Walk into most Catholic Churches today and take a look around. How many teenagers do you see in the pews? Where are they? How do we find them and bring them into a more active life in the Church? Well, the answer many times lies in the hearts of the teens themselves. They are the ones who are best able to reach out to their friends and invite them.
Our experience in Life Teen has been that those teens who have built a solid faith foundation and have gone deeper in their spiritual journey are the ones who can best reach out to their peers. They are also the ones who will be leading our church tomorrow. Simply put, they are the disciples Jesus will use to reach out to the world. So the challenge for us is to not only build a youth ministry which reaches out to all teens on a certain level, but to also provide a deeper and more challenging experience for those who are ready to take on a more significant role – that of being a true disciple. As we see it, disciples are today’s Christian leaders.