Resources Youth Ministry

Evangelization and catechesis for the mission of forming young people as disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Church’s Vision for Youth Ministry

“Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world, and everything he touches becomes young, new, full of life. The very first words, then, that I would like to say to every young Christian are these: Christ is alive and he wants you to be alive!” – Pope Francis, Christus Vivit, 1

Listen, Teach, Send

In June 2024, the Catholic bishops of the United States approved a National Pastoral Framework for Ministries with Youth and Young Adults entitled “Listen, Teach, Send.” This text serves as the United States’ response to Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on young people, Christus Vivit. It is also a summons to local Catholic communities to renew and revitalize their approach to the accompaniment and evangelization of youth (in junior high and high school) and young adults (in college and in their 20s and 30s).

The methodology is rooted in the Gospel story of the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35) and invites pastoral leaders and families, in their engagement with young people, to imitate Jesus who listens attentively, teaches from the heart, and sends disciples into the world. The document begins with a preface letter addressed directly from the U.S. Bishops to youth and young adults and continues with the three-part framework text for pastoral ministers, families, and young leaders in the Church.

Christus Vivit

Pope Francis’ Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit from 2019 casts a vision for youth ministry that emphasizes the role of young people in the life of the Church today. This document discusses the role of young people in the Bible and the life of the Church, addresses some of the pressing issues of the day, invites young people into relationship with Christ, reviews the current forms and needs of youth ministry, encourages young people to be missionary disciples, and asks young people discern their vocation. Of particular interest is Chapter 7: Youth Ministry.

Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry

Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry, approved as a statement of the United States bishops in June 1997, builds upon the tradition begun by the 1976 document by the bishops, A Vision of Youth Ministry. To respond to the challenges and opportunities of the present age, the Catholic bishops of the United States have given the Church this pastoral framework as a blueprint for the continued development of effective ministry with youth and adolescents in local communities of faith.

Renewing the Vision identifies three goals for ministry with adolescents:

empowering young people to live as disciples of Jesus Christ
drawing young people into responsible participation in the Catholic Church
fostering the personal and spiritual growth of young people

The document identifies seven themes of a comprehensive vision. Youth ministry must:

be developmentally appropriate
family friendly
intergenerational
multicultural
have community-wide collaboration
have strong leadership
have flexible and adaptable programming for young people

The document identifies eight components of comprehensive ministry with young people:

advocacy
catechesis
community life
evangelization
justice and service
leadership development
pastoral care
prayer and worship

The Archdiocese of Boston’s Vision for Youth Ministry

Setting an ambitious goal

We seek to support parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston in building committed teams of adults capable of accompanying, evangelizing, and equipping young people to pursue ongoing conversion and growth in personal holiness, evangelize their peers, and lead others closer to Christ.
We seek to encourage parishes to identify at least 2 adult disciples accompanying young people on a journey of discipleship in every parish of the archdiocese by May 2027.
We understand youth ministry to be a variety of adult disciples using a variety of means to walk with young people on their individual journeys of faith one-on-one, in small groups of their peers, in community with other young people, and active in the life of our parishes.

Working towards fulfilling our goal

The Secretariat for Evangelization and Discipleship of the Archdiocese of Boston intends to support parishes in fostering and enhancing comprehensive youth ministry as outlined above in the following ways:

Spiritual formation – providing a community of prayer and support for clergy, staff, and volunteers in parishes to grow in holiness together as we work to accompany young people
Human and Pastoral formation – providing opportunities – including workshops, trainings, and seminars – to grow in understanding of young people themselves; how to recruit, form, and train adults to accompany young people; how to actively listen, ask good questions, and walk with youth appropriately one-on-one and in small groups
Intellectual formation – providing opportunities for clergy, staff, and volunteers to deepen their understanding of the teachings of the Church and effective strategies for evangelization and catechesis of young people today

We will provide more specific details in the summer of 2024 regarding particular upcoming trainings, resources, and partnerships we intend to make available to parishes to support the strategies and goals outlined above.

Youth Ministry: From Vision to Action in the Archdiocese of Boston

More information coming in early August 2024.

Key Resources for Youth Ministry

Jesus, himself eternally young, wants to give us hearts that are ever young. God’s word asks us to “cast out the old leaven that you may be fresh dough” (1 Cor 5:7). Saint Paul invites us to strip ourselves of the “old self” and to put on a “young” self (Col 3:9-10).[1] In explaining what it means to put on that youthfulness “which is being renewed” (v. 10), he mentions “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other if anyone has a complaint against another” (Col 3:12-13). In a word, true youth means having a heart capable of loving, whereas everything that separates us from others makes the soul grow old. And so he concludes: “above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14). – Pope Francis, Christus Vivit, 13

Andrew Ministries

Discipleship is a process, not a program. When you have a team of people who pursue youth, offer their witness and shoulder their crosses, life-changing ministry can take place. Andrew Ministries helps build high-impact small group ministries.

Cultivation Ministries

Cultivation Ministries offers training, resources, and support to adult and student youth ministry leaders and grew out of Frank Mercadante’s successful parish youth ministry experience.

Life Teen

Life Teen is a movement within the Roman Catholic Church, Life Teen leads teenagers and their families into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ and His Church.

Marathon Youth Ministry

Experienced youth minister and speaker Christopher Wesley offers youth ministry coaching and resources.

National Study of Youth & Religion

This groundbreaking, long-term, study directed by Christian Smith, Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, began in August 2001 and provides a wealth of information regarding the religious lives of American youth from adolescence into young adulthood.

NET Ministries

NET challenges young Catholics, through relational ministry, to follow Christ and embrace a life of community in the Church

ProjectYM.com

ProjectYM, invests in the ADULTS who are making a difference in the lives of young people.

TochBearer Ministries

TorchBearer Ministries provides youth ministry tools in English and Spanish focused on a blend of community and catechesis. They are meant to help create a place for youth to have open discussions about Catholicism, society, culture, and more.

YDisciple

YDisciple understands that programs don’t make disciples – disciples do. They provide a robust library of training content ranging from practical to spiritual skills helps train faithful adults to be more than instructors, but disciple-makers. YDisciple gives you tools to create small group environments where teens are known, loved, and cared for. With adolescents, you need to earn the right to be heard. YDisciple video resources for teens center around personal testimony in order to communicate theological truth and are never filmed in a studio, but in real life. YDisciple provides strategies for engaging parents and parent resources (in English and Spanish) to help parents engage their teens in meaningful conversation. An ever-growing number of YDisciple studies have guides with activities and questions specifically designed for middle school students alongside the standard guides for high school students. Whether you have 10 young people in your parish or 1000, or 1000 teens but only 10 who are involved, small group discipleship can be scaled to fit your parish’s needs.

Young Life

Young Life doesn’t start with a program. It starts with adults who are concerned enough about kids to go to them, on their turf and in their culture, building bridges of authentic friendship. These relationships don’t happen overnight — they take time, patience, trust and consistency. Simply put, the mission of Young Life is introducing adolescents to Jesus Christ and helping them grow in their faith. Young Life is a Christian organization, not a Catholic one. Here is an article on why Catholic dioceses are teaming up with Young Life. Here is a blog post on Young Life’s attempts to build bridges with Catholic dioceses.

Books about Youth Ministry

…aspects of Jesus’ life can prove inspiring for all those young people who are developing and preparing to take up their mission in life. This involves growing in a relationship with the Father, in awareness of being part of a family and a people, and in openness to being filled with the Holy Spirit and led to carry out the mission God gives them, their personal vocation. None of this should be overlooked in pastoral work with young people, lest we create projects that isolate young people from their family and the larger community, or turn them into a select few, protected from all contamination. Rather, we need projects that can strengthen them, accompany them and impel them to encounter others, to engage in generous service, in mission. – Pope Francis, Christus Vivit, 30

The Art of Forming Young Disciples

Experienced youth minister and speaker Everett Fritz considers the challenge of encouraging youth engaged in youth ministry and large church events for young people to remain committed to lifelong discipleship.

Discipleship-Focused Youth Ministry

With over 40 years of combined youth ministry experience, Jim Beckman and Eric Gallagher offer an approach to youth ministry that seeks to deepen the impact that youth ministry has in the church through discipleship. The book lays a foundation of understanding on what youth ministry is (or should be!), provides insights into many of the shifts happening in the Church, especially looking at the work of discipleship and the fruit it is bearing across the country, as well as providing a five step plan that parishes can use to begin shifting their youth ministry efforts to be more discipleship focused.

Rebuilding Youth Ministry

Christopher Wesley is on the front lines of youth ministry. He’s been in the parish trenches, refocusing an unpopular youth program and making it one where teens feel connected, stay involved, and grow in faith. In Rebuilding Youth Ministry, Wesley offers ten indispensable strategies to help you make your youth programs just as successful.

Wesley coaches fellow Catholic ministry leaders on how to overcome common hurdles of ministering to young people. Wesley shares how he faced feelings of complacency, underestimated youth, and entertained rather than ministered in his own parish. Wesley built a distinctive program based on small group faith formation and sustained it with the assistance of more than sixty volunteer adult mentors.

Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers

This book reports the findings of The National Study of Youth and Religion, the largest and most detailed such study ever undertaken. The NYSR conducted a nationwide telephone survey of teens and significant caregivers, as well as nearly 300 in-depth face-to-face interviews with a sample of the population that was surveyed. The results show that religion and spirituality are indeed very significant in the lives of many American teenagers. Among many other discoveries, they find that teenagers are far more influenced by the religious beliefs and practices of their parents and caregivers than commonly thought. They refute the conventional wisdom that teens are “spiritual but not religious.” And they confirm that greater religiosity is significantly associated with more positive adolescent life outcomes.

Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry

This book by experienced Evangelical Protestant Youth Minister Doug Fields is a helpful resource for new coordinators of youth ministry and parishes considering starting youth ministry or hiring a coordinator of youth ministry.

Growing Teen Disciples by Frank Mercadante

Engaging a New Generation by Frank Mercadante

Faith Beyond Youth Group by Kara Powell, Jen Bradbury, and Brad Griffin

Youcat

Docat
Helping Teens with Stress, Anxiety, and Depression by Roy Petifils

Our Faith Formation & Missionary Discipleship team offers evangelization and faith formation workshops, retreats, consultation, and training primarily to parishes, communities, and institutions throughout the Archdiocese of Boston.