‘For love’
By Steven Polley
Director of Youth Ministry
There is something very amazing about this
column. As you read this, there are 66
young people and their 19 adult chaperones returning home from a very powerful
gathering at the NCYC (National Catholic Youth Conference). They have gathered with more than 18,500
other young people and adults from all over the nation and abroad to celebrate
our Catholic faith in this very special way.
I will write more in the next issue
regarding this gathering, but what I can share with you is this: The theme of
NCYC was “Discover the Way,” focusing on Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. Without hesitation, I can promise
that every young person who found themselves in
But like all powerful experiences, we have
to return home and continue with daily life.
Oh, how wonderful it would be if we could stay on the mountain top, but
Jesus continues to challenge us to do more, to do great things.
Great things happened at NCYC, and I hope
to achieve even greater things here in the Diocese of Dodge City. But to do this I truly need your help. Remember, it takes a whole village to raise a
child. My hope is simply that we can
take a powerful national gathering like NCYC, and use it to build more powerful
youth ministry in our parishes and in our diocese.
Several years ago there was a movie out, “For Love Of The
Game” -- a great movie featuring Kevin Costner.
Even though the movie was about baseball, it was more of a love story,
but still it centered around his love for the game of
baseball. Probably more from the title
of the movie than anything, I am able to relate this to youth ministry, For
Love of the Youth.
Recently we completed another successful
junior high youth rally. I can still
visualize each adult sponsor who shared the day with these middle school
kids. Last weekend we were forced to
cancel another TEC (Teens Encounter Christ) gathering, because not enough young
people signed up for the experience, but yet six adults still gathered with
eight young people to look to the future of TEC. And today, I am writing about 19 adults who
said goodbye to other family members and traveled with these youth to
As I write this column, I want to
personally thank every adult who helped with the junior high rally, has been
involved in our TEC movement, or who has entered into the journey to NCYC. This truly is a gift and I thank you for
saying yes and for giving so much of yourself to our
young people. For every adult who serves
as a catechist, youth minister, or DRE, I thank you for giving so much.
My guess is that if we were to have a one
on one conversation with any of these adults, they would be quick to respond
that sometimes, yes, they do get something out of the gathering with the young
people, but most of all they do it for one reason: for love of the youth.
But here is the catch: As much as we
appreciate all that these adults do, and as much as we look to them to share
their gifts with the youth, we know that they cannot do it all. I believe that if we had more adults who
would look at our TEC movement and realize that this encounter does change
lives, and then spend more time encouraging and inviting our youth to
participate in this movement, we would never be forced to cancel another
weekend, and through it all we would be changing lives forever. I believe that if more adults would encourage
our young people to become more involved in the life of our parish and in our
diocese, then our parish youth ministry would sky rocket and we would find more
young people gathering at diocesan events, coming to know in a much deeper way
-- what the Body of Christ truly means.
Let’s celebrate what we have, and where we
have been, but let us together commit to go even further.