POMPTON LAKES Over roughly 18 months, St. Mary’s Parish here learned more about how not only to give young people of the millennial generation — from 18- to 34-years-old — a warmer welcome and develop ministries that meet their needs, but also how to integrate them more fully into the life of the parish.
A team of St. Mary’s staffers traveled to Los Angeles for the last of four meetings of the Catalyst Learning Group on Millennial Discipleship. There, its members met with teams from nine other parishes around the U.S. for these sessions, where they listened to speakers on the subject of attracting and engaging the millennial generation, reviewed relevant materials and shared ideas and insights with each other, while developing action plans for their own parishes.
So far, St. Mary’s has acted on its action plan by initiating a young adult listening session, where they asked members of the millennial generation about their faith journeys and experience of faith and Church. It also has increased its presence and reach on social media: the way that younger people communicate today. The Franciscan-run parish established a young adult ministry and a group for mothers with newborns or young children and will start other outreaches for millennials — all with the goal of integrating them seamlessly into parish ministries and encouraging them to step up as leaders in the faith community, said Michael Macalintal, St. Mary’s high school youth minister and a team member.
“This has been exciting journey for us. We have learned so much about our millennial brothers and sisters and along the way have learned a great deal about ministry and discipleship at St. Mary’s. Everything we do now is done with an eye toward increasing our awareness of our call to be disciples of Jesus Christ,” Franciscan Father Frank Sevola, St. Mary’s pastor and team member, wrote in a recent bulletin about the final trip to Los Angeles. “Remember that no matter what generation you belong to, you care called to be a disciple and you are called to pray, serve and give and to do good works each day.”
The group also included Dorothy-Mary Limey, St. Mary’s music ministry director; Anne Silversey, Father Sevola’s assistant; and Jennifer Ferraioli, youth ministry director. Another entity nominated St. Mary’s for the learning group, but no team member knows which one. Before the start of the sessions, members traveled to Los Angeles for extensive interviews with the staff of the Parish Catalyst initiative, which calls itself “A platform for pastoral excellence.” It “liked that St. Mary’s is an active parish, committed to discipleship,” Father Sevola said.
“The St. Mary’s team knows the parish well. They gave great insight about the future direction of the parish,” said Father Sevola, who added that St. Mary’s plans to make certain that every ministry includes the participation of millennials and to get parish staff “on board” with the approach. “This [Catalyst Learning Group] has helped St. Mary’s get a handle on what the future holds for us and who is the future. It’s also important to keep the pews filled,” he said.
The St. Mary’s team prepared a little for the first session, but Parish Catalyst wanted it to “come with an open mind.” Members listened to speakers, reflected on various materials and —as they did during all four visits — formulated a three-month action plan. To complete this task, they spoke with members of other teams to get their insights and feedback, Father Sevola said.
“We at St. Mary’s learned that we are on the right track. We are doing well but have areas, where we can improve,” Father Sevola said. “We learned that millennials want to belong, have a commitment to tradition and want an authentic experience of Church — they want you to be who you are. They also are very inclusive people,” Father Sevola said.
The Parish Catalyst initiative “invites pastors with demonstrated creative leadership skills and key members of their pastoral teams to join a Parish Catalyst Learning Community. We then foster an environment where participants challenge each other to capitalize on new ideas and stretch their visions of ministry beyond the current strategies in play at their parishes,” said Bill Simon, Parish Catalyst’s founder and chairman.
“While each Learning Community works directly with only a few, our purpose is to influence the many. Often innovation begins with a small number of visionary thinkers, ‘influencers,’ whose success encourages others to follow suit. Thus the parishes in our program serve as testing grounds for new approaches to ministry, which they can hone before sharing them with other communities,” Simon said. “Already the parishes which have participated in our Learning Communities are becoming churches of ‘radical hospitality’ with an enriched prayer life, clearer goals, stronger leadership, and a more active outreach to young adults.”
St. Mary’s first young adult listening session was moderated by a Franciscan priest. Without any judgment, he asked participants, “If you had one question for Pope Francis, what would it be?” — a great engaging question, because the great love for the Pontiff over the world, the 23-year-old Macalintal said.
“We wanted to get the millennials’ perspective of faith. They are in all different places — some are religious, while others are spiritual but not religious. We want to tell them, ‘Let’s meet you were you are in your spiritual journey. Let’s see what steps we can take from there. We want to be a companion for the journey,’ ” Macalintal said.
As a millennial, Macalintal found the “outside” perspectives about his generation from people of other generations interesting, including what he considered some overgeneralizations. The high-school youth minister said that he learned more about how to reach out to millennials, invite them into the faith community and “see what gifts and talents they can bring to the table.”
“It definitely comes down to authenticity — being true to parish. What is the mission? That should be pervasive throughout the faith community staff and should be the shared goal among all the people,” Macalintal said.