Dispatch News from the Office of Youth and Young Adult Evangelization
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High School Leadership Camp - 16 parishes were represented with teams of high school student leaders at this year’s High School Leadership Camp, June 13-16 at Camp Perkins near Stanley. This camp was for students and their youth ministry leaders who desire to see the Great Commission fulfilled in their parish, schools, and city. To accomplish this parish teams learned proven methods that are being used with FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) on our Idaho campuses. Read more about the “3 Habits” here.
Junior High Camp - For five days (June 18-22), we welcomed middle schoolers to encounter Jesus Christ in the beautiful outdoors through the apostolic faith and the Catholic life. We roamed the mountains, swimmed the lake, celebrated Mass, prayed the Rosary, enjoyed skits, sang joyfully, had campfires, became pirates, devoured food, slept soundly, met new & old friends, embraced mentors, and grew as Christ followers to be sent into the world. Our site was Camp Perkins near Stanley, Idaho. Each year we choose a theme and one of the four sets of rosary mysteries. This year, was Pirate Camp with a focus on the Glorious Mysteries of Christ’s life and help from our heroes in faith, the communion of saints. Read more about Junior High Camp here.
Youth Ministry Retreat - As a part of the Catholic Educator Conference regional events, we will gather as youth ministry leaders from the Diocese of Boise to RE(encounter) Our Lord again, and be empowered by the Holy Spirit specifically for the work of evangelization.
This retreat is open to anyone who works with youth ministry (Priests, Youth Ministers, Youth Ministry team leaders). This retreat will be held at the Monastery of the Ascension in Jerome, Idaho on August 3-5, 2018. Cost per participant is $35 which includes food and lodging at the monastery.
Space is limited to 32 spots and will first be available to our youth ministers and then to members of their volunteer teams. Visit eventbrite to register.
Young Adult Conference - This year’s Young Adult Conference with take place on November 9-11 at the JUMP Conference Center in Boise, Idaho. Our theme this year is “Wholly” and our guest speakers include Sarah Swafford, Michael O’Neill, the Sisters of Life, and other representatives from religious orders. Registration will open in August.
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Idaho Catholic Youth Conference Date - ICYC’s theme this year is “Chosen” and the conference will take place March 8-10, 2019 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, Idaho. You can expect to see registration packets arrive at the parishes in September. Guests include Ennie Hickman, Sarah Swafford, and Paul J Kim.
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High School Leadership Camp
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This summer we held our annual High School Leadership Camp up at Camp Perkins (Stanley area). HSLC was for youth ministers and students who desire to see the Great Commission fulfilled in their parish, school, and city. In order to see this come to fruition we had the students learn 3 Spiritual Habits.
Divine Intimacy – teens were taught the importance of the sacraments and daily prayer, and were taught a simple method for prayer that can be done at anytime, anywhere. At camp they had the opportunity for daily prayer, Confession, daily Mass, and small group prayer with the leaders and teens from their parish (all things they can replicate when they go back to their parishes)
Authentic Friendship – Many of us have friends. Some of us even have best friends. But very few of us have authentic friends. An authentic friend is someone who wants you to go to heaven, and is not afraid to encourage you to live for Jesus. At camp, teens were encouraged to make their friendships Christ-centered, they learned the importance of praying for their friends, and that Jesus wants us to strengthen the bond of friendship with a person, before we invite them to know and follow Christ.
Spiritual Multiplication – the last spiritual habit the teens learned was an effective model for evangelization. Each teen, coming back from leadership camp, will work with their youth minister to start a Bible study with their friend group that they will lead. Eventually, they will identify 1-2 people from their Bible study who they think would be good at leading a Bible study. They will invite those people to start their own Bible study and show them how. The process will continue, as eventually those two people each identify 1-2 people from their Bible study that could start a Bible study, and teach them how. With each new Bible study that is started, more people are added to the ministry. This catches like wildfire and pretty soon there are hundreds of teens in Bible studies, simply because of the efforts of a few teens who went to leadership camp. We are witnessing this on the campuses of U of I, BSU, and ISU. This year alone we had over 200 college students involved in small group Bible studies.
Who came to this camp?
Teens came to this camp from 16 parishes from around the diocese and they are all going back to their parishes to start this process of Spiritual Multiplication and winning souls for Jesus! We are about to see this take place all over the state and its our students, empowered by the Holy Spirit that leading the charge.
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