Young adult ministry

emschmeid

Hello everyone!  I currently attend a parish with no programming/ministry specifically for young adults (realizing "young" is a very subjective term).  During college, I attended an incredible church with more ways to grow closer to Christ and develop a stronger faith community than I can count, and I feel like that "community" aspect is missing amongst the younger people of my current parish.

Are any of you involved specifically in ministry or programs directed at young Catholic adults (college to 35-ish ages)?  What would you want out of such a ministry?  What do you like about current involvement in a younger faith community?

I am collecting knowledge to develop a proposal for my current priest and office administrators to see about spearheading a program.  I am just getting my ducks in a row right now.  TIA!

hvcfringe

Half of the reason I decided to join the church this last year was because of my campus ministry. It just became a place where everyone had the same ideas and it felt so safe. I feel more closely connected to this people through faith than most of my good friends from home. They always have activities and speakers and retreats and they really enrich your faith. I was also blessed with a great priest who knows how to really relate the gospels to the younger genertaions lives.

ellen73

See if your diocese has a young adult ministry group. Or check neighboring parishes.  Or ask to start something at your current parish. I have some friends that were approached by the pastor of their current church with the idea of forming a "newlywed/young couple" group when the joined the parish.   They are still active with this 4 years later.

 The diocese I grew up in had a fairly active group 10-15 years ago (before I moved).   They also had 3-4 groups that were "young adult" and loosely associated with a parish, but not strictly for just members of that parish (some were "single" groups, some were for everyone).

I moved to Chicago 10 or so years ago... and the Archdiocese has an active Young Adult Ministry program, many parishes (both in the city & suburban) have active young adult groups & the Jesuit community in Chicago started their own outreach to young adults 10-11 years ago that is fantastic (retreats, days of prayer, Masses, prayer services, talks, etc).   I was active in a couple of these at different times.  

doctabroccoli

We have a group that just got started at our parish.  It's a small group (there are only about 10 of us) since it's a small parish.  We're all pretty over-committed people to begin with, so we don't do much.  We sometimes go out to eat as a group and look at what if anything the Church needs done (cleaning, staffing for an event, etc.), and we have talked about doing some outside service events, but we haven't done any yet.  I feel like the thing I get the most from it is the fellowship......  Just getting to know this small group of people at my Church really well so that if I needed to talk to someone about something, I could definitely go to them to do it, especially if it is faith-related.

bibliophile2010

My parish has had a really active YA ministry for many years. Currently, that ministry is getting incorporated into a new diocesean YA ministry. Young Adult ministries are a growing thing, from what I understand, and are meant to include young married couples, especially until they have kids and transition to family ministries.

newlyseliski

My parish has one, too... Cathedral Young Adults.  It's the largest one in our Archdiocese and centrally located in the metro area.  I was very actively involved and on the core team for about 3 years and have only been going sporadically since getting married and moving almost 45 minutes away from it.  We have events like speaker series, holy hours, service events, Theology on Tap as well as more informal social events like swing dances and weekly sports nights.  I think you definitely need both types of events to build up a young adult community! 

It's a lot of work and requires a very committed group of core volunteers to keep a young adult group going if there's no dedicated parish or diocesan staff members that provide support and coordination!  If you can't find one... it might be worth finding like-minded young adults who are interested in starting one up! 

Feel free to PM me if you want any information... I've "retired" from the core team because it was a bit too much to handle along with wedding preparations... but would be more than happy to provide any insight or suggestions!