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.
TIP: There will be several different types of planning going on, so it is often helpful to have different colors to identify different categories. If you’re using an electronic process, obviously, you can just select different colors for text/text boxes. If you’re doing this old school, different colored sticky notes or markers are great.
TEACH
“TEACH” events do exactly that — teach. These sessions explore Scripture and the teachings of the Church. Keep in mind, this isn’t your momma’s CCD. Teach events should respect the needs and preferences of adult learners. Speakers and/or facilitators need to be engaging and the gathering space should be comfortable and appropriate. It’s hard to focus when you’re twisted like a pretzel to fit in a child-sized seat.
PRAY
“PRAY” events expose people to various forms of prayer. Be sure to consider a combination of traditional devotions — Stations of the Cross, Rosary, Liturgy of the Hours — and other prayer forms — art as prayer, reflecting on Gospel messages in feature films, popular music, and TV.
SERVE
“SERVE” events provide opportunities to put the Gospel message into action. These can be short-term or long-term direct service projects, such as working at the soup kitchen or going to build houses in Appalachia. They also can be collections (socks, underwear, toys, food, etc.) or advocacy efforts (writing to government leaders). It’s important when scheduling serve events to include time to process the experience and explore the justice issues involved.
Collect Information and Revisit/Renew It Occasionally:
- From the parish — What’s already happening for young adults, where are they already connected to the parish? How would you rate the parish in the work it’s doing with the young adults it encounters? Is the parish a welcoming place for young adults?
- From young adults — Through interviews or informal conversations determine needs and interests of young adults in your area and their perceptions of the parish.
- From nearby parishes and planning groups, campus ministries — What are neighbors doing that you could connect with or learn from?
