The tide is turning and I’m not talking about politics. I’m
talking about the relationship between Young Life and the Catholic Church. From
Oregon to New York, from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande, Young Life and the
Catholic Church are working together to reach kids. Esteemed ecumenical scholar and University of Notre Dame professor Mark
Noll says, “It has been my privilege to witness
up close the rising tide of cooperation that now links once-separated parts of
the Christian world. Young Life is contributing to that cooperation.” And
nowhere is this more true than Grosse Pointe, MI, a coastal suburban city
outside Detroit.
“We’re partners, not competitors,” exclaimed Murray Sales,
the Young Life committee chair whose passion for ecumenism is infectious. In a
town where Catholics constitute up to half of the population, Young Life Grosse
Pointe is taking its commitment to “every kid” seriously. No less than half of
their committee is Catholic. They’ve asked the local Catholic priest to give a
talk at club this year. And they’re working hard to build a leadership team
that reflects their students. “Having equal representation sets us up to reach
students from every background,” notes Patrick Mollison, the local Young Life
area director. “The ecumenical commitment from the committee has allowed us to
focus on students knowing Christ, and no time is wasted arguing about our
differences.”
Pat’s Christian upbringing sowed the seeds for unity early
on. “Growing up I watched my parents model Christian unity,” he said. His
father a faithful Catholic and his mother a committed Protestant, together they
provided a nurturing, Christ-centered home where Pat’s relationship with Christ
grew. “My parents showed me that when Catholics and Protestants set aside their
differences and focused on the overwhelming unity present in their traditions
that God could do great things.”
And the Catholic community in town is taking note. Sarah
Kaczmarek, the much-loved Catholic youth minister at St. Paul on the Lake
Catholic Church, has found in Young Life not only common ground but friendship.
“As a youth minister my deepest desire is that teens get to know, and fall in
love with Jesus,” Sarah said. “When I saw that Young Life wanted the same thing
for every single young person in Grosse Pointe, it was easy to build a solid
relationship!”
Those solid relationships between Young Life and Catholic
leaders has allowed them to focus their attention on building real
relationships with kids. Sarah went on to say:
Kids
need relationship. First they want relationship with an adult who cares
about them and is concerned about what they're concerned about.
Ultimately, they have a need for Christ. Our job is to build that
relationship first with them and then help them translate that into an
experience of God's love and a relationship with Jesus.
Not in competition. Not in silos. Young Life and the Catholic
Church are called to work together to ensure that every kid has a chance to
know Jesus Christ and follow him. It’s not a pipe dream. It’s a reality. “This
is an enormous blessing for Young Life in Grosse Pointe,” Pat reflects. And
this blessing extends to the Church, Murray Sales explains. “As we have
communicated many times across our Christian community: our ultimate goal at
Young Life is to become irrelevant. We want to reach every kid and introduce
them to Christ, plug them into a loving church community, and watch them grow
in their faith. If we do this successfully, all kids in our community will be
reached and Young Life will know that it has completed its mission.”
