The Diocese of Youngstown’s Office of Youth & Young Adult Accompaniment has been organizing several new events to help provide Youth & Young Adult ministers with continuing education opportunities and resources for their important work. Among them was the recent Mardi Gras & Missionary Discipleship series—a two-day workshop with local expert Miguel Chavez, which was focused on turning ministers into disciple-makers. One session was held in Boardman and the other was held two weeks later, in Canton.
About the series, Rachel Shumar, Youth & Young Adult Minister at St. Micheal the Archangel Parish in Canton, said:
“By attending Miguel Chavez’s session on Forming a Community of Missionary Joyful Disciples, I was once more reinvigorated in my own ministry to high school teens. It was a reminder that no matter the number of teens in the room, we are called to foster this mission of discipleship, and in conjunction leadership skills, in our youth as they are not just the future, but the present of our Church. We are called to invite everyone we encounter into relationship with Jesus Christ, but in his presentation, Miguel spoke of also garnering a “Step It Up” Leadership Culture, a movement of personally inviting others, whether it be teens or other adult volunteers, to use their gifts and to take the reins. The session was also a reminder that it is through our own personal formation and witness that leads to cultivating new disciples. When that is done well, the rest falls into place.”
To learn more about upcoming activities from the diocesan Office of Youth & Young Adult Accompaniment, visit the website.
