Last week I was able to speak to Young Life area directors
from across the country about the exciting “missional moment” that we’re
currently experiencing. More than
ever, Young Life is dedicated to a strategy of evangelization that is sensitive
to Catholics. We need to help
Catholic kids be the best Catholics they can be, calling them into the highest
ideals of Catholicism (see my last post on “Evangelical Catholicism”) and
welcoming the manifold gifts the Catholic tradition offers. In addition, we need to partner with
Catholic parishes, parents, priests, schools, colleges and social service
agencies to ensure that “even kid, everywhere” has the opportunity to know
Jesus Christ and follow him.
On the other side of the coin, this “missional moment” is
seeing an incredible openness of the Catholic Church to embrace the very things
that Young Life is so good at. The
“new evangelization” has been proclaimed as the central strategy of the
Catholic Church for engaging the world in the 21st century and
beyond. Going where people are,
earning the right to be heard, proclaiming the truth in love, new methods, a
new ardor – these are all things that the Catholic Church is talking about
right now, with great fervor.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl of the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
recently noted that the Catholic Church is in a position similar to that of the
early church. The rise of
secularism means that modern disciples “bring the experience of the risen Lord
to a world that simply doesn’t know what they are talking about. . . It’s
introducing the experience of a relationship with God to people who are so
absorbed in this secular culture that their horizon doesn’t reach that high.”[1]
What prelates like Wuerl and practitioners like Sherry
Weddell have been calling for is a return to what is called the kerygma. Kerygma is a Greek
term that refers to the primary proclamation of the gospel of Jesus
Christ. The kerygma is sharing Christ and inviting people to respond. The first disciples preached the kerygma and the world is in need of the kerygma again. Cardinal Wuerl continues:
Engaging secularism is going to be the
major challenge. I think that is going to mean a return to a very basic
kerygma. We sometimes get so caught up in one or another aspect of the
teaching, we forget that if a person hasn’t been introduced to Christ, if a
person hasn’t embraced the risen Lord and the church that’s an expression of
that experience, what we’re saying just sounds like a bunch of rules or
negative statements limiting their personal freedom. We have to get back to
that core kerygma.[2]
The wonder of this “missional moment” is that the stated
needs of the Catholic Church are precisely what Young Life is doing every
day. With great success around the
world, Young Life leaders are proclaiming the kerygma of Jesus Christ in ways that counter the secularism of our
age and transform lives, one relationship at a time. This is simply what we do. We’re good at it and we are primed to share it with the
Church and the world over. Just
imagine the impact of 1.2 billion Catholics on earth, energized by the “new
evangelization” and a fresh kerygmatic proclamation
of Jesus Christ! The impact would
be colossal, world-changing, kingdom-building.
I just stumbled across your blog, and am thankful for a thoughtful, thought invoking YL blog. Looking forward to learning from you and engaging as well! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Annette in Guatemala! So wonderful to have you join the conversation. Are you involved in Young Life? Catholic? Would love to hear more. Feel free to email me at: mhavercamp@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you!
I've worked in a parish for a while and have personally seen a number of kids disengage from parish life and our youth ministry program to get involved with Young Life. If it made them better, more devout Catholics I would be in favor of it, but I have just the opposite - kids going into college and then falling away from the Church or converting to Protestantism. This breaks my heart. Our youth ministry program is fantastic and through the grace of God has achieved much fruit in leading students closer to Christ. But we have trouble in trying to keep many of students fully engaged when younglife, which has become popular at their school, is drawing them away. I get the sense sometimes that young life at least in our area deliberately targets young Catholics.
ReplyDeleteI truly admire your passion for the new evangelization in the Catholic Church and completely agree we can learn much from ministries like younglife. I do think though the ideal you have to make younglife and Catholic ministry fit together can't work. If students get invovled with younglife over their parish's youth ministry (which lets be honest very few students would get involved in both) they're not going to hear about the Sacraments, the Mass, nor Catholic Theology. They will hear though much about protestant theology which as I'm sure you know is similar and yet also often very different even on key issues like the nature of salvation. If one never sees the beauty and truth behind these things, it's not wonder so many young Catholics leave the Church.
My humble recommendation is to use your passion and devotion to the Lord to build something for the Catholic Church rather than supporting an organization that draws so many away from it. We need more evangelistic programs like Young Life that are successful in reaching students, but that not ones that draw students into the life of the Church as they draw them closer to Christ.
Young Life is here to stay, and blesses a lot of kids. I have seen Young Life kids eventually leave the Catholic Church. I think it is fair to ask if Young Life was to blame, but my guess is that most who leave would have found another excuse to do so. But I have also seen Young Life kids grow up to ROCK the Catholic Church in a very positive manner. Kids who went from cultural Catholics to deep believers through the Young Life ministry, who have continued strong in their Catholic faith. One comes to mind who is a mother of 4, an RCIA director and wife of a very successful parish youth group. Another is an excellent Adult Faith Formation director in a parish. I had the opportunity to help lead both of them to a personal faith in Christ through Young Life, and they had the opportunity to help me in my journey into full communion with the Catholic Church.
DeleteMike, stay the course. I believe Young Life is on the edge of becomeing truly ecumenical, and it needs relationship with and input from Catholics to make that happen. Young Life needs the salt of the Church. As that happens, there will be many more kids whose Catholic faith is strengthened by that organization than is hurt by it.
Likewise, we in the Catholic Church humbly need to admit that we have a lot to learn if we want to "do" this New Evangelization thing effectively. A very successful Catholic youth minister opined to a YL staffer that although her 100 person youth group was going very well, there were 200-300 kids on the roles of her own parish that never darkened the door of the church. And she simply didn't have the time or resources to reach them! Relationship with Young Life will help us learn, if we have the humility to receive.
Anonymous youth pastor, I feel your pain - and indirectly may have caused some of it. And I have both repented and confessed parts that I may have played in kids leaving the Church. I have also rejoiced as I have seen kids both be strengthened as Catholics and also come into the Church. I know I am called to be a bridge, rather than a wall. I also know that a bridge, by definition, can allow people to both come and go. My heart, my intent, and my efforts are that I be a bridge that slants into the Church.
Anyway, Michael, thanks for this forum, and keep up the good work.
In His love,
Chris Patterson (Chrispy)
Michael - great article.
ReplyDeleteIt is simply what we do.