Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 6: Be Where Your Physical (and Virtual) Feet Are

by Dan Masterton

I had my first real pastoral ministry job in 2010. In various ways, for 13 years and counting, I’ve had opportunities to engage in faith-sharing, leadership training, and some mentorship and formation with young people.

One interesting question that’s come up in various ways amid various trends, largely from my asking, is “what’s the point or purpose of our technology and social media?” Young people have a wide range of answers, some praise and some complaints. A small few of them are even Luddites!

I’m not one to discourage young people from using the tech and devices and apps; I think that likely only fuels their rebelliousness. Instead, I challenge them to moderation. In shorthand, I like to tell them, “Social media and technology give us additional ways to communicate, but they also give us a ton of ways to ignore each other.”

Now, into the 2020s, I’d also add that they create a lot of avenues for sharing and communication, but these avenues often lead us to passivity and disconnection. In other words, we lose the primacy and importance of face-to-face relationship building and personal invitation.

What’s more, I think many, if not most, of us in some ways fancy ourselves as being influencers and consultants. It’s certainly a temptation I have to grapple with personally. And I think it’s an even greater challenge for people who are cooler and more popular than me, who gain followers, likes, shares, and comments with incredible ease.

When it comes to our faith, and the presence of Christ and the Gospel and our desire for right relationship and social justice, I think the Church, its institutions, its leaders, and its members need to be present online. The goal should be fidelity and witness, not sensationalism or personal vainglorious success.

Much like news media organizations – if they’re really to be doing public service and informing people – must prioritize reliable, timely reporting over sensational or tilted or cheap news while still trying to earn enough eyeballs to remain financially viable, the Church and we as Christians need to share an honest, true-to-life perspective and image of our lives of faith if we’re to be faithful.

The growth of Catholic influencers, personalities, and entrepreneurs is a mixed blessing, in my opinion. It certainly raises the profile of our faith when savvy, dynamic folks apply their media gift toward faith-based efforts. But I find the calculus regarding building and maintaining a following and then also remaining authentic, grounded, and faithful is dicey, to say the least.

In Chapter 6, Fr. Andrew falls prey to this allure, seeking to do a new media ministry in what is at least partially good faith but becoming nonetheless susceptible to the dog-eat-dog world of social media virality. It takes the steady hand, weathered perspective, and insightful voice of a veteran priest to help reset him – not to tear him down or rip away his ministerial impulse but to reshape it and set his feet down so the younger priest can just “be where your feet are.”

In a certain sense, I’m sure many of us in ministry would love to become consultants contracted to come in and give our opinions, speakers paid to travel and share our wisdom or facilitate discussions, personalities turned to for a valued and appreciated perspective. I think, to an extent, it’s healthy to want to be those things, to do those things. But the greatest need exists in serving locally, in building relationships with community members and neighbors right in front of you, and taking those next levels of outreach and ministry more gently as they spring forth from this local focus.

As always, the call is not to financial success or analytical engagement success but to ministerial fidelity. At our best, lay ministers are John the Baptist pointing to Christ, companions on the road to Emmaus contemplating Christ and breaking bread, disciples and apostles witnessing to Christ and bringing that Gospel to others by our words and our actions.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 5: Don't Do Service a Disservice

by Dan Masterton

High school campus ministry is a bit of an emerging field, a weird thing to say about a role in Catholic education that has been around for decades.

Often, this role is staffed not by those deeply, actively seeking such a role. It often goes to someone whose job is in danger of slipping to part-time who needs more responsibilities to maintain benefits. It often goes to a young, bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed post-grad, maybe even there as part of a volunteer program, who may or may not have any experience in ministry, or training in theology or catechesis. It often falls to teachers or other staff members who add it onto an already fullish plate. It’s rarer that these jobs are done by people who would be overjoyed to do such a job for a long time, even a whole career’s worth.

As a result, people are often campus ministers who are only passing through – shepherding a program, in some various state of disrepair or efficacy, for a few years until their next thing. And thus, many folks are triaging or learning a few things on the fly or just treading water.

That said, there has been a mild shift over the last few years, at the least to more thoughtful engagement among active and former campus ministers. It’s thanks to professional sessions and informal gaggles at the annual National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) conference, a vibrant Facebook group of these folks that the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry sponsors, and ongoing social ties between some regular suspects. As a result, more thought, more attention, and more development is happening.

As people come together, a few topics tend to fire up some ready-made input, as people respond to oft-asked questions with opinions that come from experience. Some major firestarters include when to place Kairos (junior year vs. senior year vs. a hybrid), whether or not to have co-ed small-groups and/or co-ed retreat experiences, and norms for planning and leading all-school liturgies. But perhaps the quickest, most lively debate springs from this big question: should service hours be required of Catholic high school students?

Whew.

The pros and cons are seemingly limitless, the stories of consolation and desolation varied and vivid. The consensus answer… well, there isn’t one.

In debates like this without a strong and compelling consensus, the practicality in my ministerial heart gravitates instead to best practices. Whether or not hours are required, what are positive, effective, meaningful things that campus ministers (and youth ministers accompanying confirmation candidates and other active teens, for that matter) can do with and for their young people?

Here’s a few from my experience and conversations:

Incorporate processing, hopefully working toward theological reflection.

Whether required or voluntary, service needs to be processed. Students who attend service outings need to process what they’ve been involved in, otherwise these are just more “things they’ve done” and will not turn into experienced memories.

Ideally, this will involve some level of theological processing, at least a see-judge-act type cycle. Here’s a simple way to use that in three rounds:

1. Describe what you saw, heard, and did during our visit. Describe who you saw, what they were like, and how you interacted with them.
2. Think about why this need exists. Why do people need this service? What are these people lacking? What historical, political, cultural, or spiritual factors might impact this need?
3. Consider how to act in response. What ways can you evolve your thinking and how you consider these social issues? In what ways can you take action to do charity by people in need and advocate for greater justice in our social systems?

Sometimes, all you can muster is a quick informal gaggle in the parking lot by the school van. Other times, maybe you can build in a 15-30 minute window back at school afterwards. Alternatively, maybe periodic gatherings could pool service participants from various trips into one larger group for processing. At minimum, it’d be ideal to have students briefly journal, even to just do step one from above in an iPhone note or on a little notepad.

As an introductory milestone, I always hope, especially that freshman and sophomores, can process their way past the very simplest, most basic realizations on their first or second trip. It’s good to “have my eyes opened,” to “become more grateful for what I have,” or to “not take things for granted.” Once they acknowledge these fundamentals, hopefully group sharing and faith mentorship can help them toward something more that seeks human solidarity with people on the margins and develops a mindset that desires more justice for forgotten neighbors.

Embrace a variety of experiences.

I used to be a bit sour on passive actions like drives, collections, and fundraisers, thinking time is better spent on direct service that aids people who are marginalized. But, as with many things Catholic, a both-and solution is ideal. There’s great benefit to these more passive service actions, too, especially as complementary activity to direct service.

First, they are a great low-barrier entry point to service. For those who are nervous about encountering new communities, it creates an avenue to become more active that starts shy of that. Collecting coats or clothes or money can meet a need, usually through an agency or organization, that starts to connect people, even if more indirectly. More creative tasks like making blankets, assembling care packs for people experiencing homelessness, or meal prep and sandwich stations for people who are hungry can facilitate more active, community-based and collaborative work.

This path also helps engage people who struggle to manage their busyness, works for younger groups who may not be mature enough for certain service sites, or makes an opportunity for groups who meet at times when direct service is difficult, such as Sunday night youth groups.

Either way, this collective charitable action is certainly worthwhile. Plus, a small encounter is still possible if a group from the action visits the agency to deliver the donations, and perhaps meets at least with staff who can educate them, if not also some of the clients or community members served.

From there, especially with teens, young adults, and older adults, service needs to involve direct encounter with people on the margins. Basic avenues include serving a food distribution at a food pantry or satellite distribution site; helping with food prep, meal service, and hospitality at a soup kitchen; supporting logistics and hospitality at a shelter for people experiencing homelessness, fleeing and recovering from abuse, settling after migration, or others.

Such direct encounter is huge for so many reasons, not least that it moves those serving to deeper thoughts than eye-openers and self-gratitude. Encounters with people on the margins put names, faces, and stories to issues easily abstracted. It enfleshes solidarity through moments of reciprocity, where greetings, conversation, and even tangible items of aid are exchanged in love.

These interactions are invaluable for helping young people, especially those coming from privilege, to discover the fullness of human dignity in all people in an incarnate, first-hand way. And it sews more fruitful seeds toward forming young people in a faith that seeks justice and spurs them to become greater advocates for that justice.

Strive for an immersion.

A next-level component that I’d hope for all young people to find in one of their faith communities is a service-learning and/or educational immersion.

Let’s walk through it by using the terms carefully and accurately.

First, an immersion differs from a service outing or a service trip because the group participating stays overnight at or near the community in which they’re serving and/or learning (rather than going home each night or to lodging separated significantly away from that community). Additionally, the group undertakes the vast majority of their experience serving, eating, praying, and communing in that community. For example, an urban service week in which suburban kids bus in from suburbs to parts of the city, go home each night to the suburbs, and sleep at their parish or their families’ homes would not be immersive; conversely, a group that travels to a rural community to assist with home building and repair and then sleeps in a community center or local campsite between their days of work would be undertaking an immersion.

A service-learning immersion takes the idea of processing one’s service and seeks to build out that process more fully. This style of immersion couples long periods of service – perhaps full mornings and afternoons – with intentional periods of processing reflection, faith-sharing, and prayer that aims to help young people think and pray about their work, and then form their hearts to become service-minded and justice-oriented.

An educational immersion taps into this same immersive structure but utilizes the time differently. Rather than providing direct service – such as building and repair, food pantry or soup kitchen hospitality, etc. – participants instead undertake learning opportunities. Typically, immersions focus on one topic or set of topics, such as immigration and migration or ecology and environment. The immersion then seeks to educate and inform students through intensive educational experiences.

These components would include things like presentations or Q&A’s with agency and organization leaders, walks through areas with experienced servant-leaders where participants learn about the issue and people it affects first-hand (i.e. migrant trails in the desert or homelessness encampments in cities), and interactions with people on the margins who are clients being served by agencies, to name a few.

Then, similar to other immersions, time is built in to include intentional periods of processing reflection, faith-sharing, and prayer that aims to help young people think and pray about their work, and then form their hearts to become service-minded and justice-oriented.

* * *

In Chapter 5, Larry is trying to get his food pantry streamlined, in part by optimizing his loyal band of older volunteers and complementing their constancy with the vitality and energy of young people. The outreach is tricky, and he has plenty of swings and misses. But when a group does show up, the results – both for the clients served and the young and old volunteers receiving them – are outstanding.

Direct service, in short, becomes a time when we often witness the best of people. And often, it’s the best of both sides of the encounter – the kind and humble people seeking assistance as well as the unpredictable young people. These small moments when we put God’s compassionate love into action are authentic glimpses of the Kingdom of God. Our world is brighter when these glimpses are longer and more frequent.

Bigger than Ourselves Ch. 4: Applying Renewed Thinking to Vocations and Discernment

by Dan Masterton

Vocations, vocations, vocations. Whew.

It’s certainly rare – but not nonexistent! – to hear of a diocese or a religious community where vocations to priesthood and religious life are abundant. There’s a myriad of reasons for this, accurate or overstated, to varying extents. If I had to put it concisely, I’d say we still generally take for granted that people who are baptized Catholic as infants and the families raising them will belong to a parish and participate in that community by Mass attendance and/or more. As a result, we struggle even to sustain the amount of parishes and ministries we have, let alone cultivate vocational awareness and discernment of one’s invitations from God.

In my time as a pastoral minister, and in four years and counting specifically focused on vocations ministry, I’d say there are two extremes too often envisioned or practiced. On the one hand, an old guard remembers a time when novitiates and pre-seminaries had ten new candidates each year with little more effort than prayer and invitation (often “invitold” invitations, at that), and assumes modern vocations will spring forth simply from private prayer and devotions, just “from God.” On the other hand, some folks imagine a very overt, recruitment mindset that is almost head-hunting faithful teens and young adults and trying to track them toward theological studies and religious formation.

In reality, an effective vocations ministry in the 2020s and beyond, one that will speak effectively to GenZ and subsequent generations, has to embrace some evolving norms. Here’s a few that I think are integral:

1. You have to present vocations with universal call language.

Start with baptism.

Identify the theologically central belief that we are all called to holiness.

Remind all the baptized faithful that they are all called to holiness, all called to embrace their nature as God’s beloved children, and all called to respond in loving service to others and God.

This needs to be something that all Christians understand at their spiritual cores.

2. Focus on states of life, vocational awareness, and a culture of discernment.

When speaking to youth and young adults, always acknowledge the full validity and complete fulfillment possible in living as a single person, married person, priest, or professed religious. We have to establish a new paradigm that sees vocation as one’s response to the gifts, passions, and talents that God gave each of us in creating us in love.

From there, we need the witness of people from each state of life to bring color and depth to their lived experience. And this must include religious men and women and priests and deacons. In this full palette of life, young people can see all paths possible and consider them each in good faith.

A major part of this is putting religious women and men and priests and deacons before young people to give witness. And when these religious and ordained people speak to youth, they need to state this spiritual truth: God is inviting young women to religious life, and God is inviting young men to religious and ordained life. And then ask them the question, not necessarily in a personal one-on-one way but at least to the young people as a group: could God be inviting you to religious life or priesthood? The seed needs to be planted intentionally.

3. Commit to accompaniment.

I always liked being a campus minister at a school rather than a pastoral minister at a parish. I liked the “captive audience,” knowing I had my students eight hours a day, five days a week, for the better part of nine months. It enabled me to focus on getting to know them, connecting their gifts and passions with ministry and service opportunities, and seeking to form them to be people of committed and lively faith. I know I would struggle immensely in a parish, where, at best, people come for Mass and maybe one youth event a week or month (or year!), and you’re often trying to build communities from scratch.

Now, with Catholic school enrollments often decreasing and parish populations, attendance, and Mass counts often decreasing, the opportunities to help young people discern and live out a vocation will come less from traditional avenues. We cannot rely on religious ed programs, Catholic high schools, and parish youth groups as strongly as we may have in past times. There needs to be more emphasis on tracking young people as they move on to college, trades, the military, and next steps, communicating by texts, social media direct messaging, calls and videochats, and perhaps videoconferencing or hybrid events (inasmuch as is possible and can be done according to safe environment standards as relates to minors and appropriate relationships between adults).

Vocations still do sometimes come through undergraduate years with young women and men entering formation out of college. But there needs to be more openness and attention to the mid-to-late 20s, 30s, and even 40s, as people live out different faith journeys and progressions, as people mature at different (often delayed) rates, and as people perhaps consider religious life and priesthood more seriously only at later points.

This is a trickier prospect since adults at these ages are only in familiar ecosystems at lower, less reliable rates and we may need to go and meet and engage them anew. We need to honor the differences between these older adults and teens/undergrads and invite their lived experience as independent adults, as professionals, and even as seekers and strugglers. And all of this newer ground has to be seen as potentially fertile for discernment and religious life/priesthood vocations.

* * *

In Chapter 4, Adam lets on, bit by bit, that he may be considering religious life, even just as a teen and new college student. Yet, for his apparent maturity and earlier sharing, it doesn’t mean his discernment will be direct, decisive, and final. As he invites his priest, his friends, and his parents into the circle of trust, there will be bumps in the road, mixed reactions, and a young man who is still growing and learning amid it all. For all the joy of his grace-filled discernment, there is a lot happening and a lot yet to come!

As religious communities and dioceses navigate new and changing norms, the ideals I’ve described here may not even be ideal in just a few years or so. But just as individuals need a growth mindset to be able to understand new things and adapt in positive ways, so, too, do institutions and leadership groups. Our vocation directors and ministers need to keep trying to understand generational trends and changes and do their best to be where young people are. If we can do this faithfully, I believe we will have the vocations we need to sustain the Church, and if that’s a lower number than we’re accustomed to having, then I believe the Holy Spirit can help us toward the evolutions needed to keep fueling our Church’s fire.