Youth Leadership Team Pastoral Project Skit

We are truly blessed to work with the youth leaders in our parishes. Our Youth Leadership Teams - PULSE: Passionately Uniting and Leading Students to Evangelize, had their project presentations on Mother's Day. They wrote a beautiful speech  (attached) and also decide to do the Everything skit with the music by Lifehouse.

The project theme was Abiding in God's Will and Surrendering to God's Will.

The speech the team wrote is truly inspirational. Remember - we coach and advise, we don't write for them. We pray and allow God to work through them to give the message He has for us.




The YLT PULSE is a 2 parish joint team so they performed at 2 parishes that same day.

Mother Mary - Continue to pray for all youth. They are the future of our church. Ask the Holy Spirit to continue to guide them. We ask this through Christ Our Lord. Amen

Resurrection - NEW LIFE! Happy Easter

"Sure as a chick comes from an egg, Jesus rose from the dead." That is what my Grandmother would tell me when I asked her why we have Easter eggs on Easter.

That brings up the old saying, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?'' Giving way to the creation story.

We also compare Easter to a caterpillar and a butterfly. The caterpillar goes off into a cocoon and emerges as a radiant butterfly - NEW LIFE!

New life through Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus died for us, we are able to have our sins cleansed and that allows us to be with Him in heaven - NEW LIFE!

Jesus gave Himself for us on the cross, but death could not stop God. Jesus rose from the dead, the Resurrection and the NEW LIFE!

Today, Easter Sunday, is the most important day in our Catholic faith. The Resurrection!

Jesus entered our world as an infant to show us His humanness. He died and left the world as a Man. He rose from the dead as God.

Jesus was always God Man, but He didn't stop anything just to make Himself feel better. He could have removed His chains and the cross at anytime. He chose the Cross.

His Resurrection gives us faith and hope for a NEW LIFE!

Alleluia!

Brought to life from an older blog post of mine.

Mother Mary - You watched your Son go through His Agony and Death, yet you stayed strong for your children. Pray for us. Amen

Good Friday

Good Friday - Why do we call it GOOD? It is the day our Lord died. Exactly why we call it good.
Jesus our Lord and God, chose to die for our sins. That makes it a very good day for us.

Mother Mary - Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for giving Jesus to us so that He could say His yes too. Amen

Misty Edwards - Arms Wide Open

Let Us Not Grow Tired of Doing Good

My granddaughter had her appendix out on Monday, she is going to be 10.  It is scary and yet it was inspiring to see her so brave.

She was so well taken care of at the Children's Hospital. They gave her crafts to do, games to play, a stuffed animal with an IV needle, a new blanket for her to keep and so many other ways that they went above and beyond to keep her comfortable and happy.

My #2, daughter, an RN and her husband is in the medical field too - were so impressed with the care of our little princess.

It is such a great gift to know that our children are being taken care of in such a loving and compassionate setting.

God gives people gifts and we try to recognize those gifts to see where we can make a difference in the world. Not just for ourselves, but for others.

We need to search our hearts to see what talents we have.

It wasn't just the Doctors and nurses at the Children's Hospital that make it a special place, it has to be a team effort from the administrative staff to the maintenance crew and people that wash the sheets.

I could see in the "treasures" that she brought home that there are many volunteers and organizations that donate as well - from the homemade little quilt to the kit to make the cute octopus from yarn. The kit lovingly put together with instructions and everything she needed to make it.


These ideas can be inspiration for youth groups and  Youth Ministry projects - there are places in our own areas that can use these "treasures".

Our youth make blankets for the Baptism Ministry at our parish. They come and sit around the table and tie the knots and make beautiful baby blankets.  These can also be lap blankets to give to nursing facilities and hospitals with swing beds.

When my Dad was close to death, Hospice wheeled in a cart with a beautiful handmade blanket that had the Lord's Prayer on it. My Mom was so happy to lay that blanket over him - to wrap him in the love of our Lord.

We don't know who we are going to touch with acts of kindness, but just know that they don't go un-noticed. They may not be noticed by everyone, but isn't that what it is all about.

"Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up"
Galatians 6:9

Mother Mary, Pray for us to share our time, talent and treasures with others! Amen

God is Good Everyday! Faith Formation, Lent and Music

I forgot how much I enjoy working with Elementary age children for Faith Formation. My coworker is still out with an injury so I worked with the Faith Formation program again yesterday. We had the First Communion Retreat last Saturday and that just fueled my flame for formation again in young children.

Last night at the start of the program we had a gathering to pray and talk about the Liturgical Season of Lent with a powerpoint. Then out came the music. I had some videos stored on my computer from a few years ago when I was the coordinator, so I didn't have to work too hard to pull it all together.

A few of the older elementary (we had pre-5th at that time) remembered me and the music so they were leaders for the younger children in the "choreography".

This is one of the favorites - we made up our own "movements".


 This video has it all - music and choreography!

 

Prayer, powerpoint and music only lasted 10 minutes so it didn't infringe on the Catechist's time with the students, but enhanced the experience. If the children aren't engaged, they become bored and that leads to being tired and not paying attention. Elementary session is from 6-7pm, so that age is tired by this time of the day and need the music and movement to invigorate them for the rest of the lesson.

I feel so blessed to be able to enjoy time in prayer and Catechesis with all people, but especially children and youth.

The youth group meets from 6-7pm too, so I had them come out for the gathering with the younger students. After the elementary were released to their teachers we went to the youth room to work on posters for the March Food Drive.  They were so understanding of the situation.

At 7:00 we had a few minutes to get set up for the 6-10th grade to start at 7:15pm, playing music in the gathering area of course~

The youth gathered for prayer. Then we had a powerpoint that started with Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus in the Desert that youth volunteered to read. We then watched a great video from Busted Halo that was only a couple minutes long about our personal journey in the desert.

Make Faith Formation joyful. Learning can be joyful. Praise and worship can be joyful.
Lent is a penitential time, but still can be joy filled.

Ecclesiastes 8:15

"Therefore I praised joy, because there is nothing better for mortals under the sun than to eat and drink and be joyful;"

Mother Mary, Pray for us to be joyful and praise God everyday!  AMEN
God is good - EVERYDAY
and EVERYDAY God is good!

Approved Eucharistic Miracles for Faith Formation & Youth Ministry

Approved Eucharist Miracles can be very powerful to youth and young adults for faith formation and youth ministry.  One that is my favorite and I have come back to time and time again is the
Miracle of Lanciano.
There was a priest having doubts about the real presence in the 8th century. During the Mass the Body and Blood of Christ that would have had the appearance of Bread and Wine took on the appearance of Flesh and Blood. The Flesh is real flesh and the Blood is real blood. These Relics can still be viewed today and should have decomposed long ago.

There have been scientific tests done - the Flesh is of a heart and the Blood is type AB (which just happens to be the Blood type on the Shroud of Turin - but that is for another day!).

Eucharistic Miracles are not needed for the faithful, but can be a good teaching tool for the Real Presence. EVERY MASS AND EUCHARIST IS A MIRACLE - A SPECIAL GIFT!



Mother Mary, Pray for us to know the Miracle of every Mass through the Holy Eucharist and Real Presence. AMEN

Youth Leadership Team Pastoral Project - Youth Ministry in Action!

I was fortunate to be a part of building a Youth Leadership Team (YLT) at our parish.  A few youth that possess good leadership skills were asked to help write the "bi laws", application process and expectations of the new team. 

This process took over 6 months to get in order. After everything was in place, applications were taken and the team was established.

Part of our YLT is to work on a Pastoral Project each year. The priest picked the topic of Forgiveness for the first undertaking. The team tackled refining the project for a year, meeting once per month for one and a half hours each session.

First they researched forgiveness and what it means to them. They worked on a "speech" for the presentation for months, making sure that it would be well understood by the audience. It was important that they weren't trying to "teach" about forgiveness, but rather to go in depth on what it meant to them.

Then they needed a project to go with it. The team decided to have cards of 3 different colors that they passed out after the speech presentation and asked the parish family to each write one sentence or draw something that forgiveness means to them. Everyone - even children.

The YLT had decided early on that they wanted to arrange the cards into something - they chose a heart. We had a canvas made - it is about 4'x4' and the YLT arranged the cards, placing them on the canvas so that each card can be viewed. 

Our YLT is know as PULSE - Passionately Uniting & Leading Students to Evangelize

The cards were put on the canvas with hot glue and were folded in half and arranged so that each card can be moved to look at, but yet keep the beauty of the heart.

This project was public for about 6 months in a main part of our parish, then we moved it to the youth room where it remains on display.

Technology and Youth Ministry - Yes Please

Technology for youth is essential. It is a part of who they are today. We can incorporate the good from technology into our faith formation.

A fun activity for teens is to do a poll and  have them use texting to respond to the poll. There is a free poll creator at Poll Everywhere . You can have 25 replies (individual) free or teacher (educators) can have 40 replies free per poll. Replies can be texted, Twitter (tweets) or by web browsers.

It is fun to incorporate into PowerPoint presentation or just as a separate activity.

The results come in at real time, so they can watch the results.  I like to project my laptop on a screen.

It doesn't matter if you have more than 25 or 40 youth - it just takes the first 25 or 40 responses that come in (first in are the first recorded till the quota is met) for the free version.

It is a good way to start intriguing dialog with the youth. The results can lead to chatter and input on great topics.

Think of questions to ask your audience -

Which is the most important Feast - Christmas or Easter?

Is the Immaculate Conception Mary or Jesus?

Etc...

The questions are endless that can be used.

Or you can use the poll as an ice breaker to get everyone talking to each other about questions like-

"Would you rather be the best player on a team that always looses or the worst player on a team that always wins?"

For faith formation or for ice breaker youth group game, either way, it is using technology in a fun and positive manner.

Photography as a Tool for Youth Ministry

My youngest daughter is now 17. She is the youngest of 7 children. When the older sibs were young, I would have them make things - crafts, sewing, etc, anything to enter in the local fair.  They enjoyed getting ribbons and ribbons led to money! It was always a fun time for them to start early and get ready for the fair.

Well as time went on, I wasn't on the ball quite as much as before so I wasn't always on my game to have our youngest ready for the "fair".

So when she was about 7, I gave her my digital camera and told her to take some pictures so I could quickly go and get them printed to make it to the fair on time and enter!

Well, this led to a love of photography for her. That first blue ribbon gave her confidence. Then the grand champion many years later. She became enthralled in photography and has a great eye!  So my "not being so on the ball" turned out to be a blessing in disguise!

She has started a blog with her photography and I have one of her pictures for the cover photo on this blog.

Since she is in our Youth Group, I decided to have them make a video.They picked a song, which took a few sessions to decide on and printed the lyrics so that they could start compiling pictures for the movie.

I told them they needed to take all of the images for the video and that there could be no faces (people) in the pictures. They took the pictures and made the video using Movie Maker (It is usually pre installed on Windows based computers).  The song they picked out is How He Loves Us by David Crowder Band - Very good choice!

I had never created a video from images and music before but one of my daughters had made a few for me for Vacation Bible School. A quick tutorial from her and we were on our way.  There are many tutorials on youtube to help you out.

It was fun to watch them learn to use the software. They learned a new skill and created a beautiful praise and worship video that we uploaded to youtube.com . It turned out to be a fun Youth Ministry project that took most of the year working on it from song decision to pictures and arrangement to the finished project.

My First Post - Being a Dynamic Catholic and Decision Point

Well, it is time for my first post on the new blog.  This blog is dedicated to Catholic Youth and Children's programs, including Faith Formation, Youth Ministry and Liturgy of the Word for Children. I am hoping that it will be a spot that you will return to time and time again.

Let's talk first about Youth Ministry. Youth Ministry is the program that takes our children and makes them disciples! Faith Formation teaches them the Catholic faith and prepares them for the Sacraments.

The program that I chose for our Youth Ministry program at our parish this year is a free program that we work with. The program is from Dynamic Catholic and it is called Decision Point. It is considered a 2 year Confirmation program, but since our parish had a new Confirmation curriculum in place, I decided to use it for our Youth Ministry program. It is good for grades 6 through senior citizens! It should be viewed by everyone in my opinion. Matthew Kelly brings the faith to life in his rendition of "being the best version of yourself".


(Decision Point preview)
 Since Wednesday is "religion" night for most people, it was only obvious that we capture as many youth as we can with that night. I was granted the first Wednesday of each month for my large/small group session.  Being such, it became know as "First Wednesday".