Between Youth Group and Retirement: The Lost Generation/s

We started a new ministry! It's a "Young & Marrieds" Ministry for our local Catholic parish, St. Mary's of False River. I started this new blog to chronicle our successes and, let's just say, "non-successes." AMDG. 

I've been noticing, for some time now, that there's something of an age gap among active parishioners at our church -- locally and nationally. Take my local Knights of Columbus Council, for example: The two youngest people are myself (32) and Mr. Pat (50s?). There's about twenty years of people and at least two generations, my own included, that are MIA. Where are they?

BUT, 11am Mass is filled with the happy hum of babies and young families. Thank God for that! There's a supply. We just need some programming (Childcare included). We need to minister to people between youth group and retirement! 

We're not exactly facing extinction, yet. You can thank the Catholic Church's pro-life and pro-NFP stances for its demographic resiliency. Something does need to be done, though. There's just no pamphlet or program that the Church elders can buy to fix this. We need young people organizing young people. 


New community structures are forming in my generation. Young people are generally good at organizing communities around (1) food, (2) sex, and (3) power -- the threefold lusts (Gen 3:1-6; 1 John 2 13:17) -- See, e.g. (1) foodies, (2) Ashley Madison, and (3) the cult of celebrity.  

So, that's not good, but the antidote remains the same. We just need to bring people to Jesus through the Church. The Church is and always will be THE community structure. It's the only one that's sustainable -- perpetually. 

So, this is what we're gonna do. We're starting a ministry FUBU, for us, by us, and we're pretty sure it's gonna save the world, in some small way. We've got some ideas for unique programming -- date nights, tailgating, Childcare and batteries always included -- tailored to young people and young families, most of which has been stolen from the Baptists (no shame!). We hope all of this might also help other parishes, and other parishes and people might help us, as well. Stay tuned! Pax!