‘The Main Thing …’

Many of you know what this indicates, as I have used it from time to time in my catechetical training sessions. It was shared by Msgr. Dale Fushek, the founder of "Life Teen." It was during a training conference where he said, "The main thing, is to keep the main thing, the main thing." And of course the main thing for each of us is eternal life. I believe very strongly that for each of us, we do approach each day with this in mind. I believe that we live our daily lives trying to bring Christ into the world and to help build the Kingdom here on earth, knowing full well as to what awaits us in eternal life. Even though we get in the way, and sometimes do not follow God’s plan for us, we do our best to keep the main thing, the main thing.

In the last issue, I shared bits and pieces of my 10 years in ministry. As I continue to look back over the past 10 years, I believe that in all of our efforts we have done just this. We have always taken steps to bring the love of Christ to our young people. We have always strived to deepen their faith and help them grow in their personal relationship with our Risen Lord. I believe that we have helped build on the faith foundation set by parents and Godparents, and given the youth a clearer direction to keep the main thing very present in their daily lives.

But without hesitation, we realize that there is more to be done. We cannot be satisfied, we have to keep moving forward, even more focused on "keeping the main thing, the main thing". We have heard many times that our faith formation is womb to tomb. Thus we can propose a question. How do we keep this centered in our minds, as well as, help our youth move more deeply into this same concept?

To help begin a process of at least pondering this question, I would like to briefly share with you a segment of one assignment I have been working on for my certificate in youth ministry studies program. Part of this assignment was to read and report briefly on the book, "The Godbearing Life," by Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster. One of the chapters was entitled, "Hand-holding and Finger-pointing." This chapter truly intrigued me as it shared some great insight regarding how we minister to our youth.

So I leave you with these questions. What comes to your mind when you read "Hand-holding and Finger-pointing"? In what ways can these two things be related to youth ministry? How can hand-holding and finger-pointing help us, help our youth to remember, "The Main Thing…."

Stay tuned!