That time I had to call the police while on retreat

Yup, you read right.  I had to call the police this past Sunday morning at 12:15 am while on a confirmation retreat with 40 tweens. Totally what I would prefer to do instead of sleep.

The retreat was held at this big, brand-new high school and we had it all to ourselves for the weekend.  Along with the facility came the responsibility of having to turn off the alarm at night so the alarm/motion detection sensors would not go off.  Lucky.me.

Saturday evening before the maintenance guy left he gave me thorough instructions on how to turn the alarm off at midnight: punch in the code and hit enter; sounds easy enough!  Lights out was at 11pm but being I had the special alarm job I needed to stay up to midnight to make sure the alarm situation was fine n' dandy.  So what did I do with the remaining hour of time? Well of course I raided the fridge for some leftover pizza and checked out happenings on Instagram.

As midnight approached I waited with baited breath to set the alarm so I could finallyyy go to sleep.

So its midnight.  I am typing in the code and punching enter.  It would be wayy to easy for it to work the first time, so after multiple attempts of punching in the code with it not working I proceeded to freak.the.freak.out.  On the screen it kept flashing "INVALID CODE". Oh and did I mention at by this time the alarm automatically was armed, which meant I was standing as still as a statue against the wall so as to not set off the alarm.  Insert another freak-out.

So I tried calling the maintenance guy but no such luck.  I called Jim (guess for moral support?) but the sleeping bear didn't answer.  So I called another friend, and in the middle of that realized my phone battery was like 10%.  Perfect.

I realized it was not physically possible for me to sleep standing up so I decided to go call the police.  Earlier that day the maintenance man told me he had already called the police to let them know of the school had alarms issues this weekend to not send a car to investigate because it would have been caused by our group.  So after my first call attempt to the police was dropped, I tried again and was transferred to a dispatch.  I explained the whole story including the my fear of waking up 50 people sleeping and the growing tiredness from standing still for going on 30 minutes.

The officer explained that if the alarm went off he would still need to send a car out to check the school and speak in person with me to ensure all was well. Not really the answer I wanted.

So I decided I no longer cared if I woke up 50 people with a screeching alarm, I needed to go get some sleep.  I began to walk away from the alarm.  Sure enough, the motion sensors picked up me walking and a humming noise began to grow.  I walked back to the alarm and with one final attempt plugged in the code.  By some miracle, it worked.  I turned off the alarm without waking up 50 people or needing the police come to rescue me from the evil clutches of the alarm system.

To say I was thrilled is an understatement.

I proceeded to happily skip down the hall and crawl into my sleeping bag. I am really glad we have the police available to come help at any time of the day or night, but I was realllyyy glad they didn't have to come help me turn off the alarm in the middle of the night.

Pay attention if someone ever has to teach you to set an alarm, ya never know when you could end up in a similar situation! ;)

The toughest things about being a Youth Minister...

...are
1. I feel as though I am trying to 'sell' Jesus as much to the parents as I am to the teens.
2. One of the hardest things is just trying to get butts in the door.

Tuesday night at the parish we had a second mandatory parent presentation on raising happy, holy Catholic teens and how to empower parents to help raise their kids in the faith.  Also at the meeting I had interview times/dates available for their young person's interview before being confirmed.  We another meeting on Sunday afternoon to offer more flexibility for family schedules.  Out of 61 young people to be confirmed this November, 25 parents did not come.  And two parents came late, stayed at the talk for 15ish minutes, signed their teen up for their interview, and went merrily on there way. Major. Bummer.

I was flabbergasted and disappointed...don't parents care about their kids growing in the faith??  Don't parents want their kids to have a personal relationship with Jesus and understand the Catholic faith??  Of course, I am not making a wide, sweeping judgment that all or even most parents don't care about the child's faith life....but its at times like this when you feel like you're fighting an up hill battle.  Sure we could say there a lot of reasons why parents and teens are not engaged and connected in the Church and have a faith life...but it can be really frustrating for me sometimes, especially as I just want everyone to find all the joy and goodness in Catholicism as I do.  Either be all in for Jesus or not at all, but don't be lukewarm or apathetic.

One part of the equation I think is because many parents I would say don't know/understand/or maybe get even now what they believe as Catholics.  And this can be for many reasons.  30-40 years ago, Catholic schools and majority families were great at 'memorizing' the Catechism (a book of history/tradition/Scripture explaining why we believe what we do as Catholics), and sure memorizing has a great place in helping teach the faith, but that doesn't automatically translate to the heart, where people have a living relationship with Jesus.  We cannot expect people to just be able to rattle of prayers and the 10 commandments and then expect them to turn out to be intentional disciples.  For many years, a lot of Catholics have been 'sacramentalized' but not 'evangelized.'  By that I mean, many of us just went to Mass on Sunday because we were supposed to or receive the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confirmation because our folks made us.  We went to formation classes, received the sacraments, and basically did all the Catholic stuff on the outside, but perhaps on the inside maybe hearts weren't being converted and changed.  And I think the Church has been realizing it for time and seeing the huge effects and implications this should have for how we educate/reach out to adults and children.  First, introduce to them Jesus, help them know and love him...and then introduce the many awesome treasures of the Catholic faith to them.

If the parents aren't living lives as disciples, how can we reasonably expect that there kids are going to jump on the Jesus band wagon with all they got? My DRE (Director of Religious formation) and I are already talking about new ideas of starting some kind of out reach/ministry to parents with children of all ages.  And it's going to take time...slowly we can turn the ship around.

I guess its frustrating because its like at times I am tying to 'sell' Jesus to these parents, as much as I am to their young person.  I just feel weird even saying that out loud, "selling Jesus"...I'm not a telemarketer!  But I imagine that there folks in the Church that could relate to that idea, because we really do have to compete for adults and teens attention and hearts just to even present the Gospel message to them; and sometimes that just can get tough.  I was talking to a youth minister friend the other day and he said he got so discouraged about always just trying to get butts in the door that he almost walked away from youth ministry after two years, because it just started to wear on him.  And it's funny cause I could relate to some of that in a very real way.  Numbers are important in ministry, of course its not all about the numbers.  But if you're only getting 4-5 kids at events, and someone down the street is getting 50-60 teens, you'd definitely ask and wonder, "What are they doing that is helping them reach more teens?"

Numbers do matter.  Getting teens in the door does matter to even try and give the 'Jesus thing' a chance.  But really at the end of the day, all I can do is my personal best and keep giving it all to the Lord and asking for more grace/guidance to help those I minister to...cause in the end, they are all his little ones; and I'm just a tool he can use to help capture their hearts/minds for Him.

I'm not hopeless or burnt out...its just hard sometimes after a rough day like this...

The best parts of my job...

... as a Youth Minister. 

This weekend, I took 42 teens on a Confirmation retreat.  They are preparing to receive this awesome sacrament in a few weeks.  The teens had a jam packed weekend full of great speakers, 2 great bon fires complete with the fixings for smores, and plenty of free time to explore the woods or have a game of tackle football.

This weekend I was reminded why I love what I get to do and how important it is.  Not every young person is probably going to walk away on fire with love for Jesus and their Catholic faith, and I get that, but my job is to help plants the seeds of "desire" to know and have a personal relationship with Jesus.  And I was blessed to get some glimpses of the seeds of faith being planted in the hearts of the young church I get to work with.  So this weekend caused me to reflect on some of the best parts of my job.

So what are the best part of being a Youth Minister???
1.  Praying with young people....so powerful. so important.  On Saturday night, we had an evening prayer experience with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament (as Catholics we believe that the bread is truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ...it is really the most AWESOME thing of being Catholic...don't believe me, read John 6 in the Bible:) and teens also had the opportunity to go to Confession and be prayed with for anything they wanted.  I prayed over young people who want prayer for their friends considering suicide, lost family members, and each of them to have a living, passionate relationship with Jesus.  We hugged and cried, listened and learned.  Prayer is the spiritual dynamite to a living relationship with God, and the more I work with young people I am reminded how important is to take time and pray with and for them.

2.  Seeing young people become strong Christian leaders and witnesses...I was ooberly blessed to have one of our current youth leaders and one of our graduated youth leaders come and help on our retreat this weekend.  They are both strong, on fire, and vibrant witnesses of what it means to be a Catholic Christian.  I watched them lead prayer among the whole group.  I watched one of them pray over one of the teens on retreat.  I watched them play hard and pray even harder with the teens.  One of the young ladies on the retreat came up to me on Sunday and shared how she was really impressed with one of those 2 youth leaders.  That youth leader was comfortable enough to talk about Jesus/their faith and love God but still be a fun kind of person to be around...she said watching that youth leader reminded her that it is possible to love Jesus and have fun.  I am SO proud when I see young people step up and out in the world as joyful, authentic Catholics; not because it is about something that I did, but its all about the power of God at work in their life, transforming them more and more to be who he has called them to be.

3.  Sharing my own personal walk with Jesus...I think it is so important for teens to hear the faith journey's of other trusted adults; it helps them make sense of their own relationship with God and gives them support and encouragement.  After we got home from the retreat on Sunday, I was crazy enough to still have a Youth group meeting (even though I realistically had a total of 6 hours of sleep this entire past weekend:).  We watched an AMAZING movie, "To Save a Life...check out the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o56pazEh-Q.  It is a powerful movie that addresses many of the modern issues facing young people today...after the movie we had some great discussion and it also gave me an opportunity to share some of my faith journey with the teens.  I just LOVE sharing my LOVE of Jesus and all things Catholic (I embrace my Catholic geekness ;).   

4.  Just having good ol' fashioned fun together...One of the many things I love about young people is their crazy energy and excitement for life and having fun.  Just as I am always on the look-out for an opportunity to share Christ with them, I also look for ways to just have fun and celebrate life with them.  Whether its a crazy icebreaker involving Cheeto's and shaving cream or enjoying trip to the cider mill/corn maze/hay ride place (which we will be doing this Saturday:), its just as important to have a well balanced dose of fun to go with all the Jesus-y stuff:).

Now of course as with any job, there are the days I question if I even am making a difference or if what I'm doing even matters in the scheme of things.  There are times when the hours are crazy long and the piles on my desk never seems to grow any smaller...
...but after weekends like this I'm reminded once again of the great privilege and blessing it is to work with the young church. :)

Reflections of Ministry-filled Weekend

This weekend was one of those crazy, busy weekends with what I like to call a "Church work weekend," but the best part was all the little Holy Spirit moments I saw along the way.

Along with being a Youth Minister, I have begun to do a fair amount of chastity talks on the side for the past few years.  This weekend I had another speaking engagement at an inner-city parish to 80 teens!  I was excited to share this opporunity with my honey, Jim as he spoke to the young men, and I to the young ladies.  I think it went pretty well. They listened to what I had to say, asked really heart-felt questions, and it helped that I was able to make them laugh too!  Speaking about chastity and how it is actual what real love is all about is something so important to me, and I really believe in it too.  By the end of the afternoon, Jim and I were already agreeing to do another talk together this spring sometime before our wedding.  It is just so funny how God works in our lives sometimes.  5 or 6 years ago, I would have absolutely hated to do public speaking, and now I am doing it like second nature; just makes me me smile on how God works everything out along the way.

This weekend I also have another great opportunity to do one of my most favorite hting with young people: take them to Washingto, DC for the annual March for Life.  I have been going every year since I was in college, and I just love it so much.  Usually when I have taken teens I take anywhere from 10-15 on this awesome pilgrimage; this year we only had 6, but it again proved to be a powerful and hope-filled experience for them.  The weekend was full of long bus rides, sleep-less nights, but most important great joy and hope at the power of the pro-life movement.  We went to a Youth Rally and Mass on Monday morning where over 20,000 young people gathered for prayer, praise, and lots excitement! It was life a rock concert atmosphere where we all gathered for the same reason, to re-commit ourselves to work for the protection of all human life. 
And then comes the actual March itself.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans from all across the country walk and pray together specifically for an end to abortion.  We listened to Orthodox priests and monks chant in Latin.  We sang praise and worship songs with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.  We chanted loudly at the top of our voices.  We heard powerful testimonies of women who regret their abortion and men who regret lost fatherhood.  The March for Life is a time of great hope as we pray and continue to work for the protection of all human life from womb to tomb.
A particular powerful moment for me came as we were leaving from the Supreme Court bulding.  There was a long line on men and women lining the streets from the Silent No More campaign holding signs that read, "I regret my abortion" or "I regret lost Fatherhood."  I began talking and thanking these men and women for their witness here.  SUCH a Holy Spirit moment.

So yes, this weekend was very busy.  And yes I came home totally exhausted.  But more importantly, I came home enriched both emotionally and spiritually from both of these wonderful experiences.
God is so good!