It seems that every time some survey is done in the Church about priorities, ministry and outreach to our youth is listed near the top. Whether this is our Catholic schools, or religious education for children or junior and senior high students, or collegians, there is a great desire and need for us to help our young people to know Jesus and the truth of the Catholic faith.
We are a young parish of Prince of Peace because of all of the families with children who live in Olathe, and while our average age has increased since the beginning of St. John Paul II parish, the beautiful voices of children still can be heard in our Masses, classrooms and campus.
You might have noticed in your most recent envelope packet, an envelope in support of Youth Ministry. This is under the direction of our parish Finance Council who recognized how important this ministry is and also the budget that is needed to fund it in our parish. Throughout the year, our youth programs offer many opportunities to families and parents to help form our children. There are also many service, formation and spiritual opportunities for our junior and senior high students that do cost quite a bit, so we are asking people to consider helping us to continue to offer these in times of difficult budget decisions.
Recently, we had a gathering of parents and our Core teams of young adults who assist in our Youth Ministry program. Since our parish Director of Youth Ministry left for another opportunity, we are in need of help and assistance moving forward until another qualified person can be hired. Our priority is to form and prepare our 7th and 8th grade students to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. Every Wednesday night we offer our program to prepare over 100 parish youth and we need leaders for the small groups, and presenters for the evenings. Of course anyone over 16 who helps must be Virtus trained as we always want to protect our young people, and so must require this of our adults.
There are three goals of Youth Ministry. The first is to empower young people to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in our world today, and to be part of the noble adventure which is the Catholic way of life. The second goal is to draw young people to responsible participation in the life, mission, and work of the Catholic faith community. We want our young people to be not the future, but the present Church, by being involved in our parish life. Finally, Youth Ministry is meant to foster the total person and spiritual growth of each young person during these formative years.
Let’s work together to help our youth to know, love and live the Christian, Catholic way of life.