Prayer
Access Points for Prayer–“Sacred Pathways”
As Catholics, we hold firm to the fact that God is constantly seeking us out with an over-the-top love that is awash throughout all of creation. Trinitarian theology tells us that all things, everywhere, are rich with the outpouring of this love. The grace of our Seeking God is available through endless modes, moments, portals,…
Journaling–The preference of the Linguistically-Leaning
Temp4Tim!Journaling is the tour de force for the linguistically-leaning brain. You’ll have a lot of them in your class or small group (particularly among the ladies), so offering faith journaling will prove fruitful. Fred Duckworth offers these simple tips, along with a small set of excellent prompts in his online journaling pamphlet for teens. You…
Prayer Coach Power Move–The Journal
“The purpose of practice is to make your actions automatic; no thought is required. Build in the muscle memory and the psychomotor pathways, and tell your mind to get out of the way. Dan Kelbick was speaking about the basketball free throw when he said the above. The perfect throw results from the perfect habit…
Job #1–Know Him
I’ve been a Catholic all my life, including 18 years of education at all Catholic schools, and even have B.A and M.A in Theology. How is it possible that–in all those years–there was no effort or syllabus designed to help me with the important stuff: building a faith life? As a general unfortunate rule, the…
Smashing Idols
Thanks to Rethinking Youth Ministry and Practical Youth Ministry for the inspiration! “Smashing Idols” Build some tactile reflection into your discussion of those things that lead your teens to be LOST (Let Other Stuff Triumph). Students are given a pot of Play Doh and directed to create an image that symbolizes whatever comes between them…
Post your Hits
Thanks to Rethinking Youth Ministry and Practical Youth Ministry for the inspiration! “Post Your Hits”– A good interactive prayer for winding up a session on responding to Hits while on the PATH. Part of our goal is to help teens recognize and rename Hits as a ‘cross.’ Jesus took all sorts of Hits during his…
Shared Shredding; Shared Strength
Noisy but very effective. A concrete, hands-on activity for identifying where we need God’s grace. As a bonus, the set-up is communal, so this prayer exercise witnesses that we are all hopeful sinners seeking strength and mercy together in the Land of OP. Some ideas for use: In conjunction with Chapters 15 and 16 in…