I had lunch with two youth ministers from a local parish last week and there was something that they said that struck me. These youth ministers work at one of the larger parishes in our Archdiocese and have the reputation of running one of the most successful youth ministries. The conversation went something like this:

Me: How many teens receive the Sacrament of Confirmation each year at your parish?

Me: What?! 80%?! How did you manage that?!

This parish has been intentional, for several years, of developing discipleship groups with teens – small groups of teens that meet regularly to learn the faith and follow the example of an adult core member. The Core members disciple teens through Bible studies, fellowship and community, service projects etc. They have been intentional about shrinking their ministry down to small groups and because of this, they are reaching more teens with the Gospel than they ever had before.

Discipleship: Started by Jesus

Discipleship is nothing new. Jesus had the intention of spreading the Gospel to both Jews and Gentiles all over the world. But he did not do this Himself. It is true that he had a large healing ministry, and he traveled around Judea meeting different people. At times, he had thousands of followers and he had over 70 who were relatively faithful followers of His. However, he put all of His attention on 12 men.

In Ancient time, if invited by a Rabbi, a Jew would live with a Rabbi for a number of years to learn from his way of life. The Jew would not only learn from the teaching of the Rabbi, he would learn from everything the Rabbi did. Jesus was the Rabbi of the 12 apostles. They learned from the way that he woke up every morning and started His day, from the way He approached prayer, from the way He handled conflict and the way that He taught and interacted with people. It was these 12 men who spread the Gospel all over the world. Jesus had a small group ministry. He trained others to do the work that He hoped to accomplish.

Discipleship: In a Youth Ministry Model

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.

The first goal of any youth ministry should be personal holiness and spreading holiness to our adult leaders. Holiness and faith should then be modeled to the teens and the best way to do this is in personal relationships. For any youth ministry wishing to go deeper – discipleship requires us to select the teens who have potential to go deeper and mentor them in the faith through one-on-one regular communication or small group development.

Youth groups that do an excellent job in fostering vocations, preparing teens to live their faith in college and keeping upperclassman invested all spend a lot of time focusing on a small group of teens. The final step with teens is sending them out to recruit and disciple others, so that the Gospel spreads.

“Just Get 2” – The FOCUS Model

When I was in graduate school, Curtis Martin – the Founder of Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) – came and guest lectured in our class. FOCUS is the most successful college campus ministry organization in the world and it is rapidly growing throughout the United States. Curtis spoke about the goal of, “just getting two.”

He teaches his missionaries to each focus all of their attention on developing relationships with two college students. Through those relationships, the missionary would evangelize, catechize and prepare the college student to be sent out to serve the Church. Those two college students would recruit two more students each and next thing you know, the ministry grows. Curtis Martin said that they figured out, with this approach, they could reach an enormous amount of college students within 20 years.

The idea of discipleship remains the same through the centuries. Instead of focusing on inspiring many teens, focus most of your attention on a few. With those small group of teens, prepare them to be evangelists and strong in their faith. By doing that, you multiply your outreach exponentially and the Gospel spreads.

The Challenge of Depth

Youth Ministry is a challenging field and there is so much work to be done for His Kingdom, we can forget the most important thing – developing and sustaining souls in their relationship with Jesus Christ. If we create ministries that are a mile wide but an inch deep – we are not building up the Church. It may be easy to create enthusiasm in a lot of teens. However, if we do not develop their intellect, prayer lives and lead them to make sustained choices for Christ, we risk sending them to college where they will lose their faith after one class with a liberal professor or one fraternity party on a Saturday night.

Depth takes time, patience and a sustained, personal effort into the lives of the teens. We cannot sustain the Church in the future without developing the young Church today.

The role of the Food Service Coordinator is primarily one of Missionary Service. Participating in the life of the community as much as the timing of their job allows, the Food Service Coordinator joins in morning prayer, weekday Mass at least once a week, weekly Life Teen Holy Hour, as well as keeping a steady personal prayer life.

Some of the Responsibilities of the Food Service Coordinator are:

• Making Menus

• Taking Inventories

• Ordering food and supplies – working with Food Reps/Vendors to maintain equipment and secure best pricing

• Keeping records to track food costs per person

• Receiving food orders and managing fridge/freezer/storage

• Cooking meals for all weekend groups, Life Teen Events at Covecrest, and occasional weekday groups

• Overseeing Missionaries and Volunteers who help serve meals

• Keeping the Kitchen and Dining Room in order and clean to receive guests with radical hospitality

• Time management to have meals ready to serve on time

• Summer Camp Meal planning

• Ordering/Cooking/Cleanup for 900+ meals a day plus coordinating snacks for Parish Pow Wows during Summer Camp

• Coordinating scheduling of Service Crew and overseeing them in the kitchen, as well as walking with them/mentoring them throughout the summer

St. Marguerite d’Youville in Lawerenceville GA is looking for a creative and energetic Youth Minister to coordinate about 100 youth in a vibrant EDGE middle school ministry and a growing Life Teen High School ministry. This position is also responsible for coordinating the preparation for the Sacrament of Confirmation. The ideal candidate is a practicing Catholic on fire for the Lord with a degree in theology, psychology, education, sociology or other relevant field, and has Catechist certification (or actively working toward certification), hands-on experience leading or co-leading a Catholic youth ministry program preferably using the Life Teen model. This is a part-time salaried staff position. Please send letter of interest and resume to youthministry@stmdy.com or mail to Nicole Hartman, St. Marguerite d’Youville Church, 85 Gloster Rd, Lawerenceville GA 30044.

As many of you know, last week we not only launched our Events Website, but also registration for the Catholic Youth Ministry Training Convention, the Life Teen Leadership Conference, and all three Life Teen Steubenville Youth Conferences.

Registration is coming along nicely for each, but I wanted you to be aware of one conference that is seeing higher than normal activity. The Life Teen Leadership Conference is already over half sold out! Please register for that today so you do not miss out on the chance to attend!

Speaking of selling out, we are close to having zero spots left for camp! Only a hundred or so remain for both Covecrest – Hiawassee in Georgia and Tepeyac in Arizona. Register for those today so your teens can experience the best week of their life.

Happy Tuesday! Let me know how I can help in anyway.

As a Servant Leadership Team (SaLT) Missionary you will plan, prepare, and lead Confirmation, team building, and leadership retreats for groups from churches and schools in the Diocese of Madison and beyond. Missionaries also facilitate groups participating in the Environmental Stewardship Program and are truly the front-lines of our mission here at camp during the school year. We also invite Missionaries to join us as part of our staff for the summer camp season, June through August. Be sure to check out this video about Camp Gray and our year-round programs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPPcKSOolA0

Key words: Volunteer, New Evangelization, Service, Youth Ministry, Outdoors Ministry, Teaching the Faith, Young Adult

I can remember being a pretty adventurous kid growing up. And when I say adventurous, I mean I loved exploring in the woods at the end of our street, building forts, wadding waist deep through the gulley trying to catch crawfish and “hunting” little birds with my BB gun. My childhood was one “adventure” after another. I would wake early on Saturday mornings to go sit in a tree to “hunt.” In looking back, I’m not really sure what I was hunting for or why I sitting in a tree. At the time, age 6, it made perfect sense.

But living adventures and exploring through the woods, all came to a sudden halt when I would hear a whistle. You see, it didn’t matter how deep in the woods I was or if I was in the middle of a basketball game at a neighbor’s house. When I heard that whistle, I had better stop what I was doing and get home. You see, when dad needed me or when he wanted me to come home, he’d stand on our driveway and whistle. It was a very distinctive whistle. And it meant, stop what you’re doing and get home. I always had to be aware of that whistle; be listening for it. Didn’t matter if I didn’t hear it; if he’d whistle and I didn’t come home, I was going to be in trouble.

The other night, I put both of my kids on their knees for not listening when I told them to come home from the neighbor’s yard. Their response wasn’t immediate and I want them to learn that listening to dad is important.

God’s been “whistling” to me lately. And in seeking His voice and making sure it is Him talking, He brought me to the night that Jay and Cecilia got put on their knees for not responding to dad’s voice. And then He brought up my memories of my dad whistling.

When dad calls us, we must discern that call to make sure it is really Him calling. But discernment isn’t enough, once we recognize that it is His voice, we must respond. We have to move. This is why prayer is so important to our everyday lives. It is in prayer that we begin to know the voice of the Father. It’s amazing to me that in a crowded room, full of noisy kids, you’re children recognize your voice when you call. It’s because they know you, and they know your voice.

Our relationship with God must be the same. We must always be listening for His whistle.

• Are you listening for His whistle?
• Do you know His voice?
• Do you hear the small “whistle” in your life?
• Are you carving out time each day to listen?

When we do these things, it becomes easier to recognize God’s voice and it can speed up our discernment, since we already know Dad’s voice – it’s easier to recognize it.

Hear His voice, make sure it is Him and then respond.

It is my joy to welcome you to the new home for Life Teen Events on the web. Months and months of planning have gone into this website, and as we dreamed, we had one central focus: how to make this website excellent for all those who visit it. We saw several groups that we wanted to reach out to, specifically:

• Adult leaders who attend Life Teen Events already
• Adult leaders who may not be familiar with Life Teen Events
• Teens who want information about their favorite Life Teen Event

As I see the finished product now, I can joyfully say “Mission Accomplished!” From the easy to navigate home page to the sleek pictures and graphics, we have hopefully taken the event experience to a new level, all because the Life Teen family and Christ Himself deserve our absolute best. Below are a few other reasons I am so excited for this new website:

It’s Comprehensive

Unlike previous event web pages, you will be able to see information about every event all of the time. We will have the ability to update event pages constantly providing you the most up-to-date information possible. It is a youth minister’s dream!

You Have to See It!

We can tell you an event is amazing, but you have to see it too! This website will feature tons of pictures so you can experience all that God has done first hand.

Details, Details

Each event will feature as many possible details as we can provide! From schedules to hotel lists to speaker bios, it is all there to help make your trip planning successful.

Blogs from the Events Team

One section we are really excited about is the blog area on the events homepage. Different members of the Event Team, from Steubenville coordinators to Covecrest staff, will be able to share with you up-to-date information and fun facts straight from the source.

As you explore, please send us feedback so we can continuously improve your experience. As this blog was posted, Steubenville West, Steubenville Atlanta, Steubenville East, the Life Teen Leadership Conference, and the Catholic Youth Ministry Training Convention have all opened up for registration. Throughout the next few weeks, we will add additional content as needed: from paperwork to details about other events. You should see a complete website by the end of February. Special thanks to our creative support team for being so talented and faithful. It is my privilege to be part of this family!

Youth Minister (Stockton, California)

Full time Youth Minister to lead and direct the continued growth of our Cathedral parish High School youth program and develop programs for Junior High and Young Adults. Will work collaboratively with parish pastoral team, various ministry groups and volunteers. Responsibilities include coordination of social, spiritual, educational, and service events for the youth of the parish. Bachelor’s Degree or appropriate certificate preferred. Salary based on experience. Complete benefits package. For more information or to submit a resume, please contact Parish Administrator prior to February 24, 2012.

Lucy Hamer, Administrator

Cathedral of the Annunciation

425 West Magnolia Street

Stockton, CA

209-463-1305

LucyHamer@aol.com

All Saints Catholic Parish seeks a highly motivated, energetic individual to create, direct and maintain outreach to Catholic youth in the parish. The Youth Ministry Coordinator will plan, develop and implement catechetical, relational, and service programs for Middle and High School Teens. These programs consist of youth nights, retreats, community service, coordination of Youth Masses, summer programs and ongoing relational ministry. The qualified applicant should possess a bachelor’s degree and is an active member of a Catholic community.

The job description, application packet and other information can be obtained at our website at www.allsaintslewiston.org or by contacting Sarah Schumaker, 633 5th Avenue, Lewiston Idaho 8351: sarah@allsaintslewiston.org: 208-743-7331. Recruitment is ongoing until position is filled.

The Diocese is seeking a motivated lay Latino/Hispanic who is intimately familiar with both Hispanic and American culture who can collaboratively help create our Hispanic youth ministry program in accordance with the diocesan vision. The Coordinator of Pastoral Juvenil/Hispanic Youth and Young Adult Ministry responds to the spiritual and social needs of the Hispanic/Latino Catholic youth and young adults in the diocese, especially in designated parishes/area faith communities. The coordinator serves Latino students in grades 7-12 and young Latino adults through direct contact and through training parish volunteers for work with youth. The coordinator develops and coordinates Latino youth activities in the parish, area faith community and the diocese.