Flame Congress

Well, you have to admit it. CYMFed did a great job. Ten years ago Catholic youth ministry could not have pulled together something like that. Twelve years ago when I was confirmed, the local ‘youth ministry expert’ came to run a post-Confirmation day with us which, among other things, involved us painting a stone with something that expressed who we were. At fifteen years old, this activity, to put it mildly, turned me off being a Catholic quite considerably and sent me off in search of much less cringeworthy evangelical youth gatherings with my friends. Nowadays, going by what we saw at Flame, there aren’t many youth ministry gurus left who would subject teenagers to painting stones.

Our teenagers loved it. Highlights were the Glee musical flashmob and the interview with Paralympian Stef Reid. I admit that my group leader friend and I laughed out loud with embarrassment at Fr Timothy Radcliffe’s wonderful “Ri-Hanna” blip. But, ironically, it was one of my fifteen-year-old brother’s best bits: “Yeah that priest dude was a legend!” Err…really? Well, OK then. If you say so.

Most impressive by far was the fact that thousands of Catholic teenagers (most of whom, let’s face it, were not practising their faith) participated in moments of silent Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in a packed out Wembley Arena. That, along with Edwin Fawcett’s considerable talent at getting young people to sing and actually enjoy themselves, and Paschal Uche’s never-failing ability to inspire young people in their faith, showed our country’s youth ministry at the best it’s ever been (in my lifetime, anyway). God bless Paschal Uche. He is a household name now in Catholic circles and is invited to speak at just about everything. Paschal dropped into the parish yesterday and I was only glad he left right before the Confirmation candidates arrived as we’d have had lots of starstruck girls on our hands.

Now, onward and upward…

In the next post or two, I’d like to share some reflections on where youth ministry can still improve from here.

New Year Youth Retreat

Here are some photos from our new year youth retreat – it seems a long time ago now, but there is still lots of excitement about it on Facebook… Here’s a taster from this really blessed weekend. Courtesy of Edward Morton Photography.

Happy New Yes…

On New Year’s Day, the Youth 2000 retreat sadly (and exhaustingly!) came to an end. The four days were heavily laden with the grace and glory of God; for many, many young people it was a moment of personal conversion as they encountered Christ in Confession, spent quiet time with Him in the Eucharist day and night, and expressed and received their joy and love in times of praise.

Now I feel that this New Year is truly a time of newness – God makes all things new in Christ! He does this again and again in our lives, transforming our hearts more than he changes the situations we find ourselves in – precisely because this is how he transforms these situations. Especially coming from such a blessed few days I feel that this new year is a time when we can allow God to make all things new in us. Even – and especially – those situations or relationships we feel are hopeless, cannot change, will never be life-giving – perhaps these are precisely the things we need to surrender to the Lord in this new year to allow Him to transform them. Expectant faith seemed to be one of the themes of our retreat. The woman with the hemorrhage who approached Jesus didn’t think to herself, “Maybe he will heal me” – she knew that if she touched him, he would heal her. Let’s not give our problems to the Lord thinking, “Maybe he will transform them” – let us know and be assured that he will transform them – in the best way, at the best time.

So, being sure of the newness that the Lord brings – each morning! – we can be courageous at the beginning of this year in once again saying YES… Whatever trials or discomfort this Yes will bring, whatever changes it will require me to make to my plans, whatever comfort zones I will be invited to step out of, whatever areas of sin I will be asked to relinquish… Let us say a wholehearted Yes to the Lord at the beginning of this new year, 2012. He will make all things new.

Confirmation Retreat

Well, we are gearing up for our Confirmation retreat this weekend. It is a busy time of year to organise a weekend retreat, but I think it works. It is part of the initial period of evangelisation at the start of our programme. We only have twenty 13-year-olds so it is possible to do this. We’re going to a youth retreat centre just outside London. The whole weekend is about EVANGELISATION!!

Youth 2000 retreat - a blueprint for effective youth evangelisation

The basic Gospel message. The reason we are taking them away for the weekend is to give them the space to hear it (between the homework slots ) We have planned everything as best we can to lead these young people to an encounter with Christ. This is what the whole weekend is about. My forte is sadly not youth evangelisation, and we no longer have a youth coordinator, so it has somewhat fallen in my lap. (A catechetical coordinator has to be all things to all people! PA, catechist, youth minister, counsellor, catechist trainer, diplomat, administrator, cook, liturgist, technician, babysitter, housekeeper…)But God is good (all the time!) and we are really blessed to have a great team leading this retreat, including a fantastic girl who has worked with us this month in the parish and two Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and some great priests who will be dropping in at different points. Thank God for great youth evangelists

I recently came across this excellent article by Amy Welborn on the foundational and effective steps of youth evangelisation. She is basically saying, forget the gloss, the gimics, the “window-dressing” – the Holy Father shows us how it’s done. She identifies five key points which are at the heart of our evangelisation of young people:

1. Teach them who they are
2. Continually hold up Christ as the answer
3. Seeking Christ? He gave us the Church so that we could find him
4. The way of the Christian is the way of the Cross
5. Go out to all nations

This weekend, we will focus on 1 and 2. Who they are and Christ. Jesus and you. He loves you and wants to have a living relationship with you. That is the core message.

St John Bosco - patron of youth

So, we have lots and lots planned hopefully to facilitate this happening. For many of our teenagers it will be the first time they have been to Confession in a long while. For many of them, they will encounter Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament perhaps for the first time.

I pray for an awakening in their desire for God! This is the foundation that is needed for them to receive this year’s catechesis with open hearts.

At the same time, I know that evangelising young people is tough. I know it’s going to be a difficult weekend with not much sleep and goodness knows what other problems, but… call me mad, but I think it’ll be worth it