NFCYM: A Place at the Table

Would it make any difference to you if a young person came to believe in Jesus Christ because she witnessed Protestant and Catholic Christians working together? Would it get your attention if a hurting teenager came to know the healing power of God’s love because he experienced the genuine love expressed among the many parts of the body of Christ? Whether Christian brothers and sisters can “play nice” and grow in missional relationship with one another has, according to our Lord, consequences far greater than we might imagine. . . like whether we can provide a compelling witness to the love of God and inspire genuine trust in Jesus Christ in our broken world today.

On the night that he was betrayed by one of his own disciples, Jesus prayed that all of his followers might be one “so that the world may believe that [the Father] has sent me and has loved them”(Jn 17:21b, 23b). Jesus prayed for Christian unity, not as a matter of kumbaya sentimentalism, but because it impacts the single greatest challenge facing the Church today - evangelization.

Thus, my presence at the NFCYM (National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry) Annual Membership Meeting in Seattle last week had a little riding on it. Would it be an occasion for good will and shared mission between Young Life and the Catholic Church or would it reinforce the divisions that have pained the relationship between the Church and mission movements like Young Life for decades?

The vision of the NFCYM is to “serve those who serve the young Catholic Church.” It seeks to invite to the table all people and organizations that significantly impact young Catholics so, like Jesus prayed, they may believe in the Word made flesh and know the love of the Father. It seems natural that Young Life, an interdenominational global Christian outreach to adolescents, an organization that by conservative estimates is reaching over a quarter of a million Catholic teens per year, would have a seat at that table.

I am indebted to the gracious invitation of Bob McCarty, executive director of NFCYM, who welcomed me as a personal guest. I was deeply blessed by the opportunity to observe the operations of the federation and engage in dialogue with federation members. Most embraced me (and the organization of Young Life) with open, if not cautious, arms. Some wondered why I was even there. After all, doesn’t Young Life “steal kids from the Catholic Church,” as the old caricature goes?

Putting things in a distinctly different light, Catholic mission leaders were surprised to learn that Young Life is genuinely interested in putting those 250,00 kids into Catholic pews around the country. Young Life is no more interested in making Catholic kids Protestant as it is in making Presbyterian kids Methodist. Young Life is not in competition with the Catholic Church. Young Life and the entire Church universal is competing with the aggressive encroachment of a worldview that strips young people of their inherent dignity and robs them of a vital connection with their only real source of life – Jesus Christ.

The question is. . .

Can we look beyond our fears and parochialism (both within Young Life and the Catholic Church) and claim the blessing of unity and mission for which Jesus prayed?

Can the conversations which started in Seattle, through real dialogue and authentic friendship, blossom into the kind of trust and missional collaboration that will be necessary to reach a world of kids with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Do we have the relational bridges in place that would ensure that those kids can find the same support and relational investment in the Catholic Church as they did in Young Life?

As Pope Francis has said, “The principal aim of these participatory processes should not be ecclesiastical organization but rather the missionary aspiration of reaching everyone. . . If something should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light and consolation born of friendship with Jesus Christ.”[1]

We are driven by the same mission, bound in one body, and sent out by one Lord. I think God has prepared us “for such a time as this” – Young Life and the Catholic Church working together to reach every kid, everywhere, for eternity.[2]

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[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 31, 49.

[2] Esther 4:14.