Youth ministry series focuses on practical tools, accompaniment
“We often try to put an earthly answer on a godly situation,” said Rich Donovan, associate director of the Archdiocese of Newark’s Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry. He was holding a smartphone as he spoke to a group of youth ministers in Kearny, NJ, on a rainy Wednesday night about a serious topic — how to help teens facing tragic situations.
“Kids today know they can just ask their phones anything and they’ll get an answer,” Donovan continued. “But when someone’s taken from them, what’s the answer?”
“I’m sorry. Who was taken from you?” his phone’s virtual assistant asks out of nowhere.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I’m not talking to you,” responds Donovan as some of the dozen participants who attended the session smiled and giggled.
Five engaging sessions
The talk was part of the Summer Youth Minister Formation Series, which the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry has organized to aid youth ministers in their formation and development in an accessible and engaging manner. Sessions are free of charge and participants can choose which ones to attend.
The office has divided the series into five weekly themes, including administering youth programs, how to plan activities, the concept of discipleship, and “LTS” — which Donovan insisted is not an upstart K-Pop band but rather “Listen, Teach, Send,” a strategy born from a United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s document of the same name.
For youth minister and educator Stephanie Herrera, the main takeaways of the series were encounter and communication. “To me, the most important thing is what’s the goal?” asks Herrera. “What do you want people to take away so that all your activities, games, prayer, talks, guest speakers, whatever it is, centers around that?”
Helping teens face tragedy
The Aug. 5 meeting featured a theme that can be difficult to discuss but that is also crucial to youth ministry. Every youth minister is likely to face a situation in which one of the young people they are ministering to must deal with tragedy, loss, or trying circumstances. During the session, Donovan introduced attendees to the realities of pastoral care. He urged youth ministers to be empathetic and proactive in accompanying the young through difficult situations by pointing to Christ as well as utilizing other valuable resources such as counseling and community.
“Your job is to help them out, not to solve everything,” Donovan said. “Sometimes that becomes difficult to do because our natural inclination is to want to fix them and solve their problems and send them back out into the world.”
“God didn’t ask you to save them,” Donovan stressed. “He asked you to love them. He asked you to walk with them.”
Youth minister Vicente Morales later said the challenge of his ministry lies in bridging the gaps between different generations, especially the challenges they now share. “There’s a lot of things that that we don’t think about,” he said.
“There’s a big need that I saw tonight, and I’ve been seeing with mental health in our community because as a society we have walked away from Christ a little bit. That’s why we’re here, to bring the youth into Christ and help them follow our path, the spiritual path.”
“No different than 2,000 years ago”
After the session, Donovan shared that youth ministry faces many challenges moving forward including lack of funding and spaces, the demands on ministers (many of whom are volunteers), and decreasing attentions spans and changing socialization patterns among youth.
Still, Donovan said that many things have not changed over his 30 years of ministry, especially when it comes to bringing in young people. “If you’re only relying on what you’re going to see in the pew or by the bulletin, you’re not going to get very far,” he said.
“You always have to broaden that that net,” he continued. “We use social media and things like that. But a lot of it is word of mouth. It’s no different than 2,000 years ago. Jesus went to a town. Jesus spoke. People spread the word, and people showed up.”
To learn more about the Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry, CLICK HERE.
Featured image: Youth Ministers attend a Summer Youth Ministry Leaders Formation Series, organized by the Archdiocese of Newark’s Office for Youth and Young Adult Ministry. (Photo by Archdiocese of Newark)
