St. Francis of Assisi Parish has many councils that serve as resources and advisors to the parish leadership. They exist to assist our Pastor, the TFS Principal, the Preschool Director, and the Justice and Peace Director with short and long-term policies and concerns of the Parish, the Franciscan School, and the Preschool. These consultative bodies aid these leaders as they seek guidance in overseeing the well-being and growth of our faith community.
One of these councils, and arguably one of the most important ones, is the Youth Advisory Council, or YAC. The YAC consists of 16 members of the Youth Ministry who are in high school and ran the gamut from freshmen to seniors this past year, their first year of existence. As they move forward, they plan to focus on having sophomores to Seniors, according to Tim Hetzel, the Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry and the primary beneficiary of the Council’s advice. One of the seniors on the YAC who graduated at the end of the 2023-24 school year, Kate McCourt, explains the role of the YAC: “We have a planning meeting every week before youth night, and Tim will tell us what he envisions the evening looking like; how the plan is structured. He will ask us what our opinions are about how it should go. At the Youth Nights, we are role models of behavior and energy; we help set the tone.”
Micah Slusser, another of the teen leaders, says, “I struggled with finding Faith Formation enjoyable, and I used to hate going to it. Once I started on the YAC, though, the community of people here made it much more enjoyable, and I wanted to make it enjoyable for the people I was interacting with during the Youth Nights who weren’t on the YAC.” Another YAC leader, Ben Pappas, agrees with Micah and Kate, explaining, “As we give insight into what teens would enjoy, Tim changes the plan so the participants get the most out of the lessons. He adds, “Our role on youth night is to be in the groups and explain what’s going to happen and get them excited about the lesson and activities.” Micah and Ben have served in leadership roles at the parish, with Ben serving on the Pastoral Council and Micah on the strategic planning committee. In that role, Micah heard from other adult leaders, such as Shawn Tenace, Monsignor Clay, Mae Villanueva, and Jacob House. He says the presence of younger people in these roles reminds people to consider the youth.
The role of youth in the future of the Church is precisely why the YAC is so important. Tim says, “It is really good that Monsignor Clay put youth on the pastoral planning committee and the pastoral council! I think there’s been a marked shift in investment in youth, and having articles in the bulletin and sharing their voices at the council is important for youth investment in the parish.” Micah recalls that while on the strategic planning committee, “The things we were thinking about in the strategic plan involved considering how it would affect the youth.” As the Church ages, this is important for her future. “The youth are the future and present of the Church,” says Anna Marie Maingi, another YAC member. “We went through the (COVID-19) pandemic and lockdown, and we have social media as a big part of our lives.” Micah adds, “The Church should be adaptable and communicate their message in a way that allows it to be important in our lives.” Anna Marie agrees, saying, “The way we communicate is different.” Changing how the Church gets its message out to youth will be necessary, especially on issues the youth focus on as essential.
Some of the issues they feel the Catholic Church should address that are important to youth include “refining the role of women in the Church,” says Anna Marie. Ben adds, “Acceptance is a big issue too.” He says he has friends who were Catholic but now really want to point out they aren’t Catholic anymore. “The teaching of the Church is all about acceptance, but that’s not what people think it is about or what’s shown to them. To keep the youth involved, the Church must ‘show our work’ on the whole ‘acceptance thing.” Kate feels Pope Francis has made a difference, but while Anna Marie agrees, she says, “Not a lot of youth hear about what the Pope has to say. It is not available to the youth.” Part of that is in the communication and outreach to the youth.
The YAC members do agree, though, that teens should be more actively involved. However, they think it is up to individual parishes, rather than the Vatican, to get kids involved with their local outreach. Part of this outreach is to see the Parish priests actively involved. The YAC team says the priests come to youth nights but not to the YAC meetings, which allows the free flow of ideas between the YAC and Tim. “However,” the YAC says, “They would like people to come and see what they do and how they make the Youth Nights work so well.” They point out that Father James has been at the youth nights, and Kate highlights that “Cong Le (former seminarian intern at St. Francis, recently ordained as a priest in June) came to Mercy Camp and was always participating.” “Senior leadership participating and being as excited at what’s happening, says Tim, ‘is important. It is good to see priests in other roles rather than only in their official role.” “However,” he says, “It is tricky because council meetings overlap.” Still, the YAC’s invitation to the ‘Pastoral Plan’ presentation as one of the councils clarified that they are considered an ‘official council.’ “It is great,” Tim emphasizes, “to have a more intentional presence from the parish clergy and to have them see the importance of the youth.”
Reflecting on their first year, Micah thinks they “had a great start, and it worked out well. People have told me there’s a positive difference in Youth Nights.” Anna Marie agrees and thinks ahead of a time when “we utilize social media more. We should have our own YAC social media accounts to communicate how we can connect with youth.” They are happy to see the parish utilize YAC to connect to Faith Formation teams and kids. Ben says, “I thought what we did this year was really, really great.” The parish should be excited about how the youth are being engaged in their faith by the parish, especially by giving them leadership and a voice through the Youth Advisory Council.
