Whether we are a Director of Religious Education, a Coordinator of Youth Ministry or a Director of youth formation, what is our role? As ministers and not faculty, are we to educate our Catholic youth or is our mission to truly Catechize?

Lent is a trying time to be a Catholic. It is honestly like joining a gym just after New Year’s, where you find yourself easily amongst many who want to recommit themselves, however you can slip away just as easily. Ash Wednesday has the largest faithful attendance out of any celebration that is not a holy day of obligation, however how many hear the Gospel proclaimed the next Sunday? I think a part of it is that we want to display our ashes. Every Catholic wants to proclaim who they are without having to say anything out loud.

During the past month, a certain reality of the Christian identity has come up over and over again in my life. It was first discussed in our 2nd and 3rd grade religious education class and then I shared that part of the lesson with a friend. Next, one of our volunteers taught about it with joy and conviction during a presentation to the youth. Then it came up again in a new light a week later, talking about the kingdom of God during our Sunday and Wednesday middle school sessions.

Two weekends ago we had our first group of high school youth get Confirmed! It was so beautiful to see everything that they had been working towards and building up to come together.  They did a wonderful job in the various parts of the mass as ushers and readers. And then the moment of truth came: the Bishop began asking his question during the homily…And immediately three Confirmands answered beautifully. Crushed it.  Afterwards the Bishop remarked to several people how impressed he was with their answers and that he did not have to wait for someone to give an answer!

This past weekend was a busy one for the kingdom of God. Last Tuesday, we commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion a federally acceptable practice. This Saturday, landmark crowds were drawn to Washington, D.C., and other state capitals, to march for life. It is reported that over half a million witnesses spoke up for the Gospel of Life in D.C. I have heard glory stories of Christians that marched in Austin and speakers that passionately displayed the truth of God’s love.

In my past blog posts, I have talked about moments in my life that I see as God taking a two-by-four to my face. I had a similar moment a few weekends ago, but it was different then my other “Oh…whoa” moments. This one brought about a mixture of sadness and gratefulness.

Often in youth ministry, we get caught up in two extremes. We either focus on “teach, teach, teach” or on “praise, praise, praise”. What I hope that our ministries do is unite the teaching we do with different types of prayer and spirituality. While lifting our voice to the Lord in song through praise and worship has its time and place, it cannot define or fully reach the various spiritualities of our youth. As ministers, we absolutely must incorporate different styles of prayer in our regular catechetical nights.

The other day I was driving to meet up with an old friend and I found myself reflecting on the spirit of the new year. We’re barely over a week into 2013. I mean, it’s still like more of an idea than a reality at this point, but I have high hopes for it. 2012 was a good run, with ups and downs, and highs and lows, a good dose of life – but I’m excited for something new.   

I love Christmas. The degree of excitement that consumes me around this time of year comes really close to an overload, but that's ok. It’s just so much joy that my soul has trouble managing it. I love everything about Christmas: the giving of gifts, the traditions, the holiday movies, the music,  the lights on the houses, the smell of the tree, the wonder and innocence, the Christmas story…  the list goes on and on. But what I think I love most about Christmas is the way that God moves so beautifully and powerfully through this season, if you stop to look for it, that is.

So last week at Journey (our high school youth program) we talked about the Paschal Mystery, and how Jesus offered for us the Paschal sacrifice so that we could be with God for all of eternity. This upcoming week, we are going to be talking about the Passion and Resurrection of Christ (Merry Christmas?). As I was preparing for both of these topics, I felt the overwhelming feeling of God’s love, and let’s be honest, who could possibly read the Passion of Christ and not see the love of God. I took this to my personal prayer time, and I cannot express how happy I was.

As I was writing this entry, actually when I was trying to find a title, it occurred to me that this could be the beginning of a series of posts on essential components to youth formation. No matter what you call it, the ministry of Catechising The Church has essential components that you cannot (or should not) do without. Yes, the USCCB has done this already, but it might be fun to see how the ideas are borne out in real ministries.

This summer was a whirlwind of activity and trust in God’s will. It began with meeting with Matt to talk more in detail about CCFM and all that had happened while Kyle and I had been in Canada.  We were in the end work of obtaining non-profit status and Matt was beginning to set up meeting with churches that were interested in working with us. All of it involved a lot of trust in where God was leading us (and many trips from Houston to College Station). By the end of the summer we had non-profit status, three parishes, and six ministries!

Preface: For this post I need a background introduction so here is the prologue (is that what it’s called??) to this story: If you’ve read some of Matt’s post’s you’ll see that he talks about Kyle and I being gone for a year, so I thought I should explain that first. From August 26, 2011- June 1, 2012 I was serving as a missionary with NET Ministries of Canada. NET stand for National Evangelization Teams; it is a non-profit missionary organization who’s mission is to help young Catholics encounter Christ and embrace the life of the Church.

Spring of 2012 started with the intention of transitioning leadership at St. Joseph’s. I didn’t really know at first what exactly it was going to mean to transition. Obviously it meant that Matt was going to do less and I was going to do more as far as this particular ministry went. I was going to be handed more and more parts of St. Joseph’s, as Matt created more and more parts of CCFM.

There are too few real men out there. For some time, while remaining hopeful, I wasn't sure if I'd ever see the tide change. I never thought I'd see the day when there were more and more men willing to stand up for truth, take risks, and fight for beauty and life. Don't get me wrong, in no way do I think the tide has fully swung the other way, but it does seem as if we may have hit the low end of it and started coming back.

How do you know when a moment will alter your life plans and expectations forever? If anyone comes up with a witty philosophical answer then please let me know, because at the moment I have no idea. At least I didn’t recognize it when it came in the form of a pizza lunch with Matt Rice and Alyssa Trutter.

As my first post since I have joined CCFM, I must say that I am very excited where God has called me this year. I cannot fully explain how He has led me here without taking up many paragraphs, so in the interest of your time (and the scary chance you will stop reading my incredible words of wisdom), I won’t try today. I am also thrilled to have this opportunity to write about what God has done and continues to do everyday in our ministries and in our lives.

At some level, for us to have formed a non-profit youth formation ministry we have to believe that what we have to offer is good. On top of that, for us to hope that we will be hired to replace existing formation ministries in a parish we also have to believe that the service we offer would benefit a parish. However, no matter how well phrased the previous statements appear, the bottom line is that the people who were providing this service before we were hired hear the following statement: “we are better at forming youth than you are”.

It was the end of my sophomore year of college. Sarah Masters and I had each been volunteering with Matt Rice in the middle school youth program at St. Joseph’s in Bryan for over a year. We’d just finished all our youth nights for the spring and were transitioning into the summer. Matt said he wanted to take us to lunch. I just assumed this was to talk about the past semester and the retreat we’d had a few weeks prior, either that or to plan for the fall.  Matt, Sarah and I went to downtown Bryan, to Mr.

Starting new ministries in an unfamiliar parish is no easy task. In a dream world one would have several months to assess the culture and needs of a parish before they would even dream of deciding what to do. This is typically not the reality for most parishes or ministries.