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The Catholic YM Blog has been referred to as "the 411 of Catholic Youth Ministry." Your blogger is D. Scott Miller, director of the Division of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Archdiocese of Baltimore... Read more...
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14Apr, 2010
“You are not visitors in mom and dad’s or Father’s Church. This is your Church. It’s your responsibility to stake your claim in it. ”
In this video and blog post, Roy Petitfils jumps in rather enthusiastically with his opinion regarding youth and their role as the future of the Church.
But, if we really, REALLY believed that youth are a part of the church now and were destined to be the Church of the future…
… what would we / SHOULD WE be doing differently in service towards that vision?
And, spare a chair or few in the process…
Posted in: Soapbox | | Comments (4)
Good point, I also wonder if young people really really did stake their claim in it most of the church would have a fit. But it would be amazing. I think sometimes my job if to let young people part way through the door of leadership, but not to far. Maybe we need to be sort of a church within a church and let them shape that?
Comment by Paul Tilley — Wednesday, April 14, 2010 @ 2:47 am
Paul – I sometimes wonder if we only let youth in “part of the way” for safety’s sake -and not for the safety of the kids but the adult church.
Comment by Scott — Wednesday, April 14, 2010 @ 6:30 am
I have a dream that those teens sitting and listening will be the ones jumping on chairs CLAIMING their Church. It seems the harder we try as a faith to catechize youth (panicking because we aren’t doing it well enough) it ends up having a similar look to this video: adults with great messages– Truth!– top-down to and for teens, not WITH and BY teens. That part is easy. Getting teens to have the ears to hear, and then the empowerment to themselves stand on chairs, THAT is the challenge of good catechetical youth ministry.
Comment by Kevin Driscoll — Wednesday, April 14, 2010 @ 9:31 am
Great point Paul–I think it could be dangerous for young people to “stake” their claim without a buffer–without an adult who can help serve as translator (for both adults and youth)–and yes Scott, I do believe we let them in “part of the way” for their safety’s sake.
Kevin–that’s such a great point. I was pumped when I looked at the RFP for the Search Institute’s Conf in Houston where they made a point to request speaker teams of youth and adults. Any ideas how that might look?
Great article in the NWIC about the “Top 10 Challenges–On Their Own Behalf”. Kudos to you and the DYC. One quote stands out “Our challenge was to take those challenges and process them through the lens of the Church. We wanted to take something secular and make it sacred.” Thanks for your ministry!
Comment by Roy Petitfils — Wednesday, April 14, 2010 @ 10:05 pm