After running Life Teen for 8 years in a small rural parish in northern – but not too northern – Canada, I finally worked up the courage to ask a brother youth minister from Florida to help me understand American Youth Ministry terminology. If you’re from a Canadian – or perhaps any other international – parish, you can find yourself running into short forms or terms that frankly just don’t show up in our typical ministerial environments. So for all you Canadian youth ministers or Core Members surfing catholicyouthministry.com, below are some definitions I’m affectionately referring to as my Americanadapedia.