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Category Archives: Featured

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God, Are You Listening?

By | April 3, 2012
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God always answers our prayers – There are three answers that He can give us: Yes, No, and Not Now. The hardest one for us to ever hear is “No.” I remember my parents telling me “No” many times as a child. It was hard to accept because I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do. As I grew up, I came to realize that it is because they knew what was best for me. It’s the same way with God. He knows what we need, when we need it. If we don’t need it, the answer is “No.” This is also true when our prayers are for others. He knows what everyone needs, when they need it.

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Preparing for Holy Week

By | March 29, 2012
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Rejoice! We’re getting so close to the greatest celebrations of our Church: Holy Week and Easter! For me, and many others that work in the Church, this is definitely the busiest time of the year. From practicing with music groups to putting scripts together, right down to making sure the cleaning people will be straightening [...]

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Introducing a Brand New Summer Camp!

By | March 28, 2012

You may have already heard about our brand new Edge and Life Teen Summer Camp: Covecrest – Hiawassee, Georgia. Maybe you heard about summer camp selling out so quickly at our other locations. Or maybe you are thinking about registering at this new camp. You could already be registered. But, how much do you really [...]

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The Forgotten Sacrament

By | March 26, 2012

In recent years, unfortunately, the Sacrament of Penance has turned into the forgotten sacrament of the Catholic Church. The confessional has been abandoned by large numbers, and now only a few make regular use of this Sacrament of God’s mercy. As a consequence of this, people are losing their sense of sin and teens are growing up without this awesome gift. If we do not help make them aware of sin or imperfections in their lives, they will see no need to go to confession.

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The Challenge to Change

By | March 22, 2012
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In the past couple of months, I have been challenged in ways that I didn’t think would ever be possible. However, that isn’t even the strangest part. The person that has been bringing those challenges my way is what has been the most surprising. As a youth minister, it is easy to fall into complacency [...]

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Catholisizing our Everyday Speech

By | March 21, 2012
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Sometimes it drives me crazy to hear the words coming from people’s mouths in ministry. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been corrected by others and have learned that the words I say really do matter. They can make a difference.

As youth ministers we have to believe this especially as we read WORDS in Scripture, listen to WORDS from homilies, talks, and teachings, sing WORDS to praise songs, and finally pray WORDS aloud at Mass, Life nights, or one-on-one. Call it consistency or advocacy, I’ve found that the more we are intentional with our words the better we will be serving in God’s ministry.

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Multi-Generational Core: Commitment

By | March 19, 2012
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Commitment! This word takes on different meanings in every generation. Some people fear it; some embrace it with their entire being. In ministry it is something that we struggle with a lot: teen’s commitment, Core Team’s commitment, staff commitment, even our commitment. When you start talking about everyones different levels of commitment it’s tempting to end up doing what Generation iY does and take some anxiety medication to feel better about our responsibility or lack there of.

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Community or Bust!

By | March 15, 2012
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10 years ago today, we signed the papers to purchase Life Teen Camp Covecrest in Tiger, GA. I can still remember the excited feeling of our owning a camp, and the sinking feeling of hoping that our obedience to God to purchase the camp wouldn’t lead to a huge dose of humility if it didn’t [...]

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How Often Do You Catch Teens Doing Something Right?

By | March 13, 2012
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As Youth Ministers and Core Team members, it’s vital that we walk daily with the teens we minister to. Sometimes that may mean catching them doing something wrong and lovingly correcting their behavior. But how often do we catch them doing something right? Imagine what our ministries could look like.

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Kony 2012 and Your Teens

By | March 9, 2012
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Teens want to be engaged in changing the world. For most of us in youth ministry this isn’t a surprise. We’ve seen how compassionate teens can be and how much time and energy they are willing to give to something they believe in. Most of the world (or at least, most of my parish), however, doesn’t see this.

They believe teens to be self-centered adolescents who care only about their immediate circle of friends and family and frequently make poor decisions. The Kony 2012 campaign serves to remind all of us of the incredible capacity for empathy that teenagers have and how hard they are willing to fight (even in the face of criticism) for a cause they believe is worthy.