YOUTH MINISTER’S GUIDE

 Let's Talk!

Eight components make up comprehensive ministry with youth according to our United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the document Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry. Let’s Talk will help you address one of the eight components—catechesis—very thoroughly and effectively while providing opportunities to pursue the remaining seven components.

This Youth Minister’s Guide for Let’s Talk is intentionally brief. It will provide options and suggestions for using this resource, primarily in a series of catechetical sessions throughout the course of a calendar year—intermingled of course with various other activities and experiences for the youth and families you serve. For additional guidance regarding ministry with youth, please see the above-mentioned document as well as other solid resources available to you at diocesan, deanery/vicariate and parish levels.

Click on the following links to be taken directly to that section of the Guide.

• Preparing for Your Session
• Gathering
• Prayer
• Icebreaker?
• The Presentation
• Let’s Discuss!
• Processing
• Getting the Message Home
• Prayer II
• Alternatives to the Session
• Appendix:  Sample Letters to Youth and Parents

Preparing for Your Session

Wrapping up briefly provides a transition toward closing with prayer and sending all forth to love and serve the Lord by loving and serving each other. Your wrap-up should include a few essential elements:

• Remind your teens how the Faith relates to their life by reiterating the connection between whatever aspect of Catholic life was covered in your session and the experiential hook used in the title and body of that month’s Let’s Talk installment
• Summarize a few key points from your session including both doctrinal elements and insights into your faith community gained via the discussion process
• Finally, you’ll notice that each installment of Let’s Talk includes a brief section called “On a Related Note.” One purpose of this section is to help your youth understand how our Catholic faith is interrelated—organic to use a fancy term. It would be good to mention the contents of this section briefly, perhaps inviting teens to share it as well as the rest of Let’s Talk with mom, dad and/or their legal guardian(s).

Getting the Message Home

You’ll also notice a section called Driving It Home near the end of each Let’s Talk. Even though your ministry is of course focused on young people, their parents have needs—catechetical and otherwise—that may not have been met in the past and, unless your parish is highly unusual in a good way, are not being provided for excellently now. Encouraging, cajoling, bribing your teens to do the Driving It Home activities will not only be of some help to many parents, but also (by providing chances for teen-parent faith-sharing and just plain positive interaction) may be beneficial to the young people you serve.

Getting the message home in another sense can refer to what to do if a teen misses a session. If an installment of Let’s Talk has not been sent home in preparation for your session (see sample letters below) it is important that Let’s Talk be sent to absent teens or their parents—you decide.

Prayer II

Closing with prayer says a lot. The prayers at the end of each installment are meant to be simple and relevant to your catechetical session. You may find that a few teens want to remain for a brief time and ask you more specific questions or share thoughts in a less structured way; so be sure to budget some of your time for this. After encouraging your youth to make prayer part of their daily life and closing with the prayer provided, then, your session is over.

Eight components make up comprehensive ministry with youth as was mentioned in this guide’s introduction. You might want to identify a component in addition to catechesis and structure an activity or experience immediately before or after your session; or with some modification your catechetical session can include at least one other component. Many opportunities to pursue the components comprehensively will arise as you use Let’s Talk faithfully throughout your year.

Alternatives to the Session

It should be noted that catechetical sessions are not the only means of using Let’s Talk. Although at least some catechetical sessions should probably occur in any given year, here are a few additional possibilities:

• You could give Let’s Talk directly to teens to read individually on their own time, and then follow up in various ways. Even if your follow-up efforts don’t reach each teen each time, at least they will be exposed to our Faith—and God can build on that
• Groups of teens could read Let’s Talk and discuss it together, checking in with you somehow afterwards; it would be best if this were done with an adult facilitator—maybe working with one of the teens as co-facilitator. Even if no facilitator were present, with a few rules-of-thumb laid down by you, this alternative would give teens a chance to interact with the truths of Catholic faith
• Maybe sending Let’s Talk directly to parents and inviting them to use it with their youth would be an alternative to try. Another catechetical leader at your parish might be willing to help you provide a session of some sort for parents, or even a catechetical session for teens and parents combined!

In closing, one basic premise driving Let’s Talk is that each person has a right to hear the Faith proclaimed in its entirety at an age-appropriate level, ideally several times throughout the course of life. By using Let’s Talk somehow eight times annually over the course of four years you will expose each young person in your parish to the essentials of Catholic faith and life during her or his high school career.

Along with Renewing the Vision (and the Catechism of the Catholic Church!) other ecclesial documents may be helpful to you in your ministry. Various departments of our United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (www.usccb.org) stand ready to assist you in addition to guidance you may receive at diocesan and vicariate/deanery levels. For an excellent process in establishing an enduring youth ministry effort at your parish, you might consult the Diocese of Pittsburgh (www.diopitt.org) and its outstanding resource Solomon’s Wish.

You have been called to a great ministry, and the role you fill in the lives of your youth and their families cannot be overestimated. With your natural gifts and solid resources God will surely continue effecting positive change in many lives through your effort and devotion. May our Lord continue blessing you, your ministry and all you hold dear in Jesus our Savior and Brother.

Here is an additional thought: Let’s Talk by its nature is somewhat cerebral or cognitive in approach—although ample affective opportunities abound. The guidance above hopefully makes clear the importance of a social dimension to catechetical sessions and ministry generally put. Also, once again, it’s important to recall that teens have at least five senses; using several of them throughout your session is usually a good idea.

Finally, if this manual sounds preachy in any way, please consider it a character flaw of the author’s and not a strike against Let’s Talk. This resource can really do some good in your capable hands whether they’ve been at youth ministry for many years or a much shorter time. May God bless you in all your good work!

For sample letters, click here»

Of course these sessions are primarily to benefit youth and families. But you’re the one who orchestrates this beautiful ministry at your parish—hence we refer to your catechetical session.

The best basic preparation (beyond prayer and an active sacramental life) is for you and a core group of other adults and, ideally, youth to read the month’s installment of Let’s Talk. When the Catechism of the Catholic Church is referred to in the text, as it often is, doing at least a bit of additional reading here would be great. The Catechism is much more accessible than many people might imagine; it’s even available online at www.usccb.org.

Beyond a thorough reading and perhaps a core group discussion of your session’s installment, preparation becomes a process of answering the series of questions reflected in the table of contents above:

• How will our youth and volunteer adults gather?
• What will our opening prayer be?
• Will we do an icebreaker?
• What person(s) will provide a brief presentation / witness talk?
• How will discussion be facilitated? (Group size? Adult and/or peer facilitators / reporters? Specific discussion questions identified, from available choices, for focus?)
• Who will facilitate large group processing and how will this occur?
• How will your session wrap up—including a brief reference to how the session’s topic relates to other aspects of our Catholic faith?
• What incentive might you provide to help ensure that some discussion occurs at home between sessions?
• How, specifically, will you use the closing prayer provided in this month’s installment of Let’s Talk?

A few additional considerations regarding preparation:

It’s always good to take into account what Sunday readings, particularly the Gospel, appear in our lectionary near the time of your session; this way connections might be made to recent or soon-to-be-celebrated Eucharistic liturgies. Similarly, the liturgical season may provide a nice context for your effort at catechesis.

Along with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, there are several reliable resources for your own preparatory reading if you desire. Excellent examples include The Teaching of Christ, 5th Edition (Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, Inc.) and The Catholic Way (Doubleday).

It’s always good to brainstorm about how to involve various senses in your catechetical session as well as incorporating a variety of learning styles. Once these basic preparatory steps have been carried out you can finalize your agenda. You might experiment with sending the monthly installment out ahead of time with a letter (see appendix). You’ll quickly learn what works best with your group of young people and their families.

Gathering

Maybe your young people will be gathering specifically for your catechetical session. Maybe they will be coming from and/or going to an additional activity. The main components of your gathering time in any case seem to be:

Friendliness

An opportunity to socialize at least a bit. Perhaps a bite to eat or at least a soft drink

Within reason, something for most if not all of the senses (background music, decent lighting, relatively comfortable seats arranged in a way conducive to breaking into a discussion—after a brief presentation)

A core group of adults and, hopefully, teens should welcome people in a natural yet intentional way. No one should feel unwelcome, although of course some people prefer to step back and take the scene in before starting to socialize very much.

After ten or fifteen minutes of intentional gathering time, a brief welcome and opening prayer should begin fairly promptly. Starting at least close to on-time communicates the impression that what you’re about is something significant. (This of course is very true!)

Prayer

Always begin with prayer. It doesn’t hurt to point out the reason for this—the importance of prayer, that is.

Your opening prayer needn’t be elaborate. Traditional prayers of our Church, occasionally at least, are fine. Depending on what installment of Let’s Talk is being used, you might begin with the prayer at the installment’s end (under Let’s Pray) repeating it as your closing prayer for deeper learning.

Musical and various other forms of prayer may of course be used. The key is always to complement your own personal prayer in preparation for the session with a brief opening prayer.

Icebreaker?

To break or not to break—the ice; that is the question. The answer is entirely up to you. (One could also argue that an icebreaker or some other sort of activity could occur before the opening prayer.)

At any rate, this is where resources other than Let’s Talk may come in handy. These resources include your teens, who may have some icebreaking activities to suggest for you.

The Presentation

The whole premise of Let’s Talk is that teens would generally rather have a discussion than a presentation. Our very positive assertion has got to be that discussions are wonderful—and that they have to be based on something concrete; hence the Background Information part of each installment.

There are benefits to teens reading Let’s Talk before arriving for your session. You might try seeing if you can help this occur. Otherwise, before or after a brief presentation, you’ll want to give everyone a few minutes to read over their installment.

As for the presentation itself, you have several options; among them:

• You personally could highlight a few key points under Background Information
• A guest presenter could do the same, perhaps facilitating the discussion afterward
• A snippet of a video could help raise the salient points needed for a good discussion. (Short sections of videos—even current suitable movies—generally work well)
• Teens and/or adults could offer a few thoughts on the session’s topic. This might be more witness talk than catechesis, which is okay so long as at least a few doctrinal points under Background Information are touched upon. Again—to the extent that your teens read over the installment, their discussion will have a better basis

Some combination of the above may work best, and every presentation doesn’t have to be the same. It might be wise to begin with the experiential hook that starts each installment. This quickly moves into a more didactic mode, but helps youth understand that every aspect of their life relates in some way to our Catholic faith.

When you read Getting the Message Home below you’ll notice that, hopefully, Let’s Talk will be read again by at least some of your youth and shared with their parents at home. Many parents will benefit from the basic overview of the Faith provided in this catechetical resource.

Let’s Discuss!

The key to this part of your session is balancing the desire to have a discussion with the tendency to enter a free-for-all mode where discussion becomes a collective monologue and no one is enlightened beyond knowing other peoples’ opinions on various matters. (The latter has value, of course; but a catechetical session goes beyond that, and among the things young people need—teens can benefit greatly from catechetical sessions.)

A few generalities apply.

• Discussion groups shouldn’t be too large, although exactly where to draw the line is up to you based on your knowledge of the teens’ needs, maturity level(s) etc. If your total group size is relatively small, you may just have one large group discussion (different than Processing, below); otherwise a few small groups will reunite for processing
• Each discussion group should have a facilitator or co-facilitators, maybe an adult and teen working together. The facilitator’s main job is to strike the balance mentioned above by implementing the strategy described in this final point:
• Keep the group focused as much as possible within reason on the text of Let’s Talk—specifically the Background Information. When an opinion is expressed, comments like “Show us what in the background information makes you say that” will make your session both formational and informative—an excellent goal for catechesis as well as comprehensive ministry.

Discussion skills sometimes take time to develop. Be patient and encourage patience. Work on seeing to it that all group members have chances to express themselves. Some members will always tend to discuss more than others; that’s okay so long as fair opportunities are provided and participation is gently encouraged.

Processing

Once a discussion has occurred, it’s important to highlight a few key points for the entire (large) group; this is done via a process of reporting—usually by small group facilitators. The processing itself needs to be facilitated by someone (you?) who has identified about three main points from the Background Information. [These points would be good to discuss with presenter(s) ahead of time so they can be emphasized during your session’s catechetical presentation.]

Systematically, each small-group facilitator is asked to report the essential results of their discussion. All or a select few of the discussion questions can be reported on—maybe allowing facilitators to identify questions that led to a lot of conversation. The processing facilitator may have to guide things here if certain key questions aren’t mentioned voluntarily.

The processing facilitator should provide brief verbal feedback by way of summarizing main points. Ideally newsprint, overheads, chalkboard (PowerPoint?!) etc. will allow at least some keywords and phrases to be posted.

When your processing is completed, the entire group will have had a chance to share and listen. Visually a few key phrases and vocabulary words will set the stage for wrapping up your catechetical session.