Nora Bradbury-Haehl is the author of The Freshman Survival Guidefrom Hachette Book Group. She is a contributing editor at www.bustedhalo.com and a full-time parish youth minister who has worked in parish and diocesan youth and young adult ministry for more than 20 years. She is the author of ScriptureWalk, and ScriptureWalk: Discipleship, and was a writer for Breakthrough! The Bible for Young Catholics all with St. Mary’s Press.
Service, Scripture, and Social Justice
This program includes a trip to the soup kitchen, scripture reflection, and a brief introduction to Catholic Social Teaching.
What are the interests and needs of our young adults? Gather your leadership team and ask the young adults on it to share answers to the following questions:
What are you interested in?
What do young adults in our community need?
What kind of time do they have to be involved in young adult ministry and programs/events?...
Young adults often have opportunities to be social; they have fewer opportunities to deepen their spiritual lives. (Combining social and spiritual is terrific!) Young adult ministry events should TEACH, PRAY, and SERVE. When scheduling events, it’s important to offer opportunities for all three of these areas, with social opportunities built in or mixed in. The relationships built through social gatherings will often populate the other events...
Here’s a suggested list of steps. Review it and see if you’d like to alter it in any way then proceed! This process may take some time and a series of gatherings to complete. (You may want to use this series of handouts to help you.)
Gather your Young Adult Ministry Core Team.
Schedule some time to pray together and get to know one another...
This essential will help you take all the information you’ve gathered so far and design a plan to build a vibrant and balanced young adult ministry in your parish.
Introduction
So you’ve figured out who young adults are, what young adult ministry is, assessed the current reality in your parish, looked at what needs to happen to prepare your parish for young adult ministry, and considered who you can invite into leadership roles. Excellent...
