The Leap into Full-Time Ministry

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

I’ve been working for about 10 years now as a Mechanical Engineer, and I’ve been involved with college/university student ministry since I did my A-Levels in 2004. Being a part of this ministry really made a life-changing impact on me (especially in my journey of faith and character formation).

Growing up, I was a Sunday Catholic, and faith was a "good thing" but just one of the many things I "did" on Sundays and the occasional Penitential Services during Advent and Lent. Joining a Christ-centred college/university student ministry changed that completely. Living in a solid Catholic community helped my faith and relationship with Jesus grow very much into a personal one by jump-starting my prayer life, allowing me to discover my identity in a safe environment while at the same time holding me up to the light of Truth, and also challenging me tremendously to grow to look outwards and live for others rather than inwards into living for myself.

Upon reflecting on my experiences and those whom I've seen throughout the years impacted by college/university student ministry, I believe the potential for faith transformation is unique to this particular age group:

• A teenager is fully dependent on parents and thus cannot freely explore their faith and identity
• A working adult is independent, but working life renders them unable to freely explore either because of the lack of energy and time
• A college/university student, however, is semi-independent. Being at the age of independence and also away from the family (the comfort zone) for periods at a time allows them the most room to freely explore

However, having been involved in this ministry for 15 years now, I’ve also experienced and seen the many pitfalls and how there is a great need for change in the way we operate and approach youth ministry in particular.

The Current Landscape

There are about 15 or so tertiary institutions within our parish's care, and there are easily at least 28,000 students within the top 4 already, not including the 10 or so other institutions. As Catholics make up about 3.5% of our country's population, this should translate to at least 1,000+ Catholic students under our care.

In 2015, there was a census within our parish which identified only less than 300 college/university students who were attending Sunday Mass. Out of this 300 students, only 20 students on average regularly attended our youth ministry programmes, and of these 20, only about 5 students were really serious about Jesus.

As you would also conclude, these are quite worrying figures: only 30% of Catholic students under our parish's care regularly attend Mass, and only 0.5% of our Catholic students have a relationship with Jesus!

What’s even more worrying is that there appears to be a downward trend on these figures. I did an analysis on the results of our past 2 parish censuses (2015 and 2004), and found that the number of those who would be aged 24-28 in 2015 (from being aged 13-17 in 2004) had dropped by about 26%; which is to say that the 26% had not showed up at the 2015 census when they were supposed to. While there are many factors that can contribute to this drop, I think it’s not too far-fetched to say that a significant portion of them have stopped coming to church. The data lends weight to the unfortunately-popular saying that students tend to “graduate” from church after the Sacrament of Confirmation.

I was also recently shown 3-year old data showing that the number of Protestants (of various denominations) is growing at an annual rate of up to 5%, while the number of Catholics is actually declining at an annual rate of 0.3%. While admittedly unverified, a brief look at our surroundings indicate there is some truth to this.

If we continue with the status quo, these downward trends will continue (if not worsen), and our future looks very bleak.

What Have We Been Doing Wrong… Or Right?

I distinctly remember one Sunday where a visiting priest was celebrating mass for us, and I happened to sit upstairs to the front-left of the parish. I thought the homily was great; it had a solid message, the priest's delivery was very engaging, and it was very easy to put into practice, but as I looked around for affirmation of my great experience of the homily, it was clear that many parishioners were (at best) really struggling to look attentive; a lot of them weren’t even trying.

This was a real eye-opener for me (pun unintended), and it caused me to reflect on my years being in youth ministry: how many students were actually impacted by the many great talks and sessions that we had organised over the years? How many students had actually developed a real friendship with Jesus through our programmes? The figures weren't pretty.

I also reflected on my own experiences, and realised that while I had attended many great Catholic programmes over the years that had been very helpful in my growth as a Catholic, what really made life-changing impacts and helped me establish my relationship with Jesus were the people who journeyed closely with me, whereas I hardly remember any of the talks I attended.

I realised the major problem was that we had been focusing the majority of our efforts on all these programmes, and while God can touch people through programmes, what people need more is for someone to journey closely with each them; to meet them where they are, and to then bring them closer to Jesus.

As radical as it sounds, I realised that this realisation was not new. During Jesus' time, while He had thousands of followers, He also had a select group of 12 disciples whom He spent the majority of His time with, and even from these 12 disciples, He only brought Peter, James and John up the mountain to experience the mystery of the Transfiguration. These 12 disciples had such a close relationship with Jesus that their lives were transformed from their past mediocre selves to the fearless apostles that we know today. And because of that transformation, these apostles then went out to impact and change the world!

This approach of journeying closely to form disciples of Jesus requires a lot more effort, but the fruits of the labour are evident. The most obvious fruit of this for me would be a current youth pastoral worker in our parish. She came here many years ago as a student who was quite apathetic about her faith. But when she joined the youth ministry and had ministry leaders journeying closely with her, she began to have a real and personal relationship with Jesus, and this eventually led her to the point of giving up the security of a full-time job to work for the parish. She’s now also discerning a possible vocation to the lay consecrated and missionary life.

Another example that immediately comes to mind is one of the students currently in our youth ministry. He enjoyed being in the community, but really hated having to make commitments to regular prayer, reading the Bible and “holy things” like that. I’ve personally journeyed with him closely for about a year or so, and he has come very far in having a personal relationship with Jesus. While he still doesn’t necessarily like doing those things, he wants to now, because he really sees the importance of it in the authentic life of a Catholic, and he’s now one of our core team members in the youth ministry.

As we have changed our approach in the youth ministry over the past 1-2 years and spent more effort journeying closely with our students, another visible fruit is the increasing number of youth regularly spending time in silent Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament on Monday and Thursday nights, and even outside of the official times!

Moving Forward!

So we have identified journeying closely as the way forward. However, as another unfortunate saying goes, the harvest is plenty, and the labourers are few (Jesus said it). With the huge number of over 1,000 college/university students under our care, we have a grand total of… one pastoral worker dedicated to journeying closely with them while also juggling the young, working adult ministry, and on top of that, also running regular youth programmes and events for the parish. I remember a Parish Pastoral Council member once sharing that he’d visited a Protestant church and found out they had 20 or so full-timers. Upon being asked in return how many full-timers we had, he was sharing he had to include our parish’s 2 security guards just to boost the number to… 5! While that made me laugh, it also made me think: is it any wonder why the Protestants are growing while Catholics are on the decline? Their congregations are a lot smaller, but they have a lot more full-timers than we do.

With the lack of labourers within our parish as a problem, the following profound solution is obvious…

Let's get more (full-time) labourers!

However, it is certainly much easier said than done. Currently, there is a lack of sustainable avenues within the structures of the church for those who feel called to take up the mission of full-time pastoral work. The prerogative of hiring pastoral workers lies with the parish, and youth ministry may not necessarily always be a top priority. Parish financial priorities can also change from time to time, and therefore, being dependent on parish finances is not sustainable, especially when there is a change in parish direction.

With that being the case, and with knowing how big our mission field is, what I’m proposing is an organisation that is entirely self-funded, but which supports the parish's youth ministry. Yes, crowdfunding Jesus’ command to go and make disciples of all the nations!

I feel strongly enough about this mission to have resigned from my current job and enter into this full-time to take it to the next level – no more pointing fingers at other people and waiting around for someone to do something; I’m ready to take the plank out of my own eye first! It’s something I have been praying and discerning about since 2017 and have also discussed with several spiritual directors.

I do not take this proposal lightly: I have spent many, many days and nights praying and worrying about this, especially for my family’s future. There has also been a great deal of personal time and financial investment into this; I've given up time with my family and on my own, spent thousands of my own funds to travel for courses on discipleship, and have also taken many weeks’ worth of unpaid leave for this cause. I'm sharing all this for no other reason than to say that I have not taken this proposal lightly. In fact, I am terrified of the uncertainty that lies ahead, as this model has never been done before here. But with my wife’s and family’s continued encouragement, together with the encouragement of my spiritual directors, it really feels as if this is something that God is really moving me to do in life, given the urgency of the mission.

Plans for A Future Full of Hope…

My plans for starting off in this ministry are to firstly lay a strong foundation for myself and the ministry. This will involve going for daily mass and spending an hour in prayer/reflection on a daily basis, and I will also be continuing my personal formation and growth by reading and studying. When funds eventually permit, I hope to finish the Applied Theology degree course from Maryvale Institute, UK of which I completed the first year in 2010.

While this is on-going, I will be attempting to journey even more closely with the students that I currently know (particularly the guys). This would include meeting them on campus, hanging out with them, mentoring them one-on-one, praying with/for them, and bringing them to daily mass and adoration, among others. Currently with having a full-time job and also running youth ministry programmes and events, I can only afford to journey with and meet people one-on-one perhaps at most twice a month. Doing this ministry full-time would allow me to journey with at least 10 people within that same amount of time, as I'll have many more opportunities to meet each student's time schedule, especially given their hectic lifestyle of studies. I also plan to organise programmes and events that will provide more opportunities for journeying closer with the students. For example, having regular, social events within the parish such as Open Mic nights will allow us to meet more of those who may be on the fringes, and open up channels of communication and trust that we can introduce the idea of having a personal relationship with Jesus to them. Part of my plans also involve running regular retreats throughout the year for small groups of students to bring even deeper those who have already established a relationship with Jesus.

As our parish youth ministry covers students in campuses under the care of our parish, I also plan to journey even closer with the existing Catholic societies in the different tertiary institutions – I understand that they are currently struggling because of a lack of direction. I also do hope to eventually establish new communities in each of the tertiary institutions under our parish's care that do not have existing societies and journey with the students there.

To Infinity and Beyond!

The amazing thing about forming disciples of Jesus through journeying closely with them is that it doesn't stop there. Disciples (because of the relationship and the closeness that they have with Jesus) seek out the gifts and charisms that the Holy Spirit has given them, and desire to use them for the greater glory of God. Whether it's the gift of preaching to non-Catholics, the gift of music, or the gift of mentoring (among many others), disciples will go wherever God calls them to and bear more fruit, and this is the real goal of close journeying - spiritual multiplication: disciples forming more disciples forming more disciples (no, that wasn't a typo). The theoretical potential of spiritual multiplication is astounding: assuming one person journeys closely with and forms two disciples in two years - at the end of the two years, the two disciples would then journey closely with two disciples each of their own for two years and so on. If the process continued:

• After 2 years, there would be 3 disciples
• After 4 years, there would be 9 disciples
• After 10 years, there would be 243 disciples
• After 20 years, there would be 59,048 disciples
• After 30 years, there would be 14,348,907 disciples
• After 32 years, there would be 43,420,721 disciples
• After 36 years, there would be 387,420,489 disciples
• After 42 years, there would be 10.46 billion disciples --> the whole world!

*Taken from Catholic Christian Organisation (CCO)'s Parish Strategy for Discipleship Formation

Imagine that - a world full of disciples who love Jesus and are doing His will on earth! This would indeed be the realisation of His command to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matt 28:19-20), and also that "you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).

This is indeed what we hope to achieve with this ministry, and I thank you so much for your patience in reading to the end of this post! While I can't guarantee any indulgences for your penance in reading this far, do know that we will be praying for you. As we embark on this journey to make disciples, I would like to invite you to join us in this mission by constantly keeping us in prayer, and if you feel especially moved by our vision, we would greatly appreciate any form of contribution to keep the mission going. The work ahead is daunting, but I'm reassured by Jesus' reminder that "I will be with you always, to the end of the age" (Matt 28:20).

God bless!