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16Sep, 2009

Hysteresis

Posted by Scott

caffeine CAFFEINE Part 3 (What’s going on here?)

Stimulate? Is that the right word for these times?  I’ve got to tell you… the times concern me.

I worry that the economy is not bouncing back quickly and this is going to be a long haul.  Unemployment and a recessionary mind-set will have impact on church-giving, leading to tightening church budgets impacting the field.

I worry that, as a field, we have settled into a defensive posture of maintenance of the status quo and are not being proactively inventive enough.  This at a time when we are not not being evaluated kindly by such studies as the National Study on Youth and Religion.

I worry that we are not having deep and wide ranging conversations regarding the look and feel and values what the future of youth ministry might be.

Finally, I worry that Catholic Youth Ministry might have achieved Hysteresis. When discussing the job market this week, TIME magazine broken-light-bulbdefines Hysteresis as

… a word that you (and the rest of us) should hope we don’t hear too much of in the coming months. It comes from the Greek husteros, which means late. It refers to what happens when something snaps in such a way that it can never be put back together. Bend a plastic ruler too far, drop that lightbulb — that cracking sound you hear is the marker of hysteresis. There’s no way to restore what has just been smashed.

Am I right to be concerned regarding Catholic religious educators being in hysteresis as they might be possibly perceived as an aging field with minimal new incoming personnel and little new energy? Are Catholic Schools not that far behind? If Catholic youth ministry is not next, what is it that stimulates our field from survival mode into thriving?

3 Comments

  1. Scott,
    I think we’re making some changes in our parish to get families more involved rather than “just” doing youth ministry…

    Soon we will pilot “FYI”, Family/Youth Initiative, to get parents thinking about the type of Catholic young adult they hope their jr. high student will become. We plan to meet with families at key times of their student’s journey to discuss this, and to give parents tools for discussion and lots of food for thought!

    We plan to have some concurrent “youth group” meetings for parents so that they can get a taste of what their children are experiencing and have a chance to ask questions and just maybe share their own faith!

    We will send a weekly email newsletter to parents of high schoolers attending youth group giving some information on what we covered and providing them with some ways to enter into discussion with their young person.

    We are doing service projects in the larger community, going on a mission trip to Mexico with an intergenerational group from the parish, and all this doesn’t include our regular weekly programming!

    So, there is energy out there! Believe it!!

    Comment by Jodi Mott — Wednesday, September 16, 2009 @ 7:43 pm

  2. Youth ministry is often aproached more as a process than “RE” or parochial schooling. As such we often derive our energy from growth and movement (hopfully towards a well defined goal). Since we are often more relationship driven than theological or cateceticaly driving (not always true and not always a good thing) we experiance less “breaks” and more planed (hopefully) change. We move from Hysterisis to Transformation.

    Or we burn out and never want to approch a church again.

    Comment by Tony Vasinda — Thursday, September 24, 2009 @ 9:20 pm

  3. [...] faith formation be considered a stimulant? And, is the present system something that is part of something already broken within a culture already not feeling too positive as to how we are accomplishing our mission? Saint [...]

    Pingback by Catholic Youth Ministry Blog » Reheated Caffeine — Monday, January 4, 2010 @ 2:00 am

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