How is catechesis taught? What textbook do you use?
There are no classrooms & no “textbooks” in the Middle School EDGE model. Instead, students learn about & interact with their faith through mentors and dynamic videos, which take place on Wednesday evenings for Middle School. On these nights, students will be engaged with their peers and mentors in large group settings and small group settings throughout the month. Material comes from Life Teen resources, which use a curriculum that is based on the guidelines set forth by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops with the use of scripture and the catechism. Students become engaged as well through many opportunities to encounter Christ through prayer, adoration, devotions, and spiritual exercises that help them foster a personal relationship with Christ.
What does it cost to register for Middle School EDGE?
Our Middle School EDGE is $75. That includes programming during the fall and spring semesters. Our summer youth ministry program is free for all to attend, however, the summer program is focused mostly on building community and does not meet the required religious education needs. We also encourage our students to evangelize to their friends who may not be catholic to try out our Youth Ministry program for free.
What does Middle School EDGE look like at St. Timothy?
We encourage students to attend our Contemporary Mass at 5:30pm every Sunday. This Mass has modern music and lively homilies that engage our students. EDGE meets on Wednesday evenings from 6:45pm-8:15pm during the fall and spring and 6:30pm-8:30pm during the summer. These nights include fellowship, games, catechesis and mentoring. EDGE also hosts a day retreat, service opportunities, dances, and other fun events throughout the year.
Who plans the Youth Ministry Nights? Who runs them?
Our EDGE and Life Teen Nights are run by an energetic group of adults who we call Mentors. Our Middle School EDGE Mentors are committed every Wednesday evening and our High School Life Teen Mentors are committed every Sunday evening. They are committed to mentor students and plan our EDGE and Life Teen Nights along side our Youth Ministry Director (Justin Lantz) and Youth Ministry Coordinator (Jen Linder), using the Life Teen resources. All of our adults are Safe Environment trained, Background Checked, and trained on how to use our resources to help in Catechesis.
We also have Jr. Mentors who are our High School 11th and 12th grade students who have felt the call to minister especially to our Middle School students and help play a leadership role on High School retreats.
How can parents and other volunteers get involved?
The success of the St. Timothy Youth Ministry program is directly related to the number of hands that pitch in to help. There are many ways you can get involved. Each volunteer plays a valuable part. An invaluable part of our ministry is our food ministry. On Sunday evenings we intentionally feed our High School students before we start that night. This is not done just to get food in their stomachs, but we recognize the need for them to sit around a dinner table together with their mentors is important for ministry to build relationships. Food is prepared by a group of parents or a parish ministry.
Youth Ministry is predominately made up of our mentors. Our mentors develop and plan our Youth Ministry Nights and are part catechist, part cheerleader, and part sympathetic ear for the students.
Life Teen and EDGE also is in need of leaders who can help plan and implement our Youth Ministry Retreats. These are overnight retreats that help lead students to encounter Christ in a special way.
We are always looking for helping hands who are good doing behind the scenes set up, clean up after meals, build environments, send out birthday cards, help in the office and run our café in the Youth Center.
Finally, and most importantly, we need committed volunteers to pray for our students. Of course, anybody can do this from wherever you are however; we would like to coordinate with those who pray for our students so that we can share the student’s specific prayer requests with our prayer warriors. There are so many things that our students need prayer for and the more volunteers we are able to get to pray for our students the more grace will be poured out into this ministry.
For more information about these ministries, please contact Justin Lantz at justin.lantz@sainttims.org or Jennifer Linder at jen.linder@sainttims.org.
We are always looking for willing hearts to join us!
