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Category Archives: Featured

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“Sanctus” – new arrangement for music ministers

Over the past few years at our Life Teen events, we’ve tried to incorporate a greater variety of Mass parts for you to sing at your youth liturgies. This arrangement of the Sanctus or Holy is a great blend of the common plain chant form mixed with a modern instrumental arrangement. The arrangement was written [...]

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New Edge Products for the Feast of St. Dominic Savio

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March 9th marks the feast day for a saint that I have recently been introduced to: St. Dominic Savio. Dominic was an extraordinary young man of faith who died at the early age of 15. However, even from very early in his life, Dominic was prayerful and grew in virtue. He went to school and [...]

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Looking Through Rose Colored Glasses: The Joys of Ministry

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In a homily I recently heard, the priest told a story about being challenged to recognize how good things were. He told us that in the busyness of trying to juggle everything it was easy to miss that the Lord’s goodness was abundant. It’s not a stretch to see how easy that is to do [...]

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Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving: Keep It Simple

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One of the first and best pieces of advice I learned early on as a high school journalist was K.I.S.S. — Keep it simple, stupid. I am going to propose the same for this Lenten season. Keep it simple.

In her beauty, the Church seems to always find a way to keep it simple for us — seven sacraments, five precepts, you name it. With Lent, it’s also quite simple. Three things: prayer, fasting, almsgiving.

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Multi-Generational Core Teams

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Communication can be just one of the challenges when working with a multi-generational Core Team. Teaching and learning styles, work ethic, conveying expectations and affirmation all need to be managed in different ways. No matter when you were born, it can be intimidating to mentor and manage a generation younger or older than you. However, when you understand how to communicate, clearly articulate your expectations, encourage ongoing formation in Core’s spirituality and religious study, aid them in teaching this current generation with various techniques while affirming them in ways that speak to their gifts and talents, you will not only have a stronger Core Team, you will have stronger teens with a deeper relationship with Christ.

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Who’s Your Jeremy Lin?

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If you’ve turned on your TV at all in the past few weeks, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve heard the name Jeremy Lin, especially if you watch ESPN. Standing 6 feet, 3 inches tall, weighing 200 pounds, Jeremy Lin is the starting point guard for the New York Knicks. But it wasn’t always this [...]

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Music From the 2012 Winter Training Conference

The 2012 Life Teen Training Conference just wrapped up in Indialantic, Florida at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church. What an amazing group of Priests, Youth Ministers, CORE Members and Musicians who came from all over the United States and Canada to go deeper into their understanding of Youth Ministry and our Lord. The view [...]

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Why I Believe in Quality Resources

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Every four months something glorious happened at my parish. I would unsuspectingly enter the youth ministry office in the morning to find something that would radically redefine the next several months. Amidst the piles of permission forms, half-written talks, and empty boxes of pizza it appeared like a colorful beacon of hope in an otherwise dreary and cluttered office:

The Life Support Box (cue angelic choir).

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These 40 Days of Lenten Music

In just over a week we enter into the sacred season of Lent. Forty days of fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and a call in this “Year of Faith” proclaimed by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, to strengthen our faith and to help strengthen the faith of others. So what will change? In our own lives, [...]

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Going Deeper, Part 4: Discipleship

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In the same way, we can model our youth ministry after the way that Jesus modeled his ministry. In youth ministry we offer programs, resources, Life nights, methods, conferences, rallies, mission trips, etc. All of these things only take us so far with teens. The heart of effective evangelization, catechesis, and the purification of youth culture is in discipleship – mentoring teens in personal relationships. People learn the faith from the example and witness of other people.