Good News!  We remain a people of hope!

Despite recent postings regarding the “Nones” and concerns regarding if Newsweek ever did a cover story on us, we remain reminded that we are yet still on our way.

This is how the Holy Father stated it in yesterday’s papal audience (h/t Rocco) – -

“At this point maybe it’s useful to say that even today exist visions by which the history of the church in the second millennium was one of permanent decline; some see this decline beginning shortly after the New Testament. In reality, “Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt,” the work of Christ never recedes, but progresses. What would the church be without the new spirituality of the Cistercians, the Franciscans and Dominicans, the spirituality of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, and so forth? Even today merits this affirmation: “Opera Christi non deficiunt, sed proficiunt,” they work continues. St Bonaventure teaches us both a necessary, even severe, discernment in sober realism and an opening to the new charisms given by Christ, in the Holy Spirit, to his church. And while this idea of decline repeats itself, there’s also the opposite idea, this “spiritualistic utopianism,” that is likewise repeated.

Or as the theologian Tim Allen once said, “Never Give Up, Never Surrender.”

So, I have been looking forward to this for quite a while.  Today, I am doing a workshop entitled Reaching Youth Through Technology  at the Parish Technology Summit sponsored by Villanova University’s Center for the Study of Church Management.

That’s Villanova, as in ranked #8 in college men’s b-ball, but, more importantly (to me) as in Philadelphia or (to me) where I started in Catholic Youth Ministry . . . some thirty-four years ago and where I have not professionally worked since 1980.

Despite predictions of Phlly version of another Snowpocolypse, I’ve taken the flip cameras so we might be posting video clips in the next few days. But, today, both for you, the blog reader, but also for the workshop participants, I’m posting up the handout, the power-point and my sources. 

We will be back up after morning prayer sometime after 9am pacific time…  This one should be an intersting session… Are we organizationally built for success?

Roy Petitfils recently blog about his experiences with wallahs and called for us to become youth wallahs. He graciously gave permission to reprint it here.

About ten years ago I did mission work in Calcutta, India. One day as I was walking to my work site I noticed a man cooking on the sidewalk as a small crowd gathered around him.  

Never one to let ministry get in the way of food, I walked over for a closer look. Behind a steadily growing number of fan-customers stood a thin, dark, shirtless man holding a steaming pot high in the air. He began pouring a three-foot stream of milkish-brown liquid through a sieve into another pot. “What’s this?” I asked a stranger next to me. “Chai!” he said, and pointing to the man, “Chai-Wallah.”    

Sensing that I wasn’t sufficiently impressed he went on, “Chai-wallah is very important to our culture.” I found that hard to believe. Here was a guy who didn’t deem it necessary to get dressed this morning, yet he’s the bedrock of the world’s second largest country?

I would soon learn the importance of this seemingly common vendor. For starters, they are everywhere—train stations, street corners, store fronts—anywhere the people are, there too is the chai-wallah.

Serving chai is more than a job for them, as most feel they are born to brew chai.   Each chai-wallah takes great pride in perfecting  their own unique blend of tea, spice and milk. There are as many different chai-wallahs as there are unique combinations of these three ingredients.

And while each chai-wallah is distinct, what they hold in common is even greater. As a whole they nurture over a billion people with their stimulating caffeinated nectar. They could earn more money by making and selling other products, such as biscuits or clay cups. Instead, they focus on perfecting their chai, and leave the biscuits to the biscuit-wallah and cups to the cup-wallah.   

In their wisdom the Hindus bestow the name wallah upon a person who combines skill, personality and passion  to perform a specific task that nurtures the whole of society. In doing so they anchor them within their culture, honor their unique contribution and insure the longevity of their service.  

Could we do the same for those who work with kids? What difference would it make if those who offer their lives in service to young people were validated like that of an Indian wallah? What if we regarded teachers, youth ministers and volunteers as Youth-Wallahs whose unique gifts, style and passion sustain our younger generations and nurture their growing faith? 

This would be a seismic cultural shift. We would start by no longer regarding the youth worker as a  babysitter who looks after the “future church.” It would mean that we embrace the reality of a youth-wallah who bridges a widening generational crevasse between the Young and Adult Church, making it possible for each to receive the other’s gift.

If a culture can do that for a guy who serves tea, can’t we do that for the one who serves our kids?

Just in case you may have missed noticing, Matt Maher has a new CD available called Alive Again.

You called and you shouted
broke through my deafness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!

You shattered my darkness
washed away my blindness
now I’m breathing in
and breathing out
I’m alive again!

I was excited to hear that Matt is touring with Michael W Smith, with one of the concerts two-and-a-half hours away…  tempting!  Two classy Christians!

“It was not like a trailer park around here. I mean, it’s set up that way with the streets and how the trailers are, but the trailers themselves were not the same,” she said. “They were very, very old and rundown and should have been decommissioned a long time ago. And within that trailer park there was a trailer that they called the Catholic Center. The Catholic Church owns their own trailer in the Hispanic community.  Read more here.

BRISBANE, AUS — Archbishop John Bathersby launched “Come, Walk in the Light” on Pentecost Sunday. This is an initiative designed to support and grow the faith of young people throughout Brisbane archdiocese.  He included a video message where he expressed his desire to “strengthen my relationship with you who are the Church of the present and the future”.  Read more here.

In the ‘burbs of DC, we find the Starbucks league…

SILVER SPRING, MD — Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy knows of a pulsating “mad house” just off New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring. But McCarthy has no plans of breaking up this youth hangout. In fact he’s a regular there during basketball season.
In an intramural youth basketball league at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, youngsters have a place to work on their burgeoning basketball skills while parents work on their social skills. Affectionately called the “Starbucks League” after the game day coffee sold by eighth-grade students from the church’s school, the league celebrated its 40th anniversary this month. “Usually, parents drop off their kids and leave. … Here, they stay.” Read more here.

Have you started your promos for NCYC like they have in Minnesota???

ST. PAUL, MN — Steve Grass, director of youth social and outreach ministries at St. John Neumann in Eagan, said he will be taking about 10 parish youth. St. John Neumann views it as leadership training and covers about 90 percent of the trip cost. Youth come back and take on more leadership roles, he said. One shy teen who went to the 2007 NCYC in Columbus, Ohio, “became one of our most active youth and a go-to leader,” Grass said.
But more important, he said, “Their faith has grown by leaps and bounds.” The conference includes a variety of workshops and prayer experiences, liturgies, adoration, reconciliation, music, entertainment and opportunities to connect with other youth.
Bill Casey, a member of the archdiocesan Parish Services Team, who focuses on youth ministry, said another draw is that some of the best Catholic musicians from across the country will be at the conference. “Young people who are not used to listening to Catholic contemporary  music are amazed at the good music and the good message some of this music has,” Casey said  Read more here.

As they graduate,our responsibilities and service to young people need not stop…

CHICAGO, IL — SerraUSA’s College Connection Program is designed to connect incoming college freshmen with the Catholic presence on or near their campus with the goal of helping them stay active in their faith into young adulthood and be open to hearing God’s call to serve the Church. Over 50 Serra Clubs across the nation are participating in the program this year. The clubs’ members coordinate with their local Catholic high schools and parishes to obtain the names of graduating seniors and provide them with information about the Catholic presence at their college of choice. Read more here.