Interesting article on The Deacon’s Bench this morning -
“Kids have to pray hard but they play hard too,” Deacon Matthew DeForest said. “We have to meet them where they’re at.”
The Catholic youth rally is an annual event held by the Arlington Diocese, which covers all of Northern Virginia. Each year, the region’s Catholic teenagers gather to meet fellow Catholics and to re-energize their faith. The theme for this year’s rally was “Get Your Faith On.”
“The main purpose of this is to bring all the youth together at the beginning of the [school] year,” said Kevin Bohli, the head of youth ministry for the Arlington Diocese. “We want them to think of the church as more than just their parish.”
In addition to the rock music, the teens were treated to a motivational speaker, a performance from an improv comedy troupe and a seminar on appropriate dress called “Modest Is Hottest.”
DeForest is a 26-year-old deacon who gives his young parishioners fist bumps. He said that today’s teens are looking to the Catholic Church “to learn how to be a leader. … These kids are pumped to be involved in any way.”
Read the entire artical here: http://deacbench.blogspot.com/2008/10/young-and-restless-we-have-to-meet-them.html