Stop trying to "appeal" to young people
On my first day as a youth minister my desk phone rang.
“Hi, this is Patrick.”
“Hello, this is [Parishioner], you’re the new youth minister right?”
“Yes, ma’am”
“Okay, well, the youth used to help with the Easter baskets every year, can they do that this year?”
“I’m not sure ma’am. I don’t know where they are yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I haven’t started the youth ministry yet. I don’t know what kids are in our parish, let alone whether they want to help with Easter baskets.”
“Okay, let me know if they can help.” click
I had several conversations like this during my years as a young minister. An older parishioner has a ministry with volunteers who are aging out or dying out. So they need fresh blood. So they come to me.
I would pass these opportunities onto the kids, but it made me uncomfortable.
I realized many people saw “youth ministry” not as a ministry for the youth but a ministry OF the youth. Not us serving them, but them serving us.
Why do we want the youth?
The most uncontroversial statement in Catholicism is “We need to reach the youth.”
The controversy is over how we reach the youth (Latin Mass? Life Teen? Trips to Disney?)
But I don’t want to talk about how we reach them. I want to talk about why.
Nobody asks why we want to reach young people in the first place.
If we’re honest, it’s one of two reasons:
We need to reach the youth…because they need Christ.
We need to reach the youth…because we’re dying out.
From what I have seen, too many Catholics are in the latter group. And young people are perceptive. They can tell when they’re being used.
That’s a problem.
The Appeal Trap
That is why the conversation of what “appeals” to the youth is so fruitless.
An “appeal” is sets up a dichotomy with “the youth” on one side and “the Church” on the other. The Church becomes like a company trying to sell a product.
“Maybe if we change the music or the homily or the doctrine, young people will come”
An appeal is a message for you to come here. “Come here to me, and then I’ll tell you about the gospel.”
That’s what guitar Mass was. That’s what synodality sessions were. And that’s what Latin Mass can be too—just an appeal with better aesthetics.
But this whole dichotomy is the problem.
It reveals a hidden desire—we don’t want young people for their own sake. We want them so we don’t die. That’s why I got so many calls asking for volunteers. That’s why we require “service hours” for confirmation. And young people can tell that’s your motive.
We shouldn’t give the young what they want in exchange for what we want. We should give them what they need for their own sake.
What They Actually Need
Young people don’t need to be appealed to. They need relationships.
It’s so simple. I went to their baseball games. Went to their football games. I showed up to their plays and concerts. I talked to them about the things they cared about.
Then we talked about Jesus.
That’s it. It’s so easy. I feel like I shouldn’t even need to say it.
And they came to youth group. Not because I had an “appealing youth group.” But because they knew I cared about them so Jesus must, too.
As John Paul II wrote in Catechesi Tradendae, the goal is “to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ.” (5)
Young people are starving for Christ. We need to bring them Christ. That’s it.
Stop Selling
We need to stop asking “How do we appeal to the young?” and start asking “How do we build relationships with the young?”
Building that community—connecting young people to their local parish—is what will save the Church in America in the coming years. The young people will come not because we marketed better but because we met them and loved them.
Most young Catholics are looking for relationships when they pick a Church. If you talk to them, eventually, that’s what they’ll tell you. They are lonely and need community. What better place to find it than in Christ’s Church?
Because ultimately that is the only thing that will fill their desire for love and belonging: Jesus Christ.