Connections

Passion and enthusiasm are contagious and even life-giving. Though the past two years have seen many challenges to diocesan youth ministry and to the NFCYM due to office closings, staff reductions, and diminishing budgets, this is still a great time to be involved in church ministry. And I say that because of the passion and enthusiasm of so many colleagues in our ministry.

In April I participated in the initial meeting of the leadership team for the National Association for Catholic Youth Ministry Leaders (NACYML). In May I staffed the New Diocesan Directors Institute and in June I attended the initial meeting of the advisory council for the National Center for Catholic Youth Sports (NCCYS). In each of the three gatherings the passion, commitment, and excitement of the participants was contagious. Regardless of whether it was our colleagues just starting out in diocesan ministry or those experienced in the work, but now focusing their efforts on a particular arena of the ‘vision,’ their enthusiasm was palpable. However, in all three groups the challenges are significant and resources are inadequate for the tasks. Oftentimes their colleagues do not understand or do not share the importance of the tasks and their work may be unappreciated.

Yet, they persist.

Either they are naive about the current challenges in church ministry or they are able to tap into some deeper reservoir of hope. Church cynics might say that the new directors simply have not been in diocesan ministry long enough to experience the stresses, but the NDDI participants brought a considerable number of years in church ministry to their new positions. At the NACYML and NCCYS meetings the participants brought both practical ministry experience and a personal interest in a specific area of NFCYM work to the challenge of creating new organizational entities.

And they did this with an optimism tempered by realism. They named the challenges and the threats to their projects and they identified the available resources. Their enthusiasm was not dampened, their creativity was not stifled, and their commitment was not smothered. No naiveté here.

In each of the three experiences the team or planning group played a significant part in sustaining energy and vision. When obstacles were encountered or when individuals felt stuck or overwhelmed by the task, someone else in the community provided the necessary impetus, suggestion, or idea that moved the group beyond the block. There is a power in the community that supports and empowers individuals.

St. Paul, in his writings to the Christians in Rome, said “For I long to see you, that I might share with you some spiritual gift so that you may be strengthened, that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by one another’s faith, yours and mine.” (ROM. 1:11-12). I remember well the theme song from the 1993 World Youth Day in Denver that “we are one body in Christ and we do not stand alone.” The implication is that in the midst of the pressures and stresses of our work, and especially when the obstacles seem more clear than the possibilities, we each need to ‘catch’ the passion and the energy of our colleagues for we do not stand alone and we do not minister alone. And we, too, need to provide the vision that enthuses and energizes our colleagues in the midst of their turmoil, “mutually encouraged by one another’s faith.”

May this summer provide you an opportunity for recreation and renewal. May your energy be rejuvenated and may your vision be restored. And may your hope be contagious.