What kids don't want from church

In short, kids "want" what adults wish they wanted.

Yawn.

I think there is a lot of truth to what he says. The Newman Center I was at in college was very loose and liberal--lacking on substance. Even if you aren't dealing with kids from extremely conservative backgrounds, they won't see any reason to stay with their faith if it makes no demands upon them. I also agree with the statement that liberals need to understand that the generations after them are dealing with a very permissive culture, not one which is prone to excessive control or dogmatism.

That said, we must remember that this priest is at the University of Dallas, and that is a totally different crowd that most colleges and universities. I think that conservatives would do well, as the priest noted, to be orthodox but also be flexible with people who aren't quite there yet in their thought or actions. I'm not sure I was always totally on board with Church teachings, so I am glad I was shunned or given a "snarky retort":) while I was working out those things.

A priest that snarky shouldn't use the term "snarky" so often.

LOL. That's hilarious. This priest has perfected the lingo of snarkiness.

He makes one good point. I think that the young do like to do charitable work together. I know that it was my favorite part of youth group. My favorite was when we would go and rake leaves for the elderly and, hopefully, for people who couldn't easily pay someone to do it. It never occurred to me that it might have been an experiment in social engineering.

As to his other suggestions, he seems to have taken what he disliked about his church and goes overboard in spoon feeding his beliefs to the youth. I wonder how he handles dissent within the group. I bet that you don't see too much dissent or hearty discussions at his youth meetings. Young people like to think. Young people like a good discussion and a debate. Our youth minister wasn't afraid to debate anything. He'd, often, take the opposite viewpoint just to get the youth thinking. I think that it helped me to be able to try to see the other person's viewpoint. Of course, my minister didn't seem to bring a lot of baggage from his youth to our meetings like this priest seems to do.

I've never understood "youth" ministry.

I have always believed, and still do, that it is a wild attempt to save the youth so the adults can remain corrupt and lackluster.

In the same way, I always thought the JPII cult of youth was the same deal - he had given up on the parents generation and so focused on the kids. I never agreed with it, still don't.

Same deal in institutional school, designed to break the kids away from the community. For example, I have one kid in First Communion class (2nd grade), and it is so outrageously infantile I can't bear it. I've sat in on all the classes, and it is so condenscending I'm going to save my kid pulling him out. It's like at the K level. My kid, who is very independent and wants to get on to the cool stuff is like, huh, this is religion? We spend our time going around the class trying to get kids who can barely read to read soft touchy-feely-be nice-to-animals crap. Makes the teachers feel good, that's about it.

The same deal with youth ministry. These are adults! Why can't they experience a rich religious community of all ages, like they have their entire life? We all know the reason: there is no such community.

Why can't they experience a rich religious community of all ages, like they have their entire life? We all know the reason: there is no such community.

Every once in awhile, the tinfoil slips out of my hat and I mysteriously find myself on the same wavelength with M_David. : ) He really hit the nail on the head this time. I couldn't agree more. And this is indeed the fundamental problem.

M_David,

Some youths like to hang out with youths that are peers. I always thought that my parent's friends were nice people, and I didn't mind spending time with them, but I enjoyed our church's youth ministry. My community did consist of adults and children of all ages. I spent time with them, and we had functions together. But I, also, had a community of peers. I didn't have to pick one over the other. I had both.

Don,
I have an aunt and uncle who, as far as I know, don't practice a religion. They are the most charitable people that I know-besides their 2 girls, that is. People, such as this priest who seems to have a chip on his shoulder, would call their charitable acts "political activism" when it's really just taking care of the world and creation because that's what they believe that people should do. They are lovers of people, animals, plants, and life. It tends to be the super religious within organized religion who put down their acts of generosity.

I totally agree with Fr. Powell. As a mid-twenties Anglican church goer, I am looking for the same thing. Too bad I don't live in Dallas!
Quote: Also, please, please, please don’t assume that they want their Christian lives to mirror their secular culture. You wanted the Church to look more and more like your “times.” They don’t. They want their Christian lives to be counter-cultural, against the secular grain. Yes, they are extremely naïve sometimes about what this actually means but you will lose them instantly if you think an MTV Mass is the hip thing to do. Why would they come to a MTV Mass? They have MTV (and worse) 24/7 on their cell phones. They don’t need or want you for entertainment. Church is not a concert or an amusement park. What they don’t have on their cell phones is the Real Presence of Christ in his Eucharist.
This was perfect, and at least for me, quite true. It sums up my issue with most churches.

i charitable acts without the connotation of political activism. It's very simple to most people.

I would assume that, but the snark was so thick and dismissive it was hard to tell.

no compromises on basic doctrine or dogma.
That doesn't sound as if it leaves too much room for discussion.

Presumably that's what makes those doctrines "basic"?

Youth/college ministry is extremely difficult. Its very existence in a church community assumes a) that those being ministered to want it, b) that if they want it, they have time to make it part of their lives, and c) that the adults doing the ministering have the time to support it and do it right. Those can be very dangerous assumptions to make. Even if the adults involved do have the best of intentions and are trying their absolute best, if they can't figure out how to reach through the extreme level of distraction kids face in their day-to-day lives, it's still not going to amount to much. What this means (at least from what I've seen) is that it has to be peer-driven, rather than adult drive (at least to some extent), if it isn't going to be dead in the water.

Here's a bigger question--how do you raise kids "in the faith" these days, any faith? How do you teach them in a way that sticks? Seems like the parents who try the hardest to pass on their beliefs produce kids who have the biggest problem buying it. I'm not what my mom raised me, certainly; neither is my wife what she was raised.

Richard

I know several groups of young people who would walk away from Church altogether if not for youth mission work. Young adults who feel no other link to the church of their upbringing but love the work trips to Central America. They pay their own way, carry bags bulging with toys and clothing to the villages, work from dawn to dusk building frames for homes and school buildings or translating for visiting medical teams, and carry their bags bulging with organic, Fair Trade coffee back to their home communities to sell at church to continue to support the mission.

I don't know if this counts as "social engineering," but it does require personal and financial investment and hard work, and these kids come back year after year.

We don't ask enough of our kids in this culture. Maybe that's our problem.

I think that there's a time and place to teach & review basic doctrine/dogma. The best times are when the kids are very young(Catechism)and in sermons from the pulpit. I'm not saying that a review with young adults on the way it is and the way it's going to be is bad. However, young adults don't always want to leave it at that. They want to know why all Christians don't believe that or why Jews or Muslims reject that. Or, why liberal Catholics might not agree with the conservative viewpoint. I'm not saying that they get a vote at the end of the day if they get to change the Church, but the discussions are of interest to them and making the discussion off limits might cause a person of a more liberal temperament to have the same types of bad feelings towards leadership that many Catholic conservatives seem to have today.

I agree with Richard. It's tough to get qualified adults to do the job. It's even tougher when you want what I'd like which is an adult that has an understanding of and can discuss many perspectives. They don't have to agree with the different perspectives, but they should be able to discuss them without a snarky bias.

I think that Rod is right in that getting young adults to learn/discuss how to apply the doctrine in life is important. I'd say that it's the most important.

Don,
It seems that liberal Catholics have done and are doing a lot of things that have made for bad feelings in the Church. I guess the main point that I'd like to make is to not turn around and do the same thing in the name of orthodoxy because it will probably backfire.

watsy, I'm not sure what background experiences you're viewing this issue of discussion or debate from, but I think you're way off course on this one. For the religious believer, especially one who has been entrusted with passing on and teaching the faith to others, it is absolutely right that there be no compromise on basic issues. That in no way shape or form does or should mean squashing debate. The debate in these situations comes not from the believer being open to change, but from confronting others with an unchangable idea: do you accept this? Why or why not? Do you think it would be desireable to accept this? Why or why not? Do you think there is a better way of viewing this? What is your support for that opinion? etc. Quite obviously, the fact that the believer is unlikely to change their basic thinking on a matter, doesn't change the vitality of such a debate.
Opinions and ideas are like water: without a container, they have no shape. A solid set of ideas is like a glass jar to contain the water in. A person may decide that they do not care for or even find a particular jar acceptable and find another container for their ideas, but the water or lack there of doesn't change the jar itself.
Of course, there is a certain whiney, repulsive, vomit inducing ethos out there which demands that everyone approve of, or at least not actively express disagreement with much less disapproval of, one's own opinions. I suppose that someone who fell into that pathetic, deserving to be squished like a gross bug catagory, facing someone like Father Phillip would be intimidating enough to squash debate. Thankfully, most people (hopefully) are not so spineless and great debates go on.

but there's nothing in the original essay which says that debate about doctrine and dogma should not happen - just that in the end, kids need to know that the doctrine and dogma aren't going to change - whatever their opinion of it might be. It seems that you are saying that not leaving doctrine and dogma open to change is the same as squashing debate and that's where I think you're off base. Please forgive me if I somehow read that into what you said, but that is what it appears to me that you are saying.

rebeccat,

Teach the apostolic faith full on…no compromises on basic doctrine or dogma. This generation of college students can smell an intellectual/spiritual weasel a hundred miles away. They would rather hear the bald-faced Truth and struggle with it than listen to a priest/minister try to sugar-coat a difficult teaching in the vain search for popularity or “hipness.”

Preach the gospel full on…ditto. Tell it like it is and let the students grow in holiness. Yes, they will fail. Who doesn’t? But let them fail knowing what Christ and his Church expects of them. Lowering the moral bar comes across as expecting too little from them. What does that say about the Church’s view of our future ecclesial leaders? They can’t cut it, so we have to shorten the race.

It's very possible that I've misunderstood Father Powell. But when I read these words, I didn't picture much discussion or debate happening. It seemed to be a my way or the way of the weasels approach. Conservative students might respond better to this type of approach, but it sounds really good guy(my way of thinking) vs bad guy (anyone who disagrees with me) type of thinking. Teach them and tell them sounds different from discuss with them, explore with them, debate with them, challenge them, etc.

Watsy,

Again, I do appreciate all of your comments...

Let me clarify for you, if I may/can. I teach and preach what the Churhc teaches and preaches. Period. If a student comes to my office wanting to know if masturbation is a sin in the Church's teaching, I say, without pause, without flinching: yes. Same thing with premartial sex, abortion, cheating on exams, etc. Most of the time they want to know the church teaches what it does. I do my best to explain to it them. My vocation as a priest--in fact, my solemnly sworn duty as a priest--is to teach and preach the apostolic faith given to the church by Christ. If the student tells me outright that he/she disagrees with the church, well, OK. What do you imagine that I am doing in these cases? When the church has a clearly stated teaching, I teach it--clearly stated. And I try to help the student through the complications and mish-mash. Often they disagree with a teaching b/c they don't understand it. Or because they have it all wrong. I frequently run into a very odd problem here at UD. Some of my more traditional students are semi-Pelagians, i.e., they think they are going to fast themselves into heaven or say the rosary enough times that God will love them or kneel before the Blessed Sacrament long enough for Jesus to decide to take them to heaven. When I correct this heretical view, I am often labeled a "liberal" b/c I teach and preach that we are saved through God's grace alone. Our "work" is our cooperation with His grace, making it effective for us, thus "meriting" us the fruits of grace. They simply cannot grasp the concept that we are freely given heaven. They just have to work for it somehow. Now, do you suggest that I --in the name of debate and freedom--let them go on believing that they can earn their salvation with devotional practices? Or should I correct them using the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church? Fr. Philip, OP

Oh, I should add, in order to rebut a presumption, that I am pretty sunburned right now...why? I spent all day Saturday before last and this last Saturday working with forty UD student scraping, sanding, and repainting an elderly couple's house in Oak Cliff. We also demolished and rebuilt two back porch decks for them and a set of stairs off their front porch. We do this every year with the Hearts & Hammers project. Also, my other job at UD is Campus Minister for Volunteer Opportunities. So, when I'm not busy oppressing young minds with the suffocating truths of the Catholic faith, I am taking their dirty little bodies to places like St Joseph's Residence, Family Gateway, St Vincent de Paul Thrift Store, Catholic Charities, Dallas Life Foundation; Lima, Peru, and this year we're going to Athens, GA to spend Holy Week at a migrant farm worker camp. So, yea, all of us orthodox Catholics hate charity work and never do much for the poor.

Fr. Philip, OP
University of Dallas

Richard, I disagree. This is such an odd conversation. I feel like I'm missing something because what I'm saying is so obvious to me that I must be having a hard time articulating it properly and I think that you would say that your explantion is perfectly obvious as well, but to me it looks like you've completely missed the point.
I don't see how this is in anyway what so ever particular to religious belief. Heck, in my example, religion wasn't the topic at hand at all. Perhaps the competing perspectives is that either a discussion is to challenge, discuss and test purported truths to see if you buy them, if they are flawed or to further understand them. This could be in the realm of religion or politics or any other thing about which people disagree. Or it could be that discussion is just where people express different ideas in the same space. Maybe every once in a while people hold an opinion strongly enough that a little tiff breaks out, but otherwise it is just people bloviating.
When I was in college in the early 90's there was lots of bloviating. Bloviating is retarded (and I mean that in the literal way, not in a way which is insulting to the develomentally disabled). It is an ethos which came from a generation which was rebelling against having beliefs imposed on it from above without their consent. It is now completely outdated, irregardless of the subject and its source. It is also why much of what passes for education and discussion these days is unworthy of the brain power of your average 4 year old.
So, perhaps it is a difference of perspective, but in as much as that is true, it is a perspective which is shaped by different generational experiences, IMO.

"Is there some secret pact requiring removal of one's humor and irony gene in order to be accepted into the tribe of liberal thought or something?"

Good to see you too, Rebeccat.

"Huh?"

Ironic she defined bloviating and the practice of bloviating by . . . bloviating. Apparently, she learned more than she thought.

I appreciate your comments, too, Father. Usually, I'm ignored around here. I, definitely, think that a priest should know and distribute information that follows the teachings of the Church. Especially, when a student comes to the priest with questions regarding Church teaching.

I guess I was missing something. If students are coming to you and are confused about basic Church teaching, then you have an obligation to set them straight. Most of the issues which you mentioned I would have thought that would have been covered and learned in Catechism years ago.

I agree with Richard. We do approach much of religion from a different perspective. I don't mean the obvious things like lying, cheating, infidelity, having abortions, etc as being wrong. I mean the intricacies of church dogma that the orthodox call revealed truth. The things that Christians split apart and fight over. Those are the kinds of things that can make for interesting discussions with young adults. As to the other things, lying-cheating-having abortions-etc, the interesting discussions with young adults would be figuring out how and if those teachings should influence public policy.

I'm always a little uncomfortable when people in authority start teaching the young their Truth. Sure, there's truth in the absolute. My minister for Communion Class was more of an authoritative type than my youth minister. He was always telling us how we were different from the Catholics, or should I say, teaching us what Presbyterians believe and how the Catholics have it all wrong. It was his Truth. I would have preferred a little more discussion of the differences and less teaching. But, in his defense, he was doing his job. He was our minister, preparing us to join the Presbyterian Church, and he was teaching Truth. It happens in all religion. Everyone has a Truth that's The Truth.

Who said the orthodox don't do charity work? I didn't say that. I don't believe that to be true. Why did you make that joke, Father Powell?

Watsy:

Thing is, they're not intricacies. The Real Presence in the Eucharist isn't an intricacy. The bread and wine either are the Body and Blood or they are not. The Incarnation isn't an intricacy. Either Christ was the Word made Flesh or He was not. And so on.

God bless your peaceful and ecumenical heart (and I mean that sincerely and without irony) but we fight and split over these things because they matter, frankly. These are issues over which early Christians were murdered, and yet fathers of the Church such as St. Ignatius still said, essentially, "This is what Christianity is, it's non-negotiable, and there's the door if you don't agree." Unity in faith is the only meaningful unity there is, as far as this perspective of Christianity is concerned. If it's all personal and subjective and shouldn't be taught as if it's anything other than personal and subjective, that is, if religion's just so we have someplace to go on Sunday morning and get a warm fuzzy, then it's really pointless--the same can be had either with a nice glass of wine or through other less demanding ways that don't require one to give up a weekend morning. My church community gets 10-20 hours out of me a week, and believe me, I've got other things to do with my time if it's not for something that's bigger than I am, that I believe to be absolutely true and want my children and grandchildren raised in. Where I live I could easily find someplace with shorter and fewer services that start later with better music and that only require me to sit there if all we're doing is finding our own truth within a nice story.

I probably would disagree with your Communion Class minister on a good many things, but I'd rather such people teach what they believe with conviction. I believe God can do more with somebody who believes in what they're doing and is faithful to that than somebody who would make it all relative to what other groups do.

Richard

Daniel:
While I am sure you are a delightful and inspiring person in the flesh, father, I have to say blogging may not be your strong suit since you do tend to come off as rather bitter and tiresome and, well, snarky. You sound as angry and intolerant as all those liberals you criticized from your college and seminary days.

Oh, come on, Daniel. Father Philip sounds like he's got a great sense of humor. You're the one who constantly comes off as a dour scold of all who don't accept your liberal point of view.

I hope that your children never disappoint you because I know that I would never want to disappoint you if you were my father. But I would only want that if they found a communion with God through Orthodoxy that was real in a meaningful way.

I gently suggest that you have it exactly backwards--if I am ultimately unsuccessful in teaching the faith to my children in a way that sticks, then it is I who will have failed them, not the other way around. I will also suggest that your conditional about "if they found a communion with God through Orthodoxy that was real in a meaningful way" sounds good, but I expect you're defining the words "communion," "real," "meaningful," and heck, maybe even "through" in a personal, subjective manner--i.e., not the same way I'd define them. If the sacraments are real and effective, it's not a question of if they've found that communion in a real and meaningful way, it's a question of whether or not they acknowledge it.

Richard

Daniel, just go take a banal, secularist cultural dip in some of that Swedish 'babe' vomiting humor Rod has thoughtfully provided for all under "Professionalism" (now that the banal, secularist cultural Britney thread has archived) and that'll put the pink back in your dour cheeks and the chuckle back in your chin straightaway.

Why, I can hear Father Powell slapping his knee over Hurling Babe all the way from here. ;-)

Amen Bob.
i really have to echo with you on your last statement. to long in ministry we have been telling any one under the age of 25 that 'one day' that one day prepares them to almost leave the church...boredom sets in...the church has failed in this area of family ministry i think. several of my friends and myself are looking at Neo-Youth ministry through liturgy and just through life. we have missed the concept of incarnational ministry in our every day lives.
if you would like to check out some of our thoughts please do and pass us on.
ypguybrit.wordpress.com
mattopia.wordpress.com

but over all Fr. Philip i believe is spot on with all of his arguments