We have now completed our annual tour of the States of Youth Ministry.  If there were ever to be an hyperlinked version of the tour t-shirt, it might look a little like this:

The tour continues elsewhere over in the British Isles.  It is a dream to continue this sort of effort on the blog up in Canada and/or over in Australia/ New Zealand… but we are going to need “in country” partners. If interested, drop me a line, please!

Our alphabetic road tour ends differently this year, last year Wyoming was not the end of the road.

+ Not much listed from Cheyenne, but Bishop Etienne has blogged up his Confirmation Homily and has also offered reflections from the Confirmation circuit

We will recap the whole trip Monday!

We return to Wisconsin, which is more than Brett Favre ever might do again for long-term employment.

+ Green Bay offers a parish youth ministry locator service on its site.

+ Lacrosse makes use of the drop-down menu in web design.  Do you like this on web-sites? Me… not so sure.

+ The logo for the rEVOLution of Love in Madison might seem familiar to longtime readers of this blog (or supporters of Ron Paul’s political campaigns.)

+ Milwaukee offers both volleyball and basketball.

+ The “Youth Plan” is an assessment tool to help Superior parishes identify what youth ministry efforts are already in place in a parish/cluster and to determine what steps should be taken to continue building and improving youth ministry efforts.

Cowboy up, folks, we finish this ten week tour tomorrow in ….

All right, two Carolina’s, two Dakota’s, two Virginia’s… We got to celebrate the two Washington’s as well. Of course, last year we visited both the state and the district separately, but we will now visited them both… you guessed it, two-by-two

+ More buttons on the Seattle site… serves as a great visual menu!

+ We forgot Spokane last year, but, maybe not.  A google search of the site did not offer much to see catholic youth ministry-wise there…

+ While over in Yakima, we find Guidelines for Quinceaneras in Spanish

+ Mixed Messages is a series of chastity presentations being offered by Washington, D.C. 

+ Great picture of young people blessing their Archbishop on the cover of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA site.  Sweet!

We are getting closer and closer to the end of the tour folks…

Still in the doubling-up mode, but actually breaking from alphabetical order to do it! I know, I know, last year, Virginia and West Virginia were days apart, but here they are together… Ohhh, the chaos!

+ There is a side column with upcoming events (with attached mini-images) on the Arlington site. Nice visual (branding) effect.

+ Richmond offered a set of F.A.Q.’s (and answers!) related to Confirmation preparation.

+ The youth conference for Wheeling – Charleston recently moved off the Thanksgiving weekend to earlier in November.

We will resume alphabetical order tomorrow with Washington.

When I sing the Alphabet Song (what of it, don’t you still do it?), it seems I come to the near end of it all and mumble “U & V” together to sound like “You envy.” And after last year’s visit to Utah and Vermont what’s not to be jealous all over?  Beautiful areas of the country to minister in, my friends.

+ Salt Lake has a rare set of links related to contests.

+ The Office of Catholic Formation in Burlington coordinates events including Vermont Catholic Youth Conference, pilgrimages to the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., Middle School Rallies, and Mount 2000 and Beyond Retreats.

There was a combination of two state groupings…  but this was a unique match-up, I think.

So, here we are for a second day of visiting the Lone Star state – exhausted from reviewing seven dioceses yesterday, we are finishing it off by visiting eight today. Here we go:

+ I really like the calendar buttons on the Fort Worth page – it’s very visual

+ CYM Connect offers Galveston – Houston Youth Ministry Leaders the chance to connect with the peers from throughout the Archdiocese for prayer, discussion of Youth ministry topics and networking.

+ Laredo is without a director, but lists Ruben Garza as secretary

+ Unsure if Lubbockians are served by either LubbockCatholicYouth or Catholic Lubbock

+ For at least the second year running, we could not find anything youth ministry-friendly in San Angelo.

+ They place a value on formation in San Antonio.

+ In Tyler, they need to update their site from last fall.

+ NET ministries comes to Victoria for D-Week (D for Discipleship)

See you again Monday!

Yikes, there are so many dioceses in Texas, that, last year, we offered a Texas posting, then one with More Texas, and then further explored Deep Into the Heart of Texas.  We start again today and see how long this year’s tour will take.

+ Amarillo has established Covenant Teen, a virtual Catholic youth organization communicating through newsletters and other means of communication.

+ In Austin, you can find extensive synopsis of Renewing the Vision

+ Beaumont offers links to blog postings from the recent HS conference

+ One of the services listed in Brownville is the annual Diocesan Altar Servers Mass

+ The Diocesan Youth Ministry Steering Committee in Corpus Christi assists the Office in meeting the growing needs of youth ministry through assessing needs, setting goals, objectives, and strategies.

+ Maybe a bit late to tell you now for this summer, but you might want the Vacation Bible School Toolkit related to adolescent involvement that Dallas put together.

+ How Safe Is Your Youth Ministry is a resource prepared by the good people of El Paso.

Come back tomorrow for more from the Lone Star state.

Wow, the letter T. This little tour is moving along alphabetical-like. We are at the 20th letter and the 42nd state.  Here’s a reminder of our previous visit, and here we go!

+ Bishop Stika of Knoxville has a video greeting for young adults right up front.

+ Here’s hoping that they never have to be used, but Accident Report Forms are available from Memphis.

+ Attention, Greg Walton!  This fall, when you play at Nashville’s youth rally and the concert afterwards, please allow your fellow headliner to share the stage. Mike Patin does play a mean back-up cow bell.  Thanks, Greg.  I ask this on behalf of the children.

It’s another two-stater, three diocese day.  Last year, we visited South Carolina and South Dakota separately, but we are grouping them together this year.

+ Charleston, as of this writing on July 23, had recently added a hit counter to what seems to be a new index / home page and the count was 21.  Show them so love and pay a visit and let’s see if we can boost that up.

+ Rapid City Doug Tooke will be visiting with Middle Schoolers in this fall.

+ Sioux Falls just returned from Steubenville North in St. Paul, Minneapolis