December 12, 2009
Teens energizing teens in Solano youth ministries
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Rocky Amagen, a junior catechist and young adult youth minister at St. Basil Parish in Vallejo, leads a discussion with youths during the “Praise Party” for Solano Deanery teens at St. Joseph Parish in Vacaville. Photo by Patrick Dolim
In marked contrast to Catholic teens’ diminishing interest in parish faith formation programs nationwide, high school students in parishes of the Solano Deanery in Vacaville, Vallejo, Benicia and Fairfield are flocking to youth ministry programs, while young adult graduates of those same programs enthusiastically return to their parishes to help guide the next generation of teens.
According to the National Survey of Youth and Religion by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, only 10 percent of Catholic teens say that their religion is “extremely important” to their lives and 40 percent have never attended any parish-based religious education at all.
The CARA survey also finds that parents of Catholic teenagers are less than half as likely to participate in church activities outside of regular worship services than their Protestant counterparts.
Yet Solano Deanery teens gather each year for a multi-parish youth ministry “Praise Party” which attracts hundreds of participants who commit to months of preparation before the event.
At the most recent praise party in mid-November, more than 400 teens from Solano parishes, plus several youths from St. Christopher Parish in Galt, gathered at St. Joseph Parish in Vacaville for a day of fellowship, prayer, skits, music and friendship. The day was almost entirely planned, coordinated and carried through under the leadership of young adults who graduated from deanery youth ministry programs.
Noting that the young adult leaders had “grown up” with the annual praise party, now in its eighth year, Josephine Mislang, director of religious education at St. Joseph Parish, said that teens in youth programs throughout the deanery look forward to performing at the gathering and seeing the performances of teens from other parishes.
Deanery parishes take turns planning and hosting the event, Mislang noted. This year the youth ministry at St. Joseph Parish chose the theme, “Transform Us,” she said, and each parish youth group made a presentation on the topic, through performing music, a skit, a hand dance or a stomp.
The praise party’s keynote speaker, actor Frank Runyeon, delivered a talk on “Hollywood Versus Faith,” which helped the teens gain some distance from the manipulations of the media, Mislang noted. The teens gathered prayed in Taize prayer meditation before Mass and then participated in a 90-minute liturgy which many teens later commented was too brief, she added.
“The kids are so hungry for spiritual nourishment,” Mislang said. “The praise party energizes them. It really jump starts the year!”
Julie Kissinger, director of religious education at St. Basil Parish in Vallejo and the founder of the Solano Deanery praise party tradition, started the deanery gathering precisely because of that energy and need for nourishment, she said.
Kissinger wanted to bring the spiritual experience of the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress to kids who would never be able to attend it, she said.
“You went into the area where thousands of people were gathered for Mass and you could feel the power of God,” Kissinger said, describing her experience of the Los Angeles Congress
“The kids sing and pray together and their hearts open up,” she said. Even when speakers at the conference talk about difficult issues such as sexuality and abortion, the teens are ready to listen, she said, “because their hearts are open.”
So Kissinger decided to create a religious conference on behalf of teens in her own deanery. Knowing that the emotional experience of such a conference is powerful, Kissinger insists on a strong catechetical element in her own parish youth programs, and advocates following through on the deanery praise party with ongoing catechetical instruction and peer ministry.
Some youth programs don’t emphasize catechesis, she noted, but Kissinger says that’s a mistake.
“These kids are very smart,” she said, adding that teens need the intellectual understanding of their faith and the chance to grow into leaders in their own right.
“When you have strong catechesis and strong peer ministry in your youth program, you will have a strong young person,” Kissinger said.
Kissinger’s colleague at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish in Vallejo, Elizabeth Smail, director of religious education, explained that the challenge in youth ministry is to make the transition from a child’s religious instruction that focuses on sacramental preparation to the ongoing faith formation of adults.
Children are usually enrolled in faith formation as they prepare for first Eucharist, reconciliation and confirmation, she said. But youth ministries begin after teens are confirmed, usually in the eighth grade. The focus is no longer an event in the future but the ongoing development of one’s faith life.
Teens in youth ministry at St. Vincent Ferrer Parish study the Sunday Scriptures, relating the week’s readings to teen life, Smail said, as well as perform parish and community service and minister to one another and to the younger students. The teens are responsible for the youth Mass at 5 p.m. on Sundays also, serving as ushers, lectors and altar servers. In some parishes, teens also serve as eucharistic ministers.
Overseeing a similar program at St. Catherine of Siena parish in Vallejo, Georgia Leoncio, director of religious education, told The Herald she also strongly encourages teens’ families to help out in youth ministry.
“We have TGIF (Teens Gathering in Fellowship) meetings every other week, where the kids read and discuss the Gospels, play games, and just relax with one another,” she said. “We encourage parents to host these meetings at their homes.”
When hosting TGIF meetings, parents get to meet one another and get to know the kids their kids are spending time with, Leoncio said. Parents tend to get more involved in parish life as a consequence. It’s not unusual for teens involved in the 5:30 p.m. Sunday youth Mass at St. Catherine to have a parent singing in the choir, a younger sibling acting as candle bearer, and the parent of a friend as a eucharistic minister, Leoncio said.
Integrating teens’ families into youth ministries is emphasized in other parishes in the Solano Deanery as well.
“Kids need to be included in community,” said Father Humberto Gomez, pastor of St. Mary Parish in Vacaville. “Parents want the kids to be part of the church, but it’s important for parents to be involved in youth ministry, too — otherwise we’re just babysitting.”
At St. Mary Parish, parents make presentations at youth ministry functions and host meetings in their homes where parish youth ministry teens come together as family, sharing a meal and sharing their faith, Father Gomez said.
“These young people are the present membership of the church, and they are important,” he said. “We have a need to evangelize youth, to bring youth to Christ.”
Franciscan Father John Tran Nguyen, parochial vicar of St. Mary Parish, said not only are the teens the present membership of the church, they are also the future of the church, and the adults around them must help them grow in a healthy way.
As young people, they may feel unprepared to talk about sacred things, Father Nguyen said, so he talks with teens about sacred things in a way that they can accept. He doesn’t use the word “prayer” much, he said; he prefers the word “conversation.” He talks to teens about talking to God. Conversations aren’t as intimidating to young people as prayer, he said.
He talks to teens about daily life, he said, and about how they can heal their lives. And he tries to show them the Gospel message in the way he lives.
“That is the way to evangelize young people. You show it in the way you live, not the way you talk,” Father Nguyen said. “And that is the way teens will evangelize others.”
