How did the NET Retreats here in Kitsap County go? In their own words!

What did the NET Missionaries think of our parish? Find out in this short video…

How should we “love them both”?

We will spend about 1 hour or less at the vigil and then return for Pizza and refreshments. During this time everyone is encouraged to offer ideas on what specifically they can do proactively to support life. I know that all of 40 Days for Life will be honored to support our youth and underwrite the efforts they may come up with. Please pass this notice on to any youth leaders that you might know.

WHEN: Saturday, March 17th 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM

WHERE: Gods Church for all People CLICK HERE for directions

This Lenten season experience a NET Retreat! These one day retreats will be led by a NET Team (National Evangelization Teams). The retreat team is made up of young people ages 18-28 who give a year of there life to travel around the country working with middle and high school students.

The day will include Mass, drama presentations by the team, talks, small group breakouts, free time activities, lunch and fun stuff. It will be held at Island Lake in Poulsbo, a top notch camp with everything from a coffee house, to beginner rock climbing, to an indoor game room.

Are you looking for something unconventional to offer up for Lent? We asked Life Teen missionaries and our friends on Facebook for cool stuff they’ve done in the past. This is what they shared…

1. “This year I’m giving up shoes as often as possible. I’ll still wear shoes if I’m doing a work project or if I have to fly on a plane. But I’m going to avoid going to places that require shoes.” – Paul, a Life Teen Missionary
2. “I’m addicted to caffeine so I gave up all drinks but water for Lent two years ago.” – Amanda
3. “Last year I didn’t give up anything for Lent, just added more prayer life. This year I am going to add more prayer life and give up Facebook.” – Josephina

Read the complete article on the Lifeteen Blog.

Beginning Feb 15 & 17: Following our Wednesday Ignite Youth Nights (High School) and our Friday Sparks Faith and Fun Nights (Middle School) we will have open gym from 8:30-9:15pm. The open gym is only for those who have attended the youth program that night and only for the age group listed. Chaperons will be on hand.

You can read more details about the purchase of the lot on the Kitsap Sun website, as well as an interview with our Director of Youth, Josh Johnson, in the Catholic Northwest Progress discussing the future for the youth programs at Star of the Sea below:

BY KEVIN BIRNBAUM

When Josh Johnson arrived from Virginia this summer to serve as the director of youth and young adult evangelization at Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish, he immediately set about surveying all the groups he’d be serving, including teens and their parents, to “see what the needs were,” he recently told The Progress.

He discovered that the community had “an incredible number of very strong families with some very well-catechized teens that are very strong in their faith,” he said.

“And then we have the teens that aren’t so strong in their faith, and they need [to be] evangelized,” he added. “We have a lot of those — they may not even come to Mass every week, and if they do, maybe they’re just coming because their parents make them. And then we’ve got kids who are in between.

“So we’ve got a lot of different teens at a lot of different places. So we knew that a one-size-fits-all youth group night is only going to reach a limited amount of people.”

‘Master plan’
The parish soon developed a “master plan for youth ministry.”

As the parish implements the plan in the coming year, the “traditional youth group experience” — based on the Life Teen and Edge programs — will migrate from Wednesday nights to Sunday mornings, taking the time slot currently filled by religious education classes.

The new weeknight offering will be gender-specific FRATERNUS and Sororitas groups for those in middle school and the early high school years. The youth will be further divided into small groups of six to 10 with an adult leader for more intimate discussions and service projects.

“We have found that to be a much better environment for catechesis and prayer and discipleship,” said Johnson, noting that teens tend to open up more and take spiritual discussions more seriously when the other gender isn’t around.

Another part of the master plan includes renovating a 2,000-square-foot building the parish has purchased and turning it into the Blessed John Paul II Youth Center. A grand opening is tentatively planned for the feast of Corpus Christi next June.

“Father [Derek] Lappe, our pastor, has put a high priority on youth ministry,” Johnson noted.

Forming evangelists
The idea behind all of this is to make disciples.

“The first priority is to take the kids that really want to be Catholic … and disciple them,” Johnson said. “And this is primarily to teach them how to be followers of Jesus Christ.”

As in the New Testament, the hope is for the teens to become not just disciples but also apostles, sent forth with a mission.

“We want them to be taking what they receive and sharing it with their peers, both in the parish and in their everyday lives — in their schools, in their sports leagues, extracurricular activities. We want them to be evangelists.”

Getting in the mindset of sharing the faith and inviting friends to church events doesn’t usually come easily for Catholics, said Johnson, who was raised an evangelical Protestant and served briefly as a Methodist minister before converting to Catholicism in 2007.

He wants to help young Catholics “have the tools to talk about their faith, and the courage to do so.” “Every Catholic is called to be an evangelical Catholic,” he said.