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Young Adult Ministry

Young Adult ministry in the Diocese of Juneau is guided by the USCCB document Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us: A Pastoral Plan for Adult Faith Formation in the United States. We share the aim of making "ongoing faith formation more available, attractive, and effective for all adult Catholics" because (quoting from paragraph 17 of this document):

• We seek to form parishes that are vitally alive in faith. These communities will provide a parish climate and an array of activities and resources designed to help adults more fully understand and live their faith.
• We seek to form adults who actively cultivate a lively baptismal and eucharistic spirituality with a powerful sense of mission and apostolate. Nourished by word, sacrament, and communal life, they will witness and share the Gospel in their homes, neighborhoods, places of work, and centers of culture.

Based on the twin-fold goal of this document as stated above, and acknowledging the Eucharist as the source and summit of our Catholic faith, all of our Young Adult outreach is oriented to promoting the active participation of young adults in the Mass. "The Eucharist expresses at once both the origin and the fulfilment of the new and definitive worship of God... the Eucharist makes our whole life a spiritual worship pleasing to God" (Pope Benedict XVI)

Regional Adaptation

Many of our Catholic young adults in Alaska live in remote regions. How do we reach out and connect across the distance? A number of new initiatives are taking root. Many of our parishes and missions are small and have very limited staff. Our outreach projects must be easy to establish and maintain. The following section provides a glimpse of one of our latest Youth and Young Adult Ministry projects in development. We call it 'Dinner and a Movie.' It is not yet in use throughout the Diocese, but is being pilot tested and refined at St. Paul's Church in Juneau, Alaska. At this time, the document on Young Adult Ministry, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, is being carefully studied and this pilot program is being shaped into something which both meets the distinctive challenges of our Diocese while also fully implementing the vision of Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us.

Dinner and a Movie Click to see more pictures: 1 2 3 Original In Alaska, Catholics are often a spread out minority among the general population. This often results in our young adults lacking a sense of being in community with other Catholics. In answer to this challenging reality, our movie nights, featuring beloved movies with Catholic themes, would welcome Catholic young adults into the warmth of Catholic camaraderie so that they can know what it is like to enjoy fellowship with other Catholics. The ministry itself involves a very small financial outlay, very little start up time, and is ideal for use across the many spread out parishes and missions of our diocese. A new selection of 12 films would be planned each year.  This would be a 'boxed' ministry, which is developed at the diocesan level and then shipped out to the parishes and missions as a service at a cost of about $100 each. The Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Diocese of Juneau will send out the box of movies, posters, and catechetical materials each year. Renewed annually, with 12 movies, 12 posters, some photocopies, some pizza, and a bit of promotion around each parish or mission, young adults throughout the diocese would have a monthly touchpoint with their faith that is engaging, catechetical, and relevant. The boxed aspect of this ministry responds to the low numbers of staff at the parishes and missions. On the other hand, the local staff at the parish level would be responsible for sourcing their own projectors or television sets. They would also be the ones to promote the evenings as well as to run them and organize the food service. Our movie nights for young adults would strengthen a sense of Catholic community with the ultimate purpose of contributing to a tapestry of outreach initiatives aimed at increasing Mass attendance by young adults.