Starting New Ministries

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.
My first experience of starting a new ministry happened while I was studying to achieve my Master of Divinity degree. One of the requirements was a ministry practicum, basically that means a year spent in actual ministry. We went through an interview process and a small inner city parish ended up opening up an extra spot for me. This was a Latino parish located in “Back of the Yards” in Chicago. At that time the church was situated in the vicinity of several gangs and/or “party crews”.  So the question was “What is this white guy from the suburbs going to do for ministry here?”
I was able to take my time and assess what could possibly work. This particular practicum allowed me time to just be with the youth and attend their "open gym" on Monday nights. This was a safe place for the youth to come, do homework, and play some basketball etc… without all of the worries of the streets or home.
I spent the first couple of months just getting to know the youth and hanging out. Nice, huh? Then it came time to actually do something and I was still at a loss. I ran through my brain of all of the things that I had done at previous ministries and couldn’t really come up with what I would call a winner. So I put together a leadership team to help discern what could work. We went through several different ideas but landed on a Sunday bible study after Mass. Of course as any good youth minister would do we had food, and to be honest some of the best tacos I’ve ever had (they were made just around the corner at a local store).
I’d like to say that the bible study was a perfect success, but in my first meeting I realized that this was going to be a much different ministry than I expected. We read the Gospel out loud and I asked everyone there what they heard, what it meant to them……Crickets……No one made a peep. So we broke it down further and read just a couple of verses……Crickets……Again not a sound. I started out the bible study nervous, but by this time all I can hear in my head is “Failure, Failure, Failure!” I tried again this time just reading one verse and finally someone raised their hand. The question that came floored me “What does steward mean?” I felt like a jerk. This wasn’t a ministry that was going to dive into deep theological thought; it was a ministry of making The Word accessible to a population that was underserved by their public school system.
What does this story have to do with what CCFM is doing now? It taught me an important lesson. Being attentive to those with whom you serve is invaluable. We have to see ourselves as not having the right answer and knowing all, but as a people who allow our experience to inform and shape our current ministries in context with the people with whom we serve.
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