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Youth minister's purpose: Building better Catholics When he was a student engaged in community service at Providence College in Rhode Island, Rich Ward was always "trying to figure out why you're here. You start thinking about why you pick what you pick." While serving in homeless shelters and learning about non-profits, he weighed what had brought him to that point and where it was going to take him. "I started to think about the idea that there was more behind the service projects. Faith was pulling me into it; God was calling me to do this kind of work," Mr. Ward said. Now 29, he is the new youth minister at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Albany. Youth ministry As a teenager, Mr. Ward was active with the Providence diocesan Youth Council, and spent his summers attending and coordinating Catholic service camps for teenagers across the country. He arrived in Albany in August, when he took over from his twin brother, Rob, as campus minister at LaSalle School for Boys in Albany. He was hired as youth minister at St. Vincent's in October. "Youth ministry feeds into community service, advocacy, social justice -- they're core components," he said. "I always have that in the back of my mind: getting kids involved in advocacy and community service." Challenge one Mr. Ward believes that a major goal -- and challenge -- of youth ministry is to help teenagers feel ownership of their faith, their youth ministry programs and their parishes. "That's one of the big challenges: to get kids involved and feeling like they have some ownership in the parish, and are not just the 'youth ministry group,'" he explained. "My job is to get them excited about being Catholic. "If you don't convert it into practical experience for the kids, they leave [youth ministry] with a lot of fun experiences but not with the practice of being a better Catholic" and with religion not being "an active, essential part of their lives." Old and new At St. Vincent's, Mr. Ward is learning about youth ministry traditions, such as the annual haunted house for younger kids, a chocolate tasting and an ice cream social. He intends to continue those while introducing new opportunities. One of them was a "What's So Cool About Being Catholic" Jeopardy-style game, where the kids tackled topics like popes, identifying Bible passages, prayer and the Creed. Mr. Ward called it a "fun way of learning about their faith." The more teens learn about their faith, and the more real and exciting it becomes for them, he said, the more "contagious" it can be to others. More challenges Other challenges in youth ministry, Mr. Ward noted, are keeping things relevant, and working with the schedules of today's super-busy teens, who often include sports, school, religious education and extracurricular activities on their schedules. With that in mind, he hopes to help his charges feel a part of the parish community. "I've been thinking about 'Called to Be Church' in the Diocese and how many teens are involved with that," he said. "How can we make teens feel that they are called to be Church? It's a conversation that is happening, and it's important to help kids have that conversation." (In 2001, Mr. Ward was hired at LaSalle Academy in New York City, where he taught morality to high-school juniors. His first day of class was 9/11. "For me," he recalled, "the whole time was making sure the kids were being informed, being where they were supposed to go, and reassuring them that things were safe and that we were trying our best" to connect them with parents, subways and buses that could take them home. He believes that youth ministry is bolstered by "people who have smiles on their faces from being at church. Important lessons are taught [to teens] by the way a parish runs itself. The community itself is a role model for what it means to be enthusiastic about their faith.") (2/8/07) |