Being in a Youth Ministry - Journey of Faith

What is a Youth Ministry?

Youth ministry, also commonly referred to as youth group, is an age-specific religious ministry of faith groups or other religious organisations, usually from ages 12 to 30, whose mission is to involve and engage with young people who attend their places of worship, or who live in their community.

Christian youth ministry usually encompasses one or more of the following:

encouraging young people (whether they have professed faith or not) to learn more about a given faith and to become more involved in spiritual life
providing open youth clubs or other activities for the common good of the young people, sometimes without an overtly religious agenda

Catholic youth work covers a worldwide range of activities carried out with young people, usually in the name of the Catholic Church and with the intention of imparting the Catholic faith to them and inviting them to practice and live out the faith in their lives. Activities in the field range from small scale youth groups attached to parishes or Catholic schools, to large international gatherings, such as World Youth Day.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_ministry

Being in the Youth Ministry

I first joined the Youth Ministry during my formation for the Sacrament of Confirmation in the year 2009. At that time, it was just called a Youth group. My mother encouraged me to join the Youth group to experience, use my talents, enjoy with new friends etc.

Being in the Youth Ministry you get to learn, explore different opportunities with different kind of people around you. I got the opportunity to lead the Youth in the Parish in 2013. While leading, I learnt about servant leadership, leading by example how Jesus worked in His ministry. Me being mostly the silent type, I always wondered as to how would I manage. I realised I was good at organising events by having organised year planner and meetings in a timely manner which led to many programmes organised. I focused on the 3 aspects of Youth Ministry i.e. "Fellowship, Formation and Service" in all areas of the events and to keep the team focused on the core of the Youth where Jesus is the centre of the core and core team being responsible for the youth group in the parish and to make sure we work for all the youth to experience the best in all the programmes organised.

This work cannot be done alone but teamwork and especially the help of the Spiritual Director being with us during this journey. I was glad to have Br Simon Rodrigues, Fr Gnana Jothi, Br Leon Veigas and the then Parish Priest Fr Richard Crasto who all have been supportive in the events we youth organised in the Parish.

You get to connect with the youth of other Parishes through Deaneries where you get to learn their functioning and their challenges.

You get to take part in the Diocesan level programmes where youth from all over Mumbai come together and organise programmes. These programmes explore all youth activities and bring out all kinds of talents in them. In a world of fake social media life, alcohol, drugs, violence, politics; youth ministry is a better place to be in where you get to learn, enjoy, grow, explore different aspects of life and how it can help you when you grow up to be a full adult. Adult life is challenging whether you are going to live single or married. Challenges in finances, career and overall health takes a hit in your life but in Youth Ministry, you learn to be ready for such kind of challenges.

Being in Youth Ministry you have to be open to learn, explore, pray together, enjoy each and every moment of the ministry that is Fellowship, Formation, Service. If you focus only on one aspect of the objective you don't experience the fullness of the Ministry. Fellowship, brings us together as friends. In Formation, we pray together ("For two or three are gathered in my name I will be there" -Mt 18:20) and then finally Service, we work together in service for others whether for an event, social service or in the Church.

Things that you learn in the Youth Ministry:

Working in a Team
Respecting everyone point of view
Enjoying
Building creativity
Learning Empathy
There is no rich or poor we are all one and we can all work together
Servant Leadership
Learning a lot about the Catholic Church and how it functions inside
Social Visit programmes like orphanages or old age homes etc
Learn a lot about vocations
Learn about the life of the religious like Priests and nuns

These aspects of learnings do help in real life when you work in a corporate or in social service organisations.

Opportunity

I took the opportunity to share my talent in designing a logo for the Youth group, building a website, Facebook page and making videos like Youth Moments which covered the activities done together as Youth Group. Till date, they continue to use the logo of the Youth Group quite happy about it. At that time while I designed, I didn't have knowledge of any major software skills but ended up designing using Microsoft PowerPoint and Movie Maker. As years passed, I went to learn more and increased my knowledge in editing, then later this passion became my career as a Graphic Designer.

Logo's I designed just using Microsoft PowerPoint.

I could get opportunities to go for Camps, treks, retreats, concerts, plays, community games, organising events, Taize Prayer and organising Parish Youth Day.