Youth Ministry Update

Hello St. Timothy parish family and Happy New Year!

Just to refresh your memory, I am Jerico Nieves, the Youth Ministry Coordinator for our parish. I wanted to share with everyone about all the things that have been happening with youth ministry, what is to come next, and extend an invitation for support.

I have been doing youth ministry here at the parish for just a little over a year, and man oh man, what a year it has been! To start, I want to share what exactly our youth ministry is all about:

The goal is to invite youth into a community where they can belong, grow in their relationship with Jesus, and help them to live a life in Christ. Now how does that look practically?

The bread and butter of our youth ministry is our youth groups. This is not just a social club or an afterschool program, but rather a missionary discipleship. Within our youth groups we usually have food, opportunities for fellowship, talks and discussions about the faith, and fun activities. Throughout the year we have been learning about foundations in our faith and the core of what we believe: the Kerygma. With this next half of the year, we are going to dive deeper into all of that and really challenge the youth to live out that faith.

We have two different youth groups: our junior youth group (for youth in grades 6-8) & our senior youth group (for youth in grades 9-12). This year, we have had an average of 14 different youth come out each week to the different youth groups. This is just the start, and steadily things will continue to grow from here.

This year, as a part of my initiatives, I have joined the catechism team in leading the Confirmation class (grade 6 level). This way I can be a friendly face and hopefully ease the transition from learning about God in Catechism to living out the faith with youth groups.

Later this year (coming soon) I will be launching regular young adult evenings where young adults can gather in community, have fun, and talk about important topics of our faith and how they apply to living in the world that we do.

A big goal with all of these initiatives is to create leaders for our church in a  sustainable way. I hope to see young adults coming to the future initiatives, and being inspired to live out their faith, lead the senior youth group, and the senior

youth group will lead the junior youth group, and the junior youth group may be

inspired to help out with the catechism program.

Already we have young adults leading our senior youth group and 3 of our high-schoolers leading the junior youth group.

Now, here comes the invitation:

I beg you to give of yourselves in supporting this ministry. I ask that if you know of any youth or young adults, or the parent of a youth or a young adult, reach out to them and invite them to connect with me. If you feel called to serve through contributions, we are always needing food for the youth. If you feel called to give of your time, I will definitely be able to find a place for you to enter into this.

Lastly, please pray for me, pray for our youth, and pray for conversion & revival.

Pax Christi,

Jerico

jerico@st-timothy.ca / 204-257-3723