 So, before we get into this, let me just kind of throw this out there. If you don't know what this session is, this session is an interconnected net, inner or intra and extra parish ministry. Is that confusing to anybody? A little bit. Thank you for coming, even though it's a little bit of a unique phrase and something that we don't often use. Just so you know, when they were asking me to give this talk, I did have to say, that sounds great. I can't wait to do it, count me in, but you need to tell me what that means. And the reason that we came up with this phrase is because there was a document that was going through the USCCB, where this was going to be highlighted, and these were going to be new terms for a new playbook for youth ministry. However, that's been edited out of the new playbook. And so, this will probably be the last time we have a session called this, but I think it's going to be okay. Because here's the good news. The good news is that the takeaway from this session is incredibly simple. This might be the simplest talk that we're going to give to y'all this week. It really might be. The takeaway is easy, and it should be refreshing. And here it is. Here it is. You can leave after I say this, because this is what it all comes down to. Is that youth ministry cannot just be defined by a youth group. That's it. So if that makes sense to you, you guys can go. We're going to talk more around what that means. But before you go, let me tell you what the problem with this is. Is that for our church today, they really just think youth ministry is youth group. And so even though it should be refreshing to say like, hey, y'all need help, and it's really the church that's supposed to be serving teens, not just a youth minister, that might be music to your ears. The problem is, is that we need to kind of advocate for ourselves and for our teens saying, no, no, they don't just need someone who's hired to serve them. They need a whole church who is bringing them into the family. And this makes sense, right? Again, I don't want to go into too much, but isn't it a bit bonkers that if you see a new parent or a new family and you say, you know, that kid is beautiful, but it takes a village. And then there's a youth minister with 50 kids in high school and 100 kids in middle school, and they're like, good luck. The way the church is structured is that we need to create a net that we can cast both deep and wide to bring in as many young people as possible. And so if you think that you're going to go at this as a lone wolf, you can, and people might even encourage you to do so. But the reality is that we'll have far more fruit if we can lean in as a church and not just as an individual. Does that make sense? So that's what we're going to talk about. And here's the thing, I'm just going to say that time and time again in different ways and give some practical examples and some obstacles that we're going to have to think about as we lean into this. If I have time, I'm going to kind of dive into some things that we can do as a church to be a little bit more engaging for young people. And when I say that, I say a church, not just a youth group, right? What can the church do? If I don't have time for that, we'll go into hopefully just longer Q&A. Because again, this is a pretty big topic. And I know that at this point, if you're like me, and I haven't even been in all the sessions, people are texting me, like, what did you think of that talk? Like, I haven't been going to all the talks. I think the coffee is just too good and I'm too lazy. And so I know that your brain might be saturated. And so what I want to do is just take a breath and kind of ease into this. And I don't want to overload you, but I want to make sure we get to this important point because, again, we want to cast a net that's deep and wide. And just as a net has different knots and different points that hold it together, I want to pinpoint some of those things that we can start to tie together to make sure that our youth group isn't bearing too much weight. Because if it's just a youth group that's trying to save teens or reach teens, chances are they're not going to last. And I'm not going to go into all the stats and statistics, but again, we see that. When do people oftentimes leave the faith? It's when they're in college. Is it because the universities are just like a cesspool? Well, sort of. But it's also because we haven't properly prepped them to how to engage a church outside of youth ministry. And so as we kind of think about this and look about this, I'm going to highlight three different areas in which we as youth ministers can kind of pull people together that are outside of what you all have already been talking about this week, which I'm sure is good curriculum, good outreach, relational ministry, programming, content, all that stuff. Things that we can do outside of that normal youth group function to make sure that what we're doing in the youth group is enforced and encouraged through other avenues. That's the whole objective. Pretty simple. And I'm going to tell you the three notes right now. So these three things that we want to tie together with our net. And again, there's a lot here. I'm just going to kind of simplify and just give three so I don't talk too long today. Is the family, we're going to start there first. Because even though we would say that's outside of youth ministry, the reality is that the parents are the front line when it comes to catechesis. Not only are they part of the domestic church, but they're the primary catechist. In fact, the reason that a lot of us have jobs in youth ministry is because the parents have kind of forgot that responsibility. Or they haven't been properly trained on how to help their teens when they go through some of those challenging moments. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not taking a shot at parents. I'm a parent. I don't know what I'm doing. But let's talk about families. And then we're going to talk about some other ministries outside of youth group. So what would we do with men's group and women's group? Service opportunities. Things that are already happening in the church. And then we're going to talk about things outside of the church itself, like non-denominational groups, school groups, things like that. But before we do, let's just talk around what the church is. And again, I didn't know I was going to be in this space. I thought I was in a different room. So I didn't make a PowerPoint. This talk would have been really aided with some visual aids. But in kind of a serendipitous turn, the monitors actually weren't working that well earlier. So it's fine. I'll read some things a couple of times. And you're going to say, I wish I could see this. I know. I know. Me too. But I guess I can see it. But I'll read it to you. And then we'll just keep moving through it, OK? So when you look at renewing the vision, again, the bishops document for youth ministry and adolescent ministry, it gives a vision and a guide for what ministry should look like. It's in the fourth part of the back of the book. They're like, this is it. This is what we want to accomplish. And this is what it says. It says, the church and the world need the faith, gifts, energy, and fresh ideas of young people. That makes sense. The entire church and in a special way, ministry to youth and adolescents. But the entire church must empower young people for their mission in the world. We must ensure that young people are well equipped for their special mission in the world and all of our efforts to promote and active Christian discipleship and growth in Catholic identity must lead towards mission. This is our special responsibility to the young generation. Now, let me ask you that real quick. When I say this, that is the entire church's mission to get the young people on mission. Does that look like you're a home church? And I don't, I don't, don't, don't not, don't, don't tell me. I'm not trying to get anybody in trouble, but, but just think about that. Right. This morning as I was praying, I started thinking about the story of Jesus getting separated from Mary and Joseph and then being found in the temple. Jesus was there for two days. Can you imagine if a 12 year old boy like walked in here? Like how awkward that would kind of be for us right now? Like the youth conference was this weekend, you know, like this is for the adults. Like this is, this is the time for the youth ministers to get together. And we didn't know that we were going to have to actually be on duty right now. Like, can you imagine if like a 12 year old like walked into the men's group? Like how awkward would that be? And yet Jesus kind of stood there for, for two days, is what we see in scripture and was actually engaging with adults. And if you read Catechesis Tridenti, there is absolutely a place for age-specific catechesis. So don't twist what I'm saying, but the question is, is how can we make our church look more like what the church is really supposed to be? And so let's start with families, because families are where ultimately we gain or lose the most grounds. And so as a youth group, how can we get parents and families on board? How can we make sure that they are equipped in a way to serve and love their own teenagers? Because even though you love your youth group and you love your teens and you have all the best intentions for your kids that you're serving, the reality is, and if you're a parent, you know this, that your love for the teens is nowhere close to the love of the parents for that teen. And that the vast majority of parents want the best for their kids, they want their kids to know Jesus. It's just that they don't quite know how to do that because when they get around the dining room table or they're sitting around before bed, the teen's too busy or disengaged and they don't know how to quite break down some of those barriers and those walls to have those meaningful conversations. And so for us, how can we get the parents involved? When I was in youth ministry, this was one of my biggest struggles, especially when I was a younger youth minister, because parents kind of just seemed like they were in the way sometimes. They had all these expectations and they weren't really reinforcing what I was saying and I was trying to get them to live one way, but the parents were modeling a different way of life and it was incredibly frustrating and it wasn't until I was older that I realized, wait, what if I actually helped the parents? What if I actually do something for them so they might actually grow a little bit in their faith as well so they can help other people grow in their faith? And I started to realize that perhaps being a youth minister is not just being a minister of youth, but being a minister to anyone who is around youth, that working in a parish isn't just about having a certain title or working with a certain demographic, but it's serving everyone in the parish. And so what I started doing simply as a youth minister is I would just start emailing parents every week, hey, here's what's going on. Here's the curriculum. Here's where you can go to find the scripture verse that we're going to be teaching on. Here's the catechism references and a couple of saint quotes that kind of back it up. And then what I did that really started to find some momentum is I started giving small group questions to parents to follow up with their teens. Hey, on Sunday night, we're going to have pizza and we're going to talk about this and here's what we're going to discuss. You can read all about it here. But after the evening on the car ride home, here's two questions that you can bring up to your kid. And I started to equip the parents with the tools and the means to engage their own teenagers on the faith. And the crazy thing was is not only did parents are to reinforce what I was trying to teach, but the parents actually started responding to me with much more respect and much more of a mutual kind of teammate mentality. Because they knew I wasn't trying to pull their teen away from them, but I was trying to help them guide their teen in the right direction. And so the more that we can empower families, the easier it's going to be for us to continue to do what we do in youth group. Now, hopefully that's obvious and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, again, I haven't been going to all the talks and there's been a whole workshop on how to engage families. There's a lot we could say there, but I'm going to kind of shelf that one because it's pretty self-contained and it's hopefully fairly specific, just love on the families, reach out to the families, give them chances to get involved. I'm going to jump to that last thing and I'm going to say, what are we going to do outside of the parish for me? And you have to be careful with this. I always had really great success teaming up with other clubs, organizations, and even churches in the community. I could go to the YMCA and say, you guys have basketball courts and it's about to be winter. Can we do some kind of program together where I come and help you? We opened it up to everyone, but there's a Christian slant to it. And we could do that. And it was another safe place for teens to go. Personally, my favorite, and you have to be careful, careful here, is I loved working with pros and churches. Now granted, I got to know pros and youth ministers and pastors and I would get to know them and pray with them and engage them on a friendship level far in advance before I ever brought them into a program or told my teens about what was happening at their church. But once I found that there was common interest, mutual respect, obviously with our pros and brothers and sisters, there's far more in common than that what separates us. And so we would find ways to engage through interdenominational practices. This was specifically helpful in schools where the Catholic church where I served was not able to get into the schools. By partnering with some other non-denominational practices and churches, I was able to get access to teens that I was never able to serve before. And I was also able to introduce my teens and the Catholic church to other adults who'd be good influences. Now, again, you have to be careful there, but I knew that my teens were being invited to hang out with other kids who were going to other churches and that it was better influences than if they were going out with those kids they used to hang out with before youth group. So take that one with a little bit of grain of salt, pray and discern that peace because I don't want to water down our Catholicism, but know that there are other things outside the church. Specifically, I'm going to highlight young life who has a great relationship with the Catholic church and is continuing to grow their relationship with the Catholic church that they have been able to reach teens that oftentimes Catholic churches can't and that partnership has been fruitful in multiple relationships and multiple churches that I have seen. But now let's focus in on the one that I really want to focus in on is what are we going to do as a parish? Like what do we do when we are at our own church and we've been siloed because we're the youth minister and we have a youth group and we're not CCE or maybe we are CCE but we're not confirmation or maybe we are both of those things but we're not alter-serving and so don't touch that and don't get in way of young adult stuff or maybe you have to do young adult stuff because you're the youth minister and there's nothing else for young adults and it just starts to get messy. When I was in Florida, again, if you haven't been to any of my sessions yet, I've talked a little bit about where I've worked and things like that to sum up just in case you're new. I worked in a very, very small church in Florida and a very, very large church in Houston. In that small church, I could have started a church and nobody would have noticed and I don't say that tongue-in-cheek. I literally would go in, I'd sit at my cubicle. There was only four people on staff and anytime somebody who was between the ages of 10 and 18 would need something, that was me. Anything younger than that, anything older than that, I wasn't needed and anything in the church that was happening that served someone outside of that age range, I also wasn't needed. My input, my expertise, my strategy, we were just completely compartmentalized as a staff and there would be days where I would walk in, I would say hey to everybody so they knew that I was around and then I would leave because nobody was checking in on me. I would have our teen mass on Sunday night. I would go and say, all teens, you can come to our youth group afterwards, 20 or 50 some kids depending on the night would follow me and I'd have two core members with us and we would do a youth night and no other parents, no other priest, no other parishioner would ever come over to hang out with us. I could have taught whatever I wanted and nobody would have ever known the difference. It was just me and it was weird because we were just completely compartmentalized. When I got to Houston, it was almost the opposite where we were still compartmentalized but we were so big and it was kind of the central program, the central ministry of the church that in some ways we were the cool kids on the block but that created a whole other set of problems because people wanted to be on our core team and teens were excited to come and hang out at our program but there was nothing outside of that that was merely as attractive when it came to programming or the life of the church and so in some ways it was great. Look at all these teens who want to come hang out with us. Look at how lively this group is but let me tell you, if you have a lively group and the rest of the church ain't doing so hot, youth group becomes more of a crutch than a springboard to take them deeper into the life of the church because you can't invite them into the life of the church if the rest of the church is dead and we used to see this in really awkward ways so we were one of those parishes were on Sunday when I first got there was the first three pews in the front were reserved for teens and it was a really strange thing because adults were not allowed there it was just like the rule and I remember I was married at the time I had two kids and I was like can I bring my family in there and my password was kind of like that's just for kids and I was like yeah but like we worship together as a community and I think we need to model like who's that 15 year old boy like learning how to pray at mass from like the 15 year old boy next to him that seems like a recipe for disaster and so he allowed me to bring my family in and then slowly but surely like I allowed core members in and their families in but it was tough because as teens would come through our program they'd graduate they'd go off to college they do their thing and they would come back as an 18 year old 19 year old they don't want to sit in the teen section and at first I'd be like oh it's so good to see you you can yeah sit sit here you snuck in a little late that's fine glad you're here and then next week they'd be back sitting in that section and pretty soon I'd be like hey like I'm so glad you're back but you're in college now like enjoy it cherish it this is for high school don't don't relive these days these days are horrible you know like like being adults go live your life and they struggled to even just go back a pew or two because it was so different so foreign in fact the church next to us something even worse happens they had a similar setting where the teens always sat in the front and then the youth group crumbled different things happens and when the youth group didn't come to church anymore because there's no more youth group those first three pews remained open for years because the church had just been conditioned that that's where teens sit and the rest of church is separate and we need to start thinking differently that it's not just the teens over here and the church over here but how do we integrate so the teens are actually coming into the life of the church that the church is supporting the teenagers and bringing them up so they can be active members not just a member of a youth group this is where ministry gets fun but this is where things get challenging because sometimes people are a little territorial sometimes teens are awkward and they don't really know how to interact with adults and sometimes for us we're so overwhelmed for us to partner with another ministry even within our own church can be challenging because it's just easier to do ourselves sometimes but for us when we can bring things together not only is it better for the teens but it's better for the church is anyone here from Denver by chance it's kind of far away no okay great so let me tell you a story I just wanted to see if anybody would be from this parish because there's a parish in Denver that is amazing and I don't know how to say this same Francis Cabrini and I don't know if you've heard of this church or what they've done you should probably know that that this church was in the shadow of Columbine right so this church was dealing with tragedy they had this incredible youth minister and he was there through all of that and then when he left things started to fall apart as things sometimes do when you have a big transition like that but these new youth ministers came in and they realized that they couldn't just build the same old thing the personality before them was too big his skill set was too specific for them to mirror that they never would have been able to to match his charisma and so what they did is they started thinking around what we're talking about now like how can we not just do it ourselves because we don't have the skill set that this one individual had like how can we really rope people in together and what they did is they started to do this really unique thing where they took their group they started breaking it down into small community groups and that's fine like we've we've talked about that this week I'm sure the importance of small groups and relational ministry and relationship with young people but where they really thrived is each group was assigned to a different ministry in the church and so this group over here was assigned to the Knights of Columbus and that they would work together in different ways the Knights would support this group the Knights would maybe pay for some of their food and in turn this youth group would go and they'd pray for the Knights and maybe they'd help set up something at a fish fry this group over here did something with social services and so they would help with the food that they're giving away they would do a canned food drive they would do different things and in return these ladies who are doing the social services would come and they would bake food for these kids and they started to kind of integrate these different programs creating this net and this web of interconnection and all that sounds cool but do you know where you saw it the most come together was at the high school dodgeball tournaments the youth minister would do this big tournament we'd have these different groups face off against each other as you know who came to watch dodgeball the entire church they literally had to create an arena outside with bleachers and seats because the Knights came to root for their kids and the woman's ministry came to root for their group and the social services crew came to root for theirs and the whole parish got engaged to watch these teens just chuck balls at one another why because dodgeball is entertaining sort of but more so because the teens and the ministry had integrated into the parish in such a way that it wasn't just about these teens being in the youth group but the teens being active in the entire parish and it took the pressure and the obstacles out of the way of the youth minister and gave the teens a means to really engage in parish life in a new way in a way that I would say most teens don't get a chance to participate in and so the question is is well how do we do this and how do we integrate it and I think for us to do that appropriately we got to just understand that there's going to be some bumps in the road what we're talking about now is very foreign to many churches I think if we'd go around and we talk like hey how are y'all doing youth group I think the vast majority of people in here would say something along the lines of well my youth groups here and other ministers are here and there's not a ton of overlap unless somebody needs me to set up chairs and that's okay but the question is is how do we get around some of that and I think the first thing we need to do is just again acknowledge some of these bumps that we're going to have to overcome and when I say we overcome I mean you because if you're not going to advocate for this nobody else will and so the first we need to understand and acknowledge that there can sometimes be a misunderstanding or even a hostility towards today's youth right have ever watched a millennial and a boomer interact it's it's kind of sad but if you've watched a boomer and Gen Z interact it's hilarious because it's like they're speaking completely different languages right when when I talked to someone who's a boomer they look at me and they're like you're the problem with society and I'm like ah kind of stings maybe a little true but not totally but when you watch like my grandparent talk to like one of my kids and my kids you don't even have a smartphone or talking about apps and my grandparents are trying to like wrap their mind around what my 12 year old is saying it's like you're watching something from I don't even know I've never seen anything like it it's bizarre and I think sometimes what there is because there's a miscommunication and misunderstanding there is just a hostility and resistance to bring someone in because change is difficult and so what we need to do is become advocates for young people to say like hey they're not lazy they just have a different way of seeing the world today's generation is completely and entirely passionate about very specific things but they've only learned how to tweet about it up to now and so we need to help them mobilize we need to be able to talk about the good things that the youth of today's world can do for our church and advocate for them and make sure that there's some common grounds for both sides to stand on we'll also need to get ahead of the truth that to bring in someone young into some of these other things means that we're probably going to have to sacrifice fluidity and functionality for a relationship it is going to be far easier to get a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds in a room and run a parish council meeting then it is to pull in an 18 year old and have them speak into some of the ministries and yet I would say it's really important to have young people speaking into the life of the church is it gonna be a little bumpy yeah it's gonna be a little wonky yeah but for the sake of longevity I think it's important we also need to get outside of our silos again I've mentioned that a few times but isn't it so easy for us just to stay in our lanes to just say I serve this group you serve that group and sometimes you can even see that within youth ministry itself when I got to this really big parish I had the youth group this was the kids who had to be there or wanted to be there but it was really just cce but then there's this whole other group that was there for a sacrament they were there for confirmation and so I had 200 kids over here this person had about 150 kids over here and we're running different youth groups and when I would suggest like hey how do we get these two groups together there is resistance because there is different styles different flavors different agendas and that makes sense I was kind of doing Jesus 101 in the krigma and they were doing sacramental prep I get that but the politics that was happening behind the scenes and the territorial nature of the way people were speaking when it came to even just what was happening in youth ministry was an obstacle that we had to work to get around and there are walls that we had to break down before we could bring those groups together and let me tell you when we brought even just those two groups together not only did it give us more resources more energy more people to think creatively around how to serve teens but it gave more life and energy because no longer was the the brother and sister separated because they're in two different youth groups or the friend and the other friends that they were all together and we found creative ways to bring things together when we started doing that with adult faith things stepped up a whole other level because as I ran youth group we started to run programs for parents simultaneously so that we could teach about the Eucharist a 15 year old and the adult faith leader could teach about the Eucharist to a 50 year old and everybody could go home talking about the source and some of our faith and so how can we start to work together serve one another break down those barriers so we can continue to push people forward now I want to get to Q&A I also always have the goal to let you out early because I want you to like me but let me go through six unique points and again this is where a slide would be really helpful but there's a book called growing young and if you haven't read it I suggest you check it out it's a little old now but the content still relevant is written by these people and they went around they just looked at the American Christian church different denominations different churches different demographics and they said what's working and they realized that some churches are growing young means that they're retaining their youth it means that they're doing something unique their church is growing while others are getting old or basically just dissolving into nothingness because well there just was no life there and they realized that there was six core commitments that these church that were growing young that were taking care of young people all had in common and again it wasn't theology it wasn't it wasn't any of those specifics it was just different things that they were doing as a community that helped engage young people and bring them into the church and so we're gonna go through these quickly and then we're going to Q&A but we might go through this too quickly but I want you to hear this just so you can start to think around some of this and let this percolate in the back of your mind as you continue to think about this after the session so here are the six different things they gave youth leadership opportunities I'm gonna paraphrase these so they're easy to understand they empathy yeah well again so yeah so yeah different different things all across the board that they had a voice they weren't just kind of asked to set up chairs and say like great job you're such a leader they were actually given responsibility to come into these different groups and to take some ownership one of the favorite things I ever did which again is a little different from this because I was a youth minister giving people in the youth group leadership opportunities but I used to allow my group of leaders to run a whole youth night for 600 people and really I was running it but at one point they even like duck taped me to a chair and I just sat there so all the kids knew I wasn't in charge even though I was still trying to pull the strings but what they didn't know is that for six months I had prepped them like hey here's your budget for food here's all the places that we typically use for food feel free to call them budget it out what do you want to do you want to get steak for everybody awesome make some phone calls and good luck let me know what you find if you can find something in our budget you can do it we never had steak always had pizza but but hey you need to talk to 600 people here's how you talk in front of people and not totally lose their attention like let's put your slides together what are you going to say is it is it heretical that wouldn't be good very and I would work with them on their teachings I would say what are we going to do for application do you want to do small groups that's what we typically do but you want to do something else and we would kind of train them up and they legit would run this night now again I'd coach them for for really months where the youth ministers we would pull these off in in weeks right but we gave them opportunities our social service ministry they would let teens pick a service project and they let teens organize that so that's a great example of what happened here that they would actually let people say hey I've heard of something here and I want to do something about it when I was a youth minister that's when Syria was in disarray I don't know if you remember it was one of the it was a mass exodus at the time it was the largest in the history of the world some of my teens got together and they said we want to do something about this because again Gen Gen Z they're altruistic they would they want to help people they're socially driven so they said what they want to do something about this so I had connected them Catholic Relief Services I said whatever you want to do you do it and they wanted teens to give and so we kind of nudge them we kind of gave them some structure but they raised about ten thousand dollars to donate to Catholic Relief Services to help all these people in need so there's ways you can do it and give them real opportunities you hold their hand you coach them through it sometimes they fall but you pick them back up and you keep them going so that's what this is talking about here and again I know we're going through this quickly and we'll have time for Q&A the second is they empathized with today's young people today's young people they ask basically three different questions who am I where do I fit in and what's my purpose who am I who are my people what's my purpose and churches found ways to answer those are the churches that kept young people purpose yep who am I who's my people what's my purpose if you think about it that's probably the questions that we ask ourselves sometimes too the third one is they took the gospel seriously now again this is where it could probably go towards theology this book is pretty open-ended when it comes to what they believe they're talking to a lot of Protestant churches here but ultimately they're living what they see in the gospel and they're not watering it down they're tackling the hard things the socially difficult things but they're doing in the way that Jesus does in the gospel they're a warm community that was the fourth one I love it the book says cool is or warm is the new cool and again this really triggers back to that whole idea of they need a place to fit in affinity and belonging is a hallmark need of today's generation they prioritize young people and families everywhere so in every ministry in every opportunity the church did families and young people were welcomed they weren't just pushed into a cry room they weren't forced to get babysitters they looked at everyone in every walk of life and said we can figure out a way for you to be a part of this and then these churches they were the best neighbors so they are socially active they were serving the community they were doing things outside of the walls of the church not just bringing people into a service is that list exhaustive it's a lot but no there's other things we could do is that list the end I'll be all no again there's more we can do but do I think there's a lot of wisdom there yes when I look at this list and does that really sum up the church that I go to now to a degree but I think in some ways my church could probably do better and I think the kind the challenge and the question for you is is how can you take these things and bring them back to your parish how can you advocate for a wider net for your teens a great youth program is amazing and a gift for young people but a parish that is serving youth is irreplaceable and that's what we want for y'all takes the pressure off your shoulders and gives us a church that has a future as the church takes care of the teens now so with that being said what questions do we have what ideas do we have and how can we kind of talk about this together as a community of youth ministers yeah where would I start yeah so my first start would be to go to the pastor and say hey pastor can we talk about this like we need to cast a wider net how can we bring the teens deeper into the life of the parish I think you always start with the pastor because if the pastor is not on board then everything else is going to be an incredibly uphill climb and again I think there's really simple ways that we can bring teens into the faith I just think about the liturgy like they could bring up the gifts that's that's pretty pretty simple no one's gonna mess that up too badly if your priests really trust them and there's oversight maybe they could help with collections maybe they could be ushers right I think with the Knights of Columbus and groups like that that are often in charge of doing things like parish festivals or bazaars I could the teens help set things up or could the teens man booths so I think there's different ways but where do you start you probably don't start with what exactly they're gonna do but you're gonna start with the vision of what they're going to do and that starts with the pastor yeah so when the pastor is not on board again that's and this is just across the across the whole board right like if the pastor is not on board with youth ministry with a core team with a vision or with teens getting more integrated in the church I think that's where you need to continue to advocate I remember when I was in school here and I was taking classes I don't remember a lot of my classes but there's a few things I remember and one thing I remember very clearly is that when you're a youth minister your job is to make the pastor look good that was told to me multiple times I was going through catechetics that it's not a democracy it's the pastor and you serve the pastor and he serves the church that makes sense that's the way the church is structured and we need to honor a priest so if the priest is like we're not gonna bring the teens into the liturgy they're too messy their hands are sticky it's going to be a disaster we can respect that but what we need to continue to do is advocate for them and say well then where can we bring them in and what does this look like and if there is really just a hard line in the sand that says teens are over here the church is over here then I think we have to ask well then what does the church look like in five years and 10 years and 15 years and get a better understanding of what your pastor's vision is because again this bridge and this leap from youth group to the rest of the church we're seeing time and time again it just doesn't happen naturally we need to be very intentional and if we're not connecting teens to the church as teenagers the odds that they're gonna feel connected to the church as adults is slim to none and so if the pastor's resistant I get that again we're going to have to sacrifice some functionality and some fluidity for relationship with young people I think it's worth the sacrifice but you're gonna have to tell your pastor why that is and I think again aim small miss small you know maybe starting small ways and as the teens continue to become integrated in the life of the faith then maybe to get bigger roles and bigger responsibilities I don't think especially if your church is not bringing teens into the life of the parish on a regular basis and they are kind of compartmentalized and kept in the corner I don't think you just flip a switch and say like now the teens are running the place and that's not what I'm advocating for either but I do think it's important for the future of the church that we continue to give them that place because again when you look at what the bishop say and renewing the vision it's the responsibility of the church to evangelize the teens not just the youth minister so but that is always a struggle when the pastor's not on board yeah yeah and again just just to kind of sum up what you're saying you're saying that people are territorial you're saying that your group is compartmentalized and you're saying that they're kind of just brought in to certain things but not other things right yeah and those are all the obstacles that we talked about and so it's not surprising it's sad you know but how do you talk to the parents and how do you talk to the church those are two separate things to a certain degree right and again it always starts with your pastor right so it's it again if you guys in here he takes his youth group to a camp in Indiana that trains them on how to participate in lead within the liturgy that's incredible they come back and they're great lecturers they know how to alter serve or whatever it might be what an amazing gift your pastor I'm sure is aware that you're doing that so as your pastor then helping you make space and liturgy for them to use those new trainings so when it comes to the church I think there's two things one if you no one's going to out trump your pastor right so if your pastor says we need to make space for this that's the ultimate trump card so if he supports this see if you'll vocally support it but the other thing is you said like how do I go and talk to the parish about this stuff you do it by going to the parish and talking about it right so I would go meet with these groups and say hey check out Timmy over here like I know he's small but he has the voice of a lion you know like he just went to this whole thing like give him a shot and yeah maybe we protect you know like some of the lecturers who've been doing it for a long time again I'm not advocating that we get rid of the old guard and just bring in these new young faces what I'm saying is can we have these older electors mentor and continue to train up the young people and can we give them a spot and so you have to go and actually talk and advocate for them when it comes to the parents that's a whole other thing I personally I've loved the opportunities I've got to either build a program or assist in building a program sometimes I had to do it myself like when I was in Florida there's been other times I've kind of been a part of like a consulting team and I was like hey do this this and this but either way I loved that but it was always key that you get the parents on board and so I think there's two things you need to be able to do to do that one you need to be able to share your vision for youth mission because like you said a lot of times parents don't know what youth ministry is because they didn't have youth ministry themselves and so if you just say we have youth ministry we have youth group they might just think video games they might think jumping up and down and clapping your hands and maybe an acoustic guitar where there's some fun songs but you know that you have a vision that's probably much more detailed and much more thorough than that and so you need to share that with them here's what I want to accomplish with routines this year but I also think because they're the primary catechist to give them a voice into your vision what do you want to see what are you dealing with as a parent and how can I better serve you I would do three parent meetings every year and then of course be available for appointments and I would always have those two components here's our semester this is what we're doing this is what we want to accomplish and this is what we'll be teaching you can have all the resources we have right here so that you can follow along but tell me what you're seeing what do you want I don't know if I could be able to do everything this semester but I want feedback so I can better serve you I did that so much that they came expecting those moments so they would actually say like I have a doozy for you today and then they go sit down and they'd wait for me to be able to say like how can I better serve you and so I think if you can pull them in and you can clearly cast your vision as well you're going to be able to get those parents on board much quicker because those teens are getting back into the car after youth group and the parents might say how was it and they go good fine you know they're not getting the whole thing and so you're going to have to do it for yourself yeah cool well there's no other questions we'll close in prayer if you do have a question I'll stick around for a little bit longer but otherwise thanks for coming and if I don't see I have a great conference they have father son holy spirit amen Jesus again we just thank you and we surrender to your goodness and to your plan for us and for our ministry we ask that you just bless it and you guide it Mother Mary we turn to you and we ask for your intercession as we go forth as we pray Hail Mary