Youth conference set to evangelize this month

By Rebecca Saunders
The Catholic Sun

Nearly every Catholic church across America has a youth minister that coordinates ministry activities for teenagers. These same churches also have religious education programs that provide programming for children and parents.

There is a large demographic that is being overlooked in Catholic churches throughout the world: the young adult Catholic that has graduated high school but does not yet have a family.

The Office of Youth and Young Adult Evangelization in the Phoenix Diocese is trying to change this trend through co-sponsoring the first Arise Conference at Yavapai College in Prescott with Youth Arise North America May 26-28.

The conference has been in development for more than a year. The theme “Arise, let us go” is derived from the Gospel of John “where Jesus says, arise, let us go to His followers,” said Andrea Prisby, a program leader for Youth Arise, a ministry training program in Phoenix.

“As young adults we go out to the world to evangelize it. That’s our calling, that’s our mission,” she said.

The conference is for young adults 18 to 30 years of age, single or married.

“So many of our high school teens come out of successful and structured parish youth programs with very little that will engage them into becoming what our Church calls them to become after they graduate from high school — nothing less than apostles of Christ to their peers,” said Bill Marcotte, director of the diocesan youth and young adult office. “We as a diocese need to have a vision that will be implemented in parishes that will begin to bring young adults into a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

Marcotte hopes the Arise conference will be the first step in accomplishing this goal. After convening a meeting of ministers interested in increasing young adult ministry last December, Marcotte put together a plan for the future of young adult ministry. Beyond the Arise conference, there will be a three-week long Institute of Evangelization and Mission this June, followed by monthly praise, worship and adoration beginning in the fall.

The Arise conference will feature talks by Bishop Sam Jacobs of the Diocese of Houma in Louisiana, Paul George, a regional director for Life Teen International, and Henry Cappello, the founder of Youth Arise International. Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted will celebrate a Mass for the young adults and Matt Maher, a Catholic musician, will perform.

“Young adults should consider coming because this will give them an opportunity to reassess or refocus their lives on the person of Jesus,” Marcotte said of the Arise conference. “My hope for this conference is that all will leave with a vivid experience of faith and communion and that they will take to heart the exhortation to becoming active in the renewal of our parishes, diocese and society at large by carrying the Gospel to their peers who have not known Jesus.”

Prisby thinks the focus of the conference will be gathering together and worshipping the Lord as Catholic young adults.

“As young adults, a lot of us are ministering, a lot of us are youth ministers or are on core teams and we don’t get fed a lot,” she said. “This is a chance for people to get fed, to come to know the Lord deeper.”

 Registration Information: www.youtharisena.org/06arise