About

What Is Youth Ministry?

The Youth Ministry program seeks to guide young people to LEARN about their Catholic faith so they can LIVE a Christian life of LOVE for God and Neighbor. Like all catechesis, our goal is an understanding of the faith that leads to conversion. [1]

More than merely a class that teaches information about Catholicism, the Youth Ministry programs seeks to make disciples by: [2]

1.          Empowering young people to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in our world today.

2.          Drawing young people to responsible participation in the life, mission and work of the Catholic faith community.

3.          Fostering the total personal and spiritual growth of each young person .

The Youth Ministry program, which is guided by the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church and the directives of Archbishop Brunett, seeks to accomplish the Six Tasks of Catechesis: [3]

-       Knowledge of the faith

-       Liturgical formation

-       Moral Formation

-       Formation in Prayer

-       Education in Community Life

-       Initiation into mission

This is accomplished by creating a comprehensive youth program, which ministers to all the youth in the community, and addresses each youth as a whole person.  “Comprehensive” means that Youth Ministry is not just a class on Sunday evening, but a whole ministry that pervades the entire parish. Our ministry to young people is carried out in many ways: retreats, service projects, social opportunities, participating in wider parish activities, and much more.  All these activities

What is Youth Group?

Youth Group is one part of a larger Youth Ministry Program (see the reverse for explanation). The Youth Group is a weekly meeting of High School age youth on Sunday evenings and Middle School aged youth on Monday evening.

Each youth group meeting is a high energy and fast paced event providing age appropriate catechesis and evangelization. Youth Group is not about memorizing religious trivia or endless work out of a book; rather we learn about the faith and seek to understand how it affects our daily lives. Youth Group is about encountering the Living Christ is a very real way.

Each Youth night is organized roughly in this fashion:

Welcome

-          Welcoming the teens as they arrive

-          Play a short game or activity

Pray

-          Prepares the youth—both spiritually and psychologically—for the Gospel that will be proclaimed next.

-          About 10-15 minutes long

Proclaim & Explain

-          a concise explanation of the doctrine

-          kerygmatic—has power to convert

-          Multi-sensory and age appropriate

-          Good pedagogical method (eg addressing multiple intelligences)

-          usually done by the Youth Minister

Connect

-          Either a short (5min) witness (personal story) from a Core Member or Junior Core member about how the doctrine has affected their life OR a story about a saint in relation to the doctrine.

Apply

-          Seeks to answer the question “How does this affect my life?”

-          we don’t want them to just passively listen—we want them to engage

-          usually done in small groups

Break/snack

-          Addresses felt need of teens to socialize and eat food.

-          Social opportunity with games, music, etc.

-          Opportunity for relational ministry

Closing Prayer

-          Celebrate the doctrine (in the liturgical sense)

-          Prayerfully close the night

-          More active, and co-operative

-          Should inspire and “send forth”

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[1] “Catechesis aims therefore at developing understanding of the mystery of Christ in the light of God’s word, so that the whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word. Changed by the working of grace into a new creature, the Christian thus sets himself to follow Christ and learns more and more within the Church to think like Him, to judge like Him, to act in conformity with His commandments, and to hope as He invites us to.

To put it more precisely: within the whole process of evangelization, the aim of catechesis is to be the teaching and maturation stage, that is to say, the period in which the Christian, having accepted by faith the person of Jesus Christ as the one Lord and having given Him complete adherence by sincere conversion of heart, endeavors to know better this Jesus to whom he has entrusted himself: to know His “mystery,” the kingdom of God proclaimed by Him, the requirements and promises contained in His Gospel message, and the paths that He has laid down for anyone who wishes to follow Him.

It is true that being a Christian means saying “yes” to Jesus Christ, but let us remember that this “yes” has two levels: It consists in surrendering to the word of God and relying on it, but it also means, at a later stage, endeavoring to know better – and better the profound meaning of this word.”Pope John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae #20

[2] Renewing the Vision: A Framework For Catholic Youth Ministry. USCCB. 1994; Washington DC.

[3] General Directory for Catechesis, #85-86