Young Adult Ministry is a relatively new concept within the Catholic Church, but one which seriously needs to be considered. People who are in their late teens, twenties and thirties represent the largest age category in our society. Our Church is beginning to recognize the need for an outreach for and with young adults, especially those who are single.
Young Adult Ministry must be understood correctly within the context of the mission: to proclaim the good news of salvation, to offer itself as a people transformed by the Spirit into a community of faith, hope and love, and to bring justice and love to others through example of the surrounding faith community, particularly the parish, is absolutely essential to effective Young Adult Ministry; otherwise, the ministry operates in a vacuum that prohibits fuller growth and maturity in faith.
With this in mind, the following
steps are suggested to help initiate an outreach to young adults on an
are-wide or parish basis. These steps are based on two basic assumptions.
First, no Young Adult Ministry is going to meet the needs of all the young
adults in the parish. Secondly, each parish or area has at least
several young adults who feel a need for Young Adult Ministry.
STEP ONE: DEVELOPMENT OF A MINISTRY TEAM
There are many advantages to a team approach, but the biggest is that the wider the base of support, the more representative of young adults one is, and more people share the responsibility. This latter point is particularly important because most young adults are already heavily committed to other activities and have a limited amount of time to devote to Young Adult Ministry.
STEP TWO: DECIDE WHO SHOULD COMPRISE THE TEAM
A. The most important members will be 3-5 young adults. The basic assumption behind effective Young Adult Ministry is that it is for, by, and with young adults.
B. A parish staff person should also be on the team. This could be a priest, MRE, youth minister, etc. For parishes without full-time staff, it is important to have a parish council member as part of the team. The function of this person is to support the team and to serve as a liaison with the rest of the parish ministries.
STEP THREE: DEVELOP A VISION STATEMENT
The team must know why they are working in Young Adult Ministry. It is important, also, to surface the team's expectations and each person's concept of and hope for the Church. This is a very important step. A strong purpose is essential in order for the team to make it through the discouraging times that are inevitable in ministry.
STEP FOUR: IDENTIFICATION OF YOUNG ADULTS
Find out whom you are talking about—single, married, college, working, 18-30, 18-35, 18-25, etc. After doing this, develop a list of those whom you hope to reach. This list is oftentimes difficult to assemble, but with time, patience and resourcefulness, you will be surprised at how large the list will turn out to be.
STEP FIVE: MEET THE YOUNG ADULTS
Utilize this list to survey the young adults. This involves meeting them, finding out where they live, what they do, what they are interested in and what their needs are. At this point, personal contact is invaluable. Have people over for dinner one or two at a time, or go visit with them for a couple of hours in the evening. The crucial thing here is simply to listen. Don't judge people or try to bring them to your point of view. Simply listen and attempt to care for the people you are talking with. this step is perhaps the most crucial step in the whole process. It is also for many people the hardest, but in the end, it can be the most rewarding of all the work. This step is so important because it prevents the team from getting caught up in its own self-interest. It also lets the young adults who are contacted know that the Church cares about them and is attempting to reach out to them and speak to their life situation.
Now the team needs to decide which direction they are going to take to further the work they have begun. This decision should be based on what was learned in steps three and five. Whatever the team decides to do, it should be holistic approach. That is, the actions of the ministry team should attempt to meet not only the social needs, but also the spiritual needs of young adults. We are not attempting to form social clubs, yet at the same time, it is important to provide for the needs of the significant fellowship and this can be done through certain social functions. The action which is undertaken should be based on four very important principles:
1. It should be immediate....you
have to consider the time frame. You cannot allow the action to take
too long. The results must be somewhat immediate, if at all possible.
2. It should be a specific
action....you need to have definite goals and they need to be focused.
Don't try to accomplish too much.
3. Make your goal realizable....if
it is immediate and specific enough, can it be achieved? Don't set
people up for failure.
4. Is your decision actionable?....Make
sure your team has the skills necessary to carry out the action decided
upon.
The steps outlined above may at first sound like a long, drawn-out process, but it is a process which will build a solid base for your young adult ministry. If the steps are taken one at a time and done creatively, the process can be a significant learning experience for all those involved.
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