Preparing for Young Adult Ministry

Mike Hayes encourages gathering existing members and committees of your parish to help develop your young adult ministry. Discussion of future events, prayers, and other topics may help push older parishioners to mentor younger members:

Young adults have many gifts and talents that can fit right in with what your parish is already doing. Gathering the heads of the committees and ministries that already exist and asking them to take inventory of those ministries to see how many people under the age of 40 are presently involved is a great way to begin. Talk about a desire to reach out to people in their 20s and 30s in the parish announcements and even in homilies. Do you pray for young people in the prayers of the faithful? Engaged couples, college students, those seeking employment, and those in crisis are just a few ideas. Putting the thought of intentionally welcoming young adults into people’s heads will push older parishioners to think about gifting and mentoring younger churchgoers. Openly talk about being creative and finding out where some “hidden” young adults might be.

Learn more about developing a young adult ministry from scratch in the Essentials section.