Sons and Daughters of the Light: A Pastoral Plan for Ministry with Young Adults
A Summary of the USCCB’s 1996 document on Young Adult Ministry
Goal 1: Connecting Young Adults with Jesus Christ
To foster the personal and communal growth and education of young adults toward a relationship with Jesus Christ leading to Christian maturity.
Objectives:
- Spiritual formation and direction: To help young adults develop their spiritual life rooted in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as their redeemer and savior.
- Religious education/formation: To help young adults appreciate the teachings and traditions of the church through catechesis, religious education, and pastoral care.
- Vocation discernment: To help young adults understand vocation as primarily a call to holiness and Christian maturity lived through single or married life, the priesthood, the deaconate or religious life.
Goal 2: Connecting Young Adults with the Church
To make contact with young adults and invite and welcome them to participate in the life and mission of the Christian community, which proclaims Jesus Christ by preaching the Gospel.
Objectives:
- Evangelizing outreach: To identify places where young adults gather and to personally connect them with the church by listening to their concerns, hopes, and dreams and welcoming them into a community of faith.
- Forming the faith community: To invite, empower, and enable young adults to participate in the life of the church through worship, community life, small faith communities, and evangelizing efforts and on committees, in ministries, and in Catholic movements and organizations.
- Pastoral care: To provide activities, visitations, and counseling opportunities, which respond to the spiritual and developmental needs of young adults.
Goal 3: Connecting young adults with the mission of the church in the world. To invite young adults, through healthy relationships, work and studies, to embrace the mission of Christ to promote the building of the kingdom of God in the world today, thereby bringing about the transformation of society.
Objectives:
- Forming a Christian conscience: To help young adults form their conscience based on the Gospel and on the church’s moral and social teachings.
- Educating and working for justice: To provide educational and service opportunities for young adults to practice the Gospel values of justice, peace, and care for the less fortunate in the workplace, at home and in the local community.
- Developing leaders for the present and the future: To invite, train, support, and mentor young adults to be leaders in society and church life.
Goal 4: Connecting young adults with a peer community. To help young adults develop relationships with peers who share similar values and beliefs, which nurture and strengthen their faith, thereby creating communities of support.
Objectives:
- Forming faith communities of peers: To provide opportunities for young adults to find among their peers the necessary support and encouragement as they journey through life and fulfill their mission to the world.
- Developing peer leadership: To help young adults become leaders, not only among their peers but within the larger community.
- Identifying a young adult team: To urge each parish, movement and organization, and campus to identify a team to advocate and respond to the needs of young adults.
