Youth and Orthodoxy

My name is Peter van Kampen, and I am presently the Youth Coordinator at St Cecilia's parish, the program coordinator at Our Lady of Victory Camp, and the Dean of Students for the Boys at Clear Water Academy. When I was originally asked to give this talk several months ago, I was quite excited since youth ministry is obviously something very close to my heart.

I grew up in a strong Catholic family, the second oldest of 10 kids. We went to Mass on Sundays, obeyed all the rules and seasons of the Church, and often prayed as a family. As a little kid I would sometimes sneak off to St Cecilia's for Mass in the mornings (Mass was at 7:00am), and I wouldn't tell my mom, since I remembered the passage that exhorts us to pray 'in our rooms with the doors closed." I remember one time my mom caught me, and I thought I was ripped off since I wouldn't be getting my reward in Heaven!

However, despite this upbringing, when I reached my teenage years I began to question the faith a lot. This was not due so much to doubt about the truth, or to any form of intellectual integrity- I just thought Church was boring, and I didn't want to go. Of course, my parents made me go, but this illustrated the status of my faith- it was something imposed on me from the outside, and not something I had chosen.

In High School I befriended a group of protestant kids who invited me to their youth groups. At these groups I made more friends than I had ever made before. But more importantly, Christianity suddenly became something relevant to me- I saw other youth who actually chose to believe this stuff, and to live by it! I didn't have a particular isolated conversion experience, but through this time I began to take ownership of my faith, and in short, I chose it for myself.

Since that time I went to the JPII Bible School, spent 2 years with the Companions of the Cross in Ottawa, and have devoted much of my time to various youth ministries.

I believe that Youth Ministry is one of the most important facets of our Church today- and one that is often neglected. It is said that 90% of conversions- either for or against Christianity- happen in the Adolescent years. And this, of course, makes sense. Adolescents is by its nature a time of crisis and of choosing. You are growing from a child inot an adult- from someone who's decisions are made to someone who makes his own decisions. We have often heard that "love is a choice"- faith too is a choice. It is a virtue, therefore a quality of the will, and the will is, of course, the thing which makes choices.

So let's be honest- a person can choose to believe, and likewise can choose not to believe. We have probably all met people who choose to believe a thing despite all evidence to the contrary. This is because even faith is an act of the will, and they have willfully chosen to believe something which can be rationally shown to be false.

So adolescents are this period of choice. We, as a Church, have been given the 'great commission', to evangelize. The easiest target group to evangelize- and in many ways, the most important group, is youth. It stands to reason, then that the Church would place a high priority on youth ministry. But let's be honest- how are we doing?

I think it is important for us all to recognize that youth ministry is not the job of just the young adult guitar player that your parish hired.... it is the job of the whole church. JPII referred to the youth as not "The Church of Tomorrow", but as "The Church of Today". We as a church need to reach out to our youth, to challenge them, to give them a role in our parishes, and of course to love them. We need to try to look past their questionable fashion sense and taste in music and see "The Church of Today" which is in desperate need of evangelization!

I would like to ask all the Youth Ministers here to stand up. These are the people on the front lines in your parishes doing youth ministry, running the programs, teaching teens the Catechism. But now I want to ask anyone who is a teacher, or principle, or youth worker- anyone who works with youth top stand up. Now I want to ask all the parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and older siblings of youth to stand up. Now everyone who has youth that attend Mass at your Church stand up.

Look around. These are the youth ministers at your Church. Not all of you are called to join youth ministry, and go bowling with teenagers- though a lot more of you probably are than are presently doing it. Every one of you represents the Church to these young people. The great commission is for you!

Have a seat.

Now here's the thing. We tend to look at our world, and we get a little depressed, especially about the state of youth today. Youth have problems today that didn't exist even when I was a teenager. Of course, drugs and promiscuity were already issues when I was a teen, but now we have drugs like Crystal Meth, which is more effective, more affordable, more available, more addictive, and more destructive, than the drugs that my peers dealt with. The internet has made a whole world of pornography available to youth, and this is a trap that grows increasingly perverted the deeper someone gets into it. And we live in a society which takes what was once regarded as a perversion- homosexuality- and now raises it to the level of a sacrament in marriage. This is the world that our teens are growing up in. How then can we Catholics hope to remain relevant?

And yet, JPII promised us a new spring time, and let me tell you, from the front lines of youth ministry, that new spring time is here! Things are taking off for youth in this diocese, all across Canada, and all over the world- and we are gaining momentum. I often visualize it as being flood waters crashing onto a levy with increasing force, and one day the levy is going to break, and there will be a flood of graces on our youth.

For those of you who know youth, that maybe you are tempted to give up hope on- let me assure you, the inclination to give up hope is, in fact, a temptation. Remember that hope, along with faith and love, is a "Theological Virtue". Notice it's not a 'theoretical virtue'. By "theological" I mean that it comes from God- we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can be filled with hope. By "virtue" I mean it is a disposition of the will. In other words, hope is not a feeling anymore than love is a feeling. We choose to have hope, and by the grace of God He gives us hope. To say that there is no hope is to lack confidence in the God who created all things and is above all things. From this moment on, I challenge you to choose to have hope for the youth, and to keep presenting them in prayer before our God!

So what is our mission then as Youth Ministers?

Our Mission is to bring Christ to the youth. We must never lose sight of our mission. Often we think our mission is to get as many teenagers out to our events as possible- the success of youth ministry is gauged in numbers. Or we think that our mission is to entertain youth, or keep them off the streets, and essentially do damage control. A temptation I often face as a youth minister is to think of youth ministry as being somehow about me- about attracting youth to myself, having youth think how cool and funny and holy I am.

But, if a youth were to wander into my ministry looking for Christ, and all he found was me- that youth would be royally ripped off. I will always remember an incident where a teenager came to my youth group in Ottawa, and it happened to be a 'social' night. We were running the Lifeteen program, which runs a 4 week cycle, and every fourth week is a social evening with the intent of drawing in more youth who would not otherwise come to a Church event.

Well on this particular evening, a youth came and saw us playing games- and left. He sent me an e-mail some time later saying "I don't understand. If I go to Mormon youth group, they teach me about what they believe. If I go to Jehovahs Witness youth group, they teach me what they believe. But I go to Catholic youth group, the Church which claims to have infallible access to the truth- and we play games." That youth felt ripped off because he came looking for the truth, and he was not given it.

My talk this morning is called "Youth and Orthodoxy." "Ortho" means "True" and "Doxy" means teaching. If we are going to present Christ to the youth, we must the uncompromised truth.

Now a lot of people think "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"- when it comes to youth. I used to be a part of a team called the Chastity Challenge Team. We traveled all over Canada, the USA, Ireland and England promoting the message of Chastity in High Schools. Imagine an issue more 'offensive' to youth. Based in Ottawa, we tried to get charitable status in Canada. The courts decision was as follows. We were not granted Charitable status because we 'only promoted one side of the issue.' The courts wanted us to say "Chastity is a good idea, but if you can't handle it, at least wear a condom." One reporter who covered the issue aptly pointed out that this would be similar to not granting Mothers Against Drunk Driving charitable status unless they agreed to say "Don't drink and drive, but if you do, wear a seatbelt."

Now here's the thing. There is an assumption that the message of chastity will be wholesale rejected by youth, because it challenges them. The message that youth clearly get from our society is this "You can't control your hormones, but at least you can diminish the consequences from your lack of self control."

Is this loving? Are we loving the youth when we tell them they are in capable of making a healthy moral decision? The Bible says "Love believes all things". Soren Kiekergaard added ""And believes them lovingly." If we genuinely love our youth, we will believe that they are capable of making a moral decision. It's like if you married someone, and they made a vow of fidelity to you, and you looked at them, smiled and compassionately said "That's nice dear. But since you can't actually control yourself, here's a condom for when you sleep around."

It is true that youth lack some of the moral discipline they need to acquire. Likewise, they lack some of the intelligence and education that they can gain. It is not compassionate to say to a youth "There is no such thing as knowledge" simply because they lack knowledge and we don't want to make them feel stupid. Likewise, it is not compassionate to a youth to say "There is no such thing as higher morality" simply because they are not functioning at the highest moral level. Rather, in both cases, we must educate our youth! We must bring them the truth!

I would love to do a skit some time for youth about Goldilocks and the 3 bears. Have the 3 bears open a restaurant, and Goldilocks visit it. No matter what she is served, she always has a complaint- too hot, too cold, too spicy, too salty, too sweet, too thick, too thin, too chewy, too tough- etc. Finally in exasperation Papa bear takes her food and puts it in the blender and creates a bland, lukewarm flavorless paste. Goldilocks, disgusted at this final insult, leaves the restaurant without eating.

The point of the skit would be this. There is a common opinion amongst some that Christianity ought to adapt to the times, be less offensive. Dare I suggest that it'd be much better if the times would adapt to Christianity! Christianity is by its very nature offensive. A fundamental precept of Christianity is the fact that every person deserves to go to Hell. Otherwise, salvation is meaningless. But telling people they deserve to go to hell is generally considered to be offensive. You could even be apologetic about it, and say "I don't actually want you to go to Hell, I am merely pointing out to you the objective truth, that you deserve to go to Hell."

What tends to happen is that people say "Alright, youth ministry is essential to the life of a Church, therefore let's be sure not to do anything that offends youth." In other words, let's not challenge youth to step out of themselves, let's allow youth to remain as they are, in their comfort zone. Youth ministry then gets reduced to mere entertainment. But as far as entertainment goes, how can we possibly compete with Hollywood? And as far as comfort goes, how can we possibly compete with ones livingroom couch?

God said in the book of Revelation "I wish you were either hot or cold, but since you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth!" Are we seriously trying to sell God-vomit to the kids? We cannot compete with the world when it comes to entertainment or comfort- the only thing we have to offer is truth. Meaning. A life that is not lukewarm.

So we have to stop watering down the faith! The Church has the incredible gift of a infallible Magisterium which can teach the truth, without which, it's anybodies guess! Youth are not interested in listening to another tired old opinion. They are sick of being given pablum. They want meat. They want Truth. Even if it means, yes, they might have to work at it, they might have to chew.

But, if we offend some people, wont we lose them?

Sure. We probably will. Is that an acceptable loss? Consider for a moment Christ. Remember that our mission is to bring Christ to the youth- if we do anything else, if we're so afraid of offending the youth that we don't give them Christ, we have sold out, and likely we have made an idol of our own egos.

Christ spoke the truth even when it meant that he would be rejected. He was not crucified for saying "love one another"- that was not so offensive! You've likely heard the passage in John 6 quoted in defense of the doctrine of the Eucharist. Jesus tells people that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. the original Greek is actually a little more vulgar- it could be better translated "munch on my flesh' or 'gnaw my flesh'. People were so offended, they began to leave! But Jesus didn't take it back. This indicated 2 things. 1st, he meant it literally when he spoke about the Eucharist. Second, he spoke the truth even when it was offensive.

Consider too the story of the rich young man. He said he had obeyed all the commandments his whole life- basically, he'd been a pretty good guy. Jesus said "go, sell all you have and come follow me." That young man went away sad, because he did not want to have to give up his comfort to be a Christian.

Christianity calls us out of our comfort zones. It calls us to give until it is painful. It calls us to love when we don't want to. It calls us to make sacrifices, and not to obey every little whim that comes to us in the form of a temptation. And how many times do we Christians try to take this Christianity and make it comfortable so we wont offend people?

"But Peter" you argue, "we must be compassionate! Jesus was compassionate!"

Yes, Jesus was compassionate! When other people wanted to stone a woman for committing adultery, Jesus protected her! But then he said to her "Go, and sin no more". Our culture seems to think that compassion would have said to her "Geez, you poor thing. You know, adultery really isn't a sin, I mean, clearly you're in love with this other guy that you're not married to and who am I to deny you the right to sleep with him or to call it wrong? Don't worry about these merely human laws about marriage- let's celebrate the love you two have! It's not a sin!"

Jesus was very compassionate with sinners- but lets get real. He had very little tolerance for sinners- Scribes and Pharisees- who didn't acknowledge they were sinners.

The truth is that Christianity is hard. It requires big time sacrifice. And we need to present the truth to the youth. And I firmly believe that the youth will rise to the occasion! JPII wrote an encyclical, called "The Splendor of Truth". Truth though it challenges us, though it forces us to change, is attractive and exciting, and people hunger for it! And if we have denied youth that truth, we need to repent, and start giving it to them!

If my theory is correct, than you should be able to tell from the fruits. Which youth ministries are more 'successful'- which are creating more committed Christians- those which water down the truth, or those that are unreservedly faithful to the magisterium? I have been doing youth ministry in this country now for 10 years. I can honestly say that every single successful Catholic ministry I have encountered has been faithful to the magisterium. NET, CCO, Life Teen, OLVC, Companions of the Cross, Legionaries of Christ, Youth for Christ, Franciscan Friars of the Renewal- they all have this one thing in common. They bring Christ, unabashedly, to the youth, and they do not compromise the truth for the sake of anyone's comfort.

Success Stories.