ministry efforts with young people and their families.”

Never allow yourself, don’t allow each other to fool ourselves to believing that our ministry is “unstoppable” in that way that it presently is. We are being asked to grow and change. How will ‘this salt” change the flavor of our ministry?

Margaret Brogden and Kristin Witte pair up to introduce the second half of the Youth Contact addressing Light.  Also included here is the first half of their “They” skit.

Throughout this week, we will be “airing” segments of our Youth Contact meetings, conducted over the previous two weekends. The full ArchBalt resources is now live here.

Our theme for the training was Salt and Light. How do we help young people to preserve the faith?  How do we fully reflect the prism of Christ’s light? 

Georgina Vaca presents on the value of involving the whole faith community in the lives of young people – -  not just when they experience church stuff, but as they are experiencing “their” stuff.

Quote to note:

Youth ministers have the responsibility to guide the community to become present in the moments youth consider important in their lives. Our role as ministers needs expansion! It is our role to equip other adults and the entire community to give that salt or flavor to young people. Not so that the ride, while it lasts at the parish, is a good and flavorful one, but so that that faith is maintained or “preserved” and goes beyond their youthful years into their adulthood. We want that saltiness to go a long way!

D. Scott Miller presents that Catholic Youth Ministry must move beyond working with young people.

Quote to note:

It has been said that “Youth ministry can’t be “ordinary or mediocre. It requires the ongoing conversion of the heart and the ongoing pursuit of ever-new ways to announce Christ. And it requires a veritable pastoral passion for young people.”

Our ministry must be extraordinary.

If our passion is authentically for young people, it must propel us in doing ministry beyond young people.

Throughout this week, we will be “airing” segments of our Youth Contact meetings, conducted over the previous two weekends. We be updating this posting as the ArchBalt resources page goes live (there was IT maintenance on the site over the weekend) and a Moodle training page (dependant upon the ArchBalt page) also goes live/  The Moodle page will allow you to virtually participate in the training as well!

Our theme for the training was Salt and Light. How do we help young people to preserve the faith?  How do we fully reflect the prism of Christ’s light? 

In our opening prayer, we read of Jesus’ analogy of Salt and Light from Matthew 5:13-16. Archbishop O’Brien graciously agreed to tape a short reflection on the readings.

Quote to note:

“You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.” Not, you should be. He’s given them that gift already. Pope John Paul II used to say, “Become who you are.” You are the light of the world.” The more you express yourself in the faith, the more you will give flavor and light to those around you.

The day broke into two sections -  Salt and Light.  Clever, huh?

Here, Georgina Vaca and I introduce our call for how youth ministers need to help preserve the faith

Quote to note:

Youth ministry is often about moments. Moments – whether it is a conference, whether it is confirmation, a service project, or sacraments.

Youth Ministry, our work with young people, our service in the name of Jesus Christ must, must be something more than a collection of moments.

CAFFEINE Part 11 (What’s going on here?)

At last November’s National Symposium on Adolescent Catechesis, Sean Reynolds wondered here if “Could it be… that the greatest obstacle to the next wonderful thing God has in store is in fact that last wonderful thing God has given?  That our assumptions and expectations have been so powerfully shaped what we’ve seen and lived that we have selective vision and hearing?   … Could it be that our collective wisdom about adolescent catechesis has grown toxic to the best of what may be next in store for those with eyes to see and ears to hear?”

If Catholic Adolescent Faith Formation and Evangelization In a New Era is going to truly stimulate both young minds and the church, can we still be brewing with the same old grounds and then complain about a sense of staleness (or hysteresis or malaise?)

(Wrote this 2 1/2 years ago… still true today,)

It all started on an elevator.  It was at a hotel next to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.  From the lobby of the hotel, one enters into a glass encased elevator car.  For the first three floors, you are rising above the front desk and the bland nondescript setting of a hotel lobby.

But, after the fourth floor, you are ascending above Baltimore’s waterfront: the cityscape of streets, bright lights, and tall buildings, the harbor of placid water and gently moving ships…, higher and higher.  Never a fan of heights but impressed by the vista before me, there was but one response to share with my two elevator companions at that moment.

I raised my hands above my head and exclaimed, “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

This has become my philosophical catch-phrase which is getting me through my days.

It certainly works for those times of accomplishment and celebration.  Yet, it also reminds one to embrace the twists and turns of life with enthusiasm and optimism.  Finally, it is a statement that one is not in this alone.  We are graced by the gifts of friendships as well as a relationship with God.  Life does not revolve around “I” or “me;” it is truly best experienced as “WE!”

The Psalmist reminds us that regarding whatever it is that we face, it is “by the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in OUR eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let US rejoice in it and be glad.” Shorthand for that could certainly be “Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Our second round of offering the Youth Contact meeting is today.  Big crowd. Your prayers would be welcomed throughout the morning.

Die to budget constraints, we’ve shortened the day and opted to go light on “the commercials” announcing upcoming events.

Nonetheless, this is the event where we have “premiered” the promotional video for the Annual Pilgrimage for Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

While I have become reasonably adept at editing video, we asked a young man to edit.  It took an hour to download all the footage onto his portable hard drive and he was asked to have it back within a week and to call with any problems. 

He called three hours later.  He was done.

Next week is going to be a reasonably big week here on the blog.  Not only will we enter our third week of the CAFFEINE series, but we will be offering a training venue and loads of video from our weekend Youth Contact meetings in ArchBalt.

You can follow along, as our nearly 100 youth contacts have done over last weekend and tomorrow, with the discussions on Salt and Light – - -  How do we help young people to preserve the faith?  How do we fully reflect the prism of Christ’s light?  You’ll be able to watch my gifted, talented, and lovely partners in ministry get their training thing on, hear from Archbishop O’Brien, and will likely have to suffer hearing from me as well.

As always, comment up next week, folks.  Let’s continue to make this site more of a virtual water cooler rather than a bulletin board.

And, if you have not done so recently, would you kindly e-mail a few youth ministry peers and volunteers and call their attention to this site:  www.catholicYMblog.com?  Thanks!

CAFFEINE Part 10 (What’s going on here?)

At the 2008 National Conference on Catholic Youth Ministry, Kenda Creasy Dean offered a keynote on Going Viral for Jesus. (The full keynote shot with a high quality camera is available for purchase – and so worth it – here.)

In it, she encourages us to be a vessel for the spirit of the Lord, overflowing with grace.  She encourages us to basically get out of the way of the work of the Lord.  Archbishop O’Brien (of ArchBalt( remembers his mentor Cardinal Cooke in that “His first prayer every morning was to never get in the way of anybody trying to do good.”

If our youth ministry caffeine is to truly be stimulating, we can no longer be about the business of “dumping Jesus” onto young people.

Might we be vessels where grace “splashes off of us and onto those around us.”

Christian Smith’s Soul Searching: the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers rocked the youth ministry work back onto its heels. Presenting the data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, the largest and most detailed such study ever undertaken, we discovered that young people are not hostile towards faith, just indifferent as they echo their parents’ religiosity, which, it turns out, is hardly a formula for vibrant faith.

And, now, here’s comes the “second wave” of this longitudinal study- Souls in Transition: The Religious & Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults.  I’m just cracking open the book, but already have discovered the authors’ classification of six major religious types amongst 18-24 years olds:

> Committed Traditionalists who embrace a strong religious faith, who believes they can reasonably well articulate and which they actively practice. They are probably no more than 15% of the emerging adult population.

> Selective Adherents believe and perform certain aspects of religious traditions but neglect and ignore others.  They are less serious that Committed Traditionalists but are more grounded about what they believe and/or should be believe than the Spiritually Open. They are about 30% of those in their late teens- early twenties.

> Spiritually Open: While not personally very committed to a religious faith, they are receptive to or mildly interested in some spiritual or religious matters.  They may be skeptical or critical but are willing to acknowledge a “higher power.”  They are about 15% of the young adults.

> Religiously Indifferent are too distracted with and invested in other things in life and are sufficiently  unconcerned with matters of faith to pay any real attention to religion. They are about 25% of the emerging adult population.

> Religiously Disconnected Due to their family upbringing and their present social connections, these folks have little to no experience to religious people, ideas, or  organizations. As evidence that we still are a “religious” culture, this group is likely no more than 5% of 18-24 years olds.

> The Irreligious claim that “Religion just makes no sense.”  This is an attitude that may have been nurtured in an option for secularism, or anger, or mystery as to foolish nature or practices of believers. They would be part of the final 10% of the young adults.

Learn more here.

CAFFEINE Part 9 (What’s going on here?)

Yesterday, we tried to place the role of the Catholic youth ministry within the story of Moses and the burning bush. Let focus our search right here: “God said, ‘Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your father.’”

We are to be sandals.

We are just to be a role player, a devise to be dismissed so that the primary characters can interact.  Yes, we got the characters to a place where they could be together, but, once that occurs, they stand upon holy ground, and we are no longer needed as an intermediary between the temporal and the spiritual.  Do you really want to get in the way between someone and holy ground??  ‘Thought not!

We can protect those feet, we can accompany those feet, but when those feet finally find themselves on holy ground, we are quietly tossed aside and dismissed as no longer essential or important.  Our service is done and we have prepared ourselves for spiritual obsolesce.

After some serious sole searching, can you see yourself as the sandals in the Moses’ story? in the story of a life of a young person??