THE WAY Teen Leadership and Discipleship is based on Acts 9:2. The Way was a code name for the early Christian Movement. This unusual title has ties with Isaiah (40:3), whose visions of the messianic age focus on “the way” of the Lord. The prophet is utilizing a key term from the Exodus story (Ex 13:21) to prophesy how Yahweh will affect a new Exodus by leading his people along a ‘new’ way from sin to salvation. The early Christians adopted this title to lay claim to the promises of Isaiah and to assert their identity as the newly redeemed people of God. This new “way” of life passes through Jesus.
THE WAY focuses on two components: 1)
Discipleship and 2)
Leadership. The focus stems from the fact that first and foremost God calls us to a relationship with Him. He wants to guide us, teach us, build us up and transform us with His love and give us a peace and freedom that can only come from Him. Once we know God and follow Him as disciples, we are called to lead and teach others. You can’t give what you don’t have. By utilizing the Acts of the Apostles and getting back to the first Christian movement we can strive together to build up our local Church of the family, parish, schools and community through our witness.
Discipleship
Discipleship is important because if we don’t choose someone to follow, we will be lead by the masses which in this case is society and it isn’t going down a great path. We become like those that we surround ourselves with and who we seek to follow. Jesus is our great teacher and leader and so by choosing to follow Him, we will become like Him. We will take time to grow in prayer and study of Jesus, so we know who this person is that we are following and can be transformed by Him. Just as the first disciples spent 3 years with Jesus just camping and hanging out while being taught, discipleship will take on a fun role of growing as disciples. We will imitate the first disciples as they imitated Jesus.
Leadership
How do you grow in something? You have someone who knows the topic and is more of an expert that can teach you. Likewise, in our faith, my hope is that through discipleship, our teens will be built up and they can begin to lead their friends and peers in the faith through conversation, Bible studies, etc.
(My expectation isn’t that you are already ready to go do all this but in a spot that you’d like to grow and we will all meet each other where we are at and grow from there)
Requirements:
- Anyone who is a sophomore and older can apply for THE WAY (I want Freshman to be able to grow as a Freshman community their first year together).
- You must have been and are an active, consistent participant in youth group and parish activities.
- You must be in good standing with the Church and your high school
- Commit to the duties of THE WAY teen discipleship and leadership (listed below)
Duties as a disciple and leader
- Weekly meeting with the Youth Director and other individuals in THE WAY to discuss life and how -our faith/prayer life is going. We will discuss planning for upcoming Youth Group.
-Help lead youth group and teen programs.
-Participate in youth group and associated retreats and programs as you can
-Be a witness in your school
-As a goal we will shoot to prepare you enough to lead a Bible study with some peers
-Participate in parish activities
-Have FUN!
If you are interested in THE WAY please contact the Youth Director via email to scheduel a meeting to discuss. youth@sacredheartofmary.com