Guestsplaining: Mark Hart on Evangelizing Middle School Youth | Fr. Gregory & Fr. Joseph Anthony
July 22, 2024
Fr. Gregory: This is Father Gregory Pine.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: And this is Father Joseph-Anthony Kress.
Fr. Gregory: And welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks to all those who support us. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a monthly donation on Patreon. Be sure to like and subscribe to Godsplaining wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, today, team Steubenville, that is to say Father Joseph-Anthony and I are pumped and excited to be with a guest, a new guest, Mark Hart, who is coming to us from the surface of the sun, alternately known as Phoenix, Arizona. So thanks so much for joining.
Mark Hart: Thanks for having me. And inside it feels great.
Right. Yeah, that’s what they all say, right before they get a, a evaporated or a viserated or whatever the sun does to a person. Decicate it. I got there eventually. Okay. So, many people will know you. In fact, I heard you speak when I was 14 years old at a Steubenville conference. I think you referred to yourself as the ‘Bible Geek’ in those days. I don’t know if you still do. But –
Mark Hart: It comes and goes.
Fr. Gregory: Okay. All right. For those who haven’t heard you speak at a Steubenville conference at the age of 14, would you say or of introduction: who you are, where you’re from, what you do? –
Mark Hart: Yeah, absolutely. My name is Mark. I, my full-time job, I’m CIO for Life Team International. Sort of the largest Catholic youth of maintenance ministry organization, parish based right now in the world. But more importantly, far more importantly, I’m married to my high school sweetheart of 20 years. I’ve got four kids and living in Phoenix, just trying to just trying to help guide young souls to Heaven.
Fr. Gregory: Are those your children to your left/right?
Mark Hart: Yes. Yes, those are they. They are those. That’s that.
Fr. Gregory: Maybe them. That’d be incredible if you had a stock photo of four children on your wall. Anytime anyone asked, “those your kids?” you’d be like, “Nah, don’t even know these kids.” (laughing)
Mark Hart: Are they in those models? This is the picture that comes in the frame. I just like so much never changed it.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah. It came with the greatest sufficient Etsy thing. Okay. So in addition to being the CIO for the largest Catholic youth organization in the world, you’ve also launched a new program to help specifically middle schoolers. Can you tell us a little bit about it? What’s new? What’s good? What’s exciting about it?
Mark Hart: Yes, this is called Encounter. So this is my, I believe it’s my ninth project with Ascension. They’re good people at Ascension Press. They do wonderful things for the church. So this is my, I believe it’s my ninth project with Ascension. The good people at Ascension Press, they do wonderful things for the church. They put out really strong orthodox materials, really high quality. But this one I’m really excited about. So several several years ago, many, many moons ago. I met Jeff Cavins and we became friends. And this is right when he was starting to introduce his Bible timeline of salvation history, sort of to the Church and to the world. And after seeing it, I approached him and I said, “Jeff, would you mind if I tried that for teenagers?” He actually started laughing. He said, “I was hoping to see you try.” So I started doing that. That was about 30 years ago. So I have done a high school iteration of it called Venture. And this is the middle school iteration called Encounter. Now, I had done an earlier version many years ago, but technology has changed so much since then, with not just with the abilities in terms of computer animation and illustration and graphics and that sort of thing, but just technology has changed so much and social media wasn’t around when it was the first time. And so I was really excited. I went and said, I really think I need a reboot. And that’s something that could take advantage of all these new technologies that are at our fingertips. And a lot of people, you know, and I hopefully I’m not one of these old-man-to-law and shaken my fist with the sky, “those young people they drive through fast and are always on their screens”. But the reality is that the next generation, whether it’s with those genuine A Gen or Gen A, they learn a lot differently than we did in previous generations. And they can learn from screens. And the challenge is where’s the balance? Where’s the balance between what you can put on the screen and what you could do live? So, I spent about 40 years developing this concept, writing a leader guide, writing the workbook, producing the videos, and luckily again with a very talented folks at the Ascension. This has been several years of making, but I’m really excited to say that not only has something like this not been done in scripture study, but certainly not in Catholic scripture study and absolutely not for middle school age group.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, you know, Mark, I work in Charlottesville, Virginia at the University of Paris here. And my focus is on college students. I focus on campus ministry and do all that. But here at the parish, we have a fantastic youth minister who really utilizes the resources from life team and edge for that middle school engagement. And I’ve been really impressed with how he’s been able to engage those middle schoolers, partly because I don’t understand middle schoolers (laughs). I’m happy to deal with college kids, believe me. I’m great, I can shoot straight with them. It’s fantastic, I love it. But man, really engaging and building up middle schoolers in their relationship with God is a really unique skill set and task. So can you talk a little bit about, you know, why, why even try, like why even give a rip about middle schoolers? And how you then were motivated and devoted so much time to it, but like, why is that demographic so important?
Mark Hart: Well, I’ll say having had three of my four kids already go through middle school. You really see how difficult it is. You know, if I was to say, hey, let’s talk about through middle school. Not one of us would put our hand up and say, “Yes, no one wants to.” It was a horrible, awful, awkward time. I mean, you’ll start, you know, there are boys who’ll start the year as sixth grade in they;re four feet tall, and they’ll end in their seven feet tall. I mean, everyone’s on different, everyone’s on different timetables in terms of biologically. You throw in a mix that all these different families are also trying to sort out how to raise middle schoolers too. And then all these families have different rules or lack thereof and it comes with things like social media, phones and devices, exposure, right? So it’s not, everyone’s on the equal footing like it is in second grade or third grade. And it’s also a time, it’s a really difficult time because right now, just because of the way social media works and influencers and anything else, most of the people speaking into our young people’s lives are not underneath the same roof. So you have a lot of competing voices, a lot of competing ideologies and it’s one of the most critical times. A lot of studies will show you, if we don’t get a middle school heart and mind engage in the faith and to make it their own in that time period, the chances of them remaining Catholic or being Catholic in high school or certain in college like you’re working with Father, I mean the numbers tank, I mean infinitesimally go down. So we have one shot, we have about a three year gap in between like six to eighth grade, a one year shot to do our best pitch for lack of a better term. Yes, the primary, primary catechists, but I’ll tell you that most of the parents I talk to, it’s not that they’re unwilling to do the primary catechists, they feel unfit, they feel untrained, they feel enabled, they can’t articulate the faith most of them and that’s not a slam, they’ll tell you this, they’ll say I don’t remember. So unless they have their own conversion experience, like you’re saying, by going through a youth ministry program, conferences in high school, camp situation, something where they can make the faith of their own for the first time and really start to ask questions. And unless they had a place where they could do so, many of them sort of just sort of slept walk through college and all of a sudden they show up and it’s time to baptize to the kids. Middle schools is critical age. I mean, the bodies are changing, their minds are being formed, and their moralities are being questioned. No doubt, and these modalities are questioned that, and they’re having to say, I don’t really know which way to turn, you know? So it’s, do I turn to the left, the turn to the right, do I go forward, do I declare myself a nun, [inaudible]. So that was the challenge. And that was also my fear. I was watching my own kids very in their friend’s home. And what’s crazy was, and it is just because I’ve had a youth minister for 30 years. We would end up having these conversations. We’re having middle school kids and then later high school kids just sitting on the floor next to my wife and I just asking life questions. Questions that should have been asking their own parents or maybe they asked their parents that they didn’t get adequate answers to. And we’re talking base level questions just about life and morality and vocation and creation and why they’re here and discernment, you know. So this is something that’s very near and dear to my heart because it’s in these ages you see self-esteem going into the tank. You see bullying happening both live and online. You see increased uses of pornography. This is where guys start to go into the hole. They just go to go online and there’s play games all day long. And this is where you’re supposed to be developing social skills and making eye contact and learning how to talk to the opposite sex and everything else. And if you don’t have someone walking with you during those times, reaffirming that you are created by God to do good works, as St. Paulsays in Ephesus. If they don’t start to believe that at this age, we can lose them. And if we lose them by high school, we’re definitely going to be college.
Fr. Gregory: Okay, so this is an objection to like media-based apostolate of all sorts. So this isn’t like a pointed objection. It’s an objection that Father Joseph-Anthony and I have to answer in our own ways. But okay, so like people will say, you know, kids aren’t reading these days. So let’s write books that they’ll read. And then the type of books that are written with this kind of goal in mind are often trash because they’re sensationalistic, they might be gripping, but they’re gripping in the way that like, gobstoppers are delicious. And I think that often enough, when people immense the current state of engagement amongst young people, they’ll often advocate for, yet this, that or the other thing, on account of the fact that they’re more likely to consume it and possibly to learn from it. But there’s this like worry, this background worry that we’re just entertaining ourselves to death and that if we are to like work in this marketplace, we’re complicit or we’re contributing in some way to the basement of the culture and then like the inability of young people to respond to the Gospel in any meaningful way. So it seems like that is not your understanding. It seems like you think that digital apostilate can be used for the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of souls. What is it specifically about your program that you think accounts for a critique like that or that helps people to get engaged on the local level as they kind of lose themselves in a digital space.
Mark Hart: Yeah, I think two things. That’s a really insightful question. I think two things. One, in the midst of the actual lessons, the videos themselves only go about 15 minutes a lesson. Really, the majority of it really is done in a smaller group format, where you have a leader guide. And I wrote the leader guide with this in mind. You’re gonna have a parent with no theological background or maybe someone is a volunteer at your parish with no background in pedagogy. So the leader guide is substantial, they’re walking them through. And not only, hey, here are potential questions that could pop up within the schools and here’s how to answer it in an orthodox way. But also that, where you going to have times and engagement where you’re having conversations where there’s a really nice balance between what I’ll call it, “ChurchyTalk” and “The not-so Churchy Talk.” And I think that’s really important. That’s one of the big mistakes people make is, okay, well, this is about God. So I have to come at them with a Catechism, in one hand, the Bible and the other, and just be smacking him back and forth. Whereas the reality is that non-churchy talk for anyone who’s skilled in youth ministry understands that that really is the jab that sets up your upper cut. Am I able to talk to you about your interests, about entertainment, about sports, about this, about that? Am I able to talk to you about these things and get a base level where you understand that I’m a human. I don’t sit in the church reciting rosaries backwards in Latin 23 hours a day when I’m not at mass, that I can have a conversation with you. And I can take a genuine interest in your life. And that first base level is earned just making eye contact because most of our young people are in the comfort of that. That is huge to be able to earn that right to be heard, to be able to then talk about the God Talk, the churchy talk. Also in every plan, in the video themselves we actually have built-in spaces where the video will stop and I’ll encourage them and I’ll say, “Hey, right now we’re going to take a quick look and it’ll bring up,” you know, for instance, you know, Luke 10, 13 through 35. So it pauses, “They actually have to take the Word of God in their own hands. They actually have to learn how to navigate to book, chapter and verse. Actually, read the word of God with their own eyes and will take them through different exercises. So it’s very, it’s tactile. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves and to your point, Father who’s like, hey, here’s a book that looks cool that we think you’re gonna like. What you’ll find if you were to go stand in a normal bookstore is a group, a book written for this age group, you can tell is usually written by or designed by someone who’s never spent time with this age group. You can tell about the interior nomenclature and the words they’re using, the phrase that they’re using. You can tell by the graphics that they brought somebody in who has sold them on this concept of, oh yes, this is really really cool for middle schoolers. But they’re either shooting way too high or they’re coming way too low. And it’s very seldom you have somebody who’s actually been on a linoleum floor with them and a cold parish hall where it still smells like burnt grilled cheese from the night to Columbus and actually have to look them in the eyes and have a conversation because even though it’s uncomfortable for me as an adult, I care about you. It takes a very special kind of soul. And oftentimes those souls who are willing to sit with a middle school kid for an hour are not your theologians. And that’s why these materials are so important to be able to equip someone to be able to turn key, press play, and they have to open the discussion guy when they have to have a small discussion when they have to. Because I can teach someone who loves teenagers theology, but I can’t teach a theologian about teenagers.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Beautiful. And I think that that’s a really important kind of concept right there is the the ability to equip the leaders and help them walk through it. Can you give us the sense of like the content like what are some of the modules that you mentioned? How difficult it is to talk into their lived experience and what they’re going through, but also those basic questions that you find middle schoolers are actually asking that they’re…because they’re middle schoolers. They don’t know what they don’t know. And sometimes they ask the really important questions, not recognizing how almost rare it is to see somebody asking those questions. You know, can you walk us through some of the topics that you’re discussing and leading through? And then on the back end of that, like, which one did you find was the most…or maybe even the most challenging to say, this needs to be addressed, but I don’t know how best to do it, but we’re going to take a shot at it.
Mark Hart: Absolutely. So I mean, being part of the Bible timeline, sort of family of products you had to kind of stay adherent to the Covenant theology and some of the same time periods, Patriarchs, Conquests, Judges, Maccabee revolts. And the question becomes, how do you make the megabean kind of life in a 12 year old’s mind, right?
Fr. Gregory: Spear somebody between the altar (laughing). Simple!
Mark Hart: And then there’s also that delicate balance where somebody, what most of them they’re exposed to, they wouldn’t be shocked by it at all. But you’re also gonna have a lot of parents saying, well, I don’t want Timmy hearing that. Yeah, that’s just too much. So for me, it was really about extrapolating the themes and the characters that a young mind could connect with. So I’ve gone through and then everyone picked a different character, whether that’s a very obscure, in my opinion, my favorite, King of the Old Testament, King Josiah. This young eight-year-old whose name came, right? I mean, and all of a sudden now he’s a teenager and he has this epiphany when he hears the Word of God. But to be able to pick out those kinds of young characters, those heroic, young, characters, the boy, the loaves and the fish, you know, who all four evangelists write about, but no one seem to get the kid’s name, you know, kind of an important detail, guys. But they’ve been able to extract different characters and themes. So whether that’s Joseph and his brothers, you know, in one of the early time periods and talking about sibling rivalry and jealousy and things like that, to getting into the Maccabean revolts or getting into the time period of Esther and Esther, what a wonderful heroine that woman is. And to be able to say, this is what you do in the face of a bully. So to be able to take these themes that they’re already seeing played out on the middle school like lunch deck that they’re seeing played out online in their life or in their friend circles. And to be able to say, if you can find yourself in Josiah’s story, you know, that maybe maybe your dad isn’t the greatest example of the faith, you know, but the Lord still has a plan for you. If you can find yourself an Esther story and say, hey, when someone you feel out and know where someone’s coming to you, you have to remember that God’s got your back and is with you. He doesn’t just call you to this. He is going to call you through it. But to be able to in each module, and this happens through a lot of humor, for me, humor was really, really important because if they’re laughing, they’re more adapt to learning. You know, but to be able to say, we’re going to extract these themes and we’re going to do so in such a way where they can see themselves in this story and then they start to see themselves in the other character stories. The minute they begin to understand, this is what we get in the last couple of lessons, that is the says in Acts 3, God’s the author of life. Well if he’s the author and he has authority of His right, then He’s the author and you’re the character and the character can’t tell the author what to write. The same way that you know that you know you can’t go through any classic piece of history or literature and find a character who told the author what to write. So the minute they start to see that they start to see right relationship with their Creator and then they stop doubting or looking the mirror finding all the mistakes and the flaws that God made as their bodies are changing. And they start to really appreciate the beauty in what he made. And the fact that he’s here, the fact that he or she is here, is a huge affirmation.
Fr. Gregory: I’d like to say that the story of the five loves and two fish cemented my appreciation for the RSV translation because I think the young man is referred to as a ‘lad’ and that was one of my first meaningful encounters with that term and I found it precious ever since. But maybe zooming out a little bit from the particular program, so Encounter and then in the background there adventure and just thinking about like youth ministry more broadly. I don’t know if this is universally the case, but I suspect a lot of millennials had bad experience with youth ministry. Or if they look back at their youth ministry experience, they might cringe in something between horror and mild discomfort. And then they might imagine for themselves what youth ministry looks like at present. And they picture like young Gen Z slash old Gen Alpha. And then I mean, that just is unconscionable. There’s just like a terrible mixture of pity and fear and just, I don’t know exactly what you would call it. But I think that a lot of our experience of young, youth ministry or association with youth ministry is just terribly awkward or terribly strange or terribly whatever else. So at present, as you’ve done it over 30 years, have you observed, I don’t know if like societal trends, I’m not interested in societal trends, but I’m interested in the perduring worth of youth ministry or maybe some of the insights that have been refined in your experience with youth ministry because I don’t know that I just don’t know how many people appreciate it and how many people can sympathize with it in the current conditions.
Mark Hart: Yeah, I think what’s challenging… so Life Teen we’re celebrating our 40th anniversary next year and I think a lot of people kind of think, okay, well, you know, 40 years, they’ve been doing the same thing for 40 years. What the reality is, is that we’ve done every couple of years, we’re constantly changing internally. And even in the way that we, I’ll go about creating our categorical materials for middle school or to the editor for high school or to Life Teen. Our team, like the complexion of our team is constantly changing the ages of our team members were constantly realigning. But the way that the whole process comes together, things that worked, you know, 40 years ago, didn’t work 15 years ago. But not they’re starting to work again. Like there are certain trends that kind of happened. You know, like it was when I went through as a teenager, you know, it was really skit happy, right? It was really skit happy. And a lot of the teachings were sort of like a little light because we didn’t have any nomenclature coming and we had no formation. And then as that goes on for a while and a parish gets its legs and if it can sustain maybe the same person in leadership or the same kind of core group of core members, you can really start to go deeper. Then all of a sudden you’re asking these deeper questions and it’s forcing the adults to hurry up and learn as you’re asking these questions. And it’s forcing the adults to hurry up and learn as you know as you’re asking these questions you know so as that changes you start to see greater depth and you start to see the greater lives spiritual experience. There are trends in the church where it’s like oh we’re gonna have all small groups. No get rid of small groups, large groups, all small groups has to be all small groups. We put our heads the hands of the say but if it’s all small groups now how’s a new kid gonna come because if it’s all small groups and they had this thing now, well this new kid that wanders in because maybe he went like you like probably like the Steubenville conference and now he’s seeking out community and now he’s seeking out a lived expression of the faith, but now he’s not going to be involved. So there’s a benefit to it because we can sort of say hey, we’ve seen this trend we’ve seen this trend or the pendulum goes back and forth. And we have to hold on kind of all these things in the beautiful tension, okay? You need to have a large group opportunity where you can bring new souls in. You need to have a smaller group opportunity where you can really achieve greater depth. You need to have these moments where someone can ask the deeper questions, but you can’t sidebar the entire night because this kid who’s really ready to go deep is once they’re basically, take over the entire function, whereas there’s another 100 kids in the room and they don’t even understand the word he’s using. So it really does require, and that’s all that’s based on if you have the same person in position of power, the same youth minister, or the same person leadership. Well, then you throw in a pastoral switch, you throw in a high turnover rate, and all these other things, and people are constantly pressing reset. And it’s those parishes where a past doesn’t have to be the most dynamic, doesn’t have to be hit, doesn’t have to know all the cool team lingo. That’s not what they’re looking for. They’re looking for a father. They’re looking for a father who looks in the eyes and says, “It’s good that you are here.” Okay? It’s good that you’re here. And I’ll tell priests on the time, especially when they get self-conscious because I don’t know how to talk to teenagers and they’re maybe nervous. I’m like, “They make me nervous too.” And I have them you know, it’s a matter if being able to say, Father all that matters is that they see you in that collar, they see you in that habit and that they see you that you’re not hiding in the rectory, and this could be as simple as standing in the back of the hall It can be shown up for last 15 minutes and half in a cookie and just learning kids names or just saying hi or asking how to pray for them. It’s about bringing that skull and saying, hey, every single week, I don’t know. I’m not gonna go be in this video and I’m not gonna do this teaching. But I’m gonna be in that corner. And if you need Jesus, I’m here. And to be able to get to that place is an accessibility. And it’s crazy, it’s funny. We did this, we did a survey with the National for the USCCB for vocation directors. And we found out that Life Teen, even though we’re in less than 10% of the parishes in the country in America, 34% of the current seminarians had a touch point, whether it either came one of our Steubenvilles, came one of our summer camps, or had it in a parish. And that’s something that we take very seriously. So our view is if you can have a truly Eucharistic and truly Marian in those two are both essential, the Eucharistic and a Marian approach to your youth ministry on a parish level, and you create opportunities for kids to experience Jesus Christ, to experience Christ in this church’s sacraments, the totality and the beauty of her teachings that they are going to have a transformational experience and they are going to give their lives to Christ. But that’s not done easily. It takes the investment of time, not just money but time. And that’s the one thing that most people when it comes to teenagers don’t want to spend. It’s like everyone’s looking for the seven minute abs. How can I just, how can I get a full vocations post for my diocese? And how can I get overflowing pews of young families? What’s the seven minute abs? What’s just the fastest, easiest – and it’s not fast and easy. It requires a relationship. It requires someone willing to give up the most precious thing they have, which is time. And look at a young person in the eyes and say, “You matter, talk to me,” and let them be heard.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Mark, you kind of mentioned holding these tensions together. And I think I know Fr. Gregory and I definitely hold it, have to hold those tensions together. And I’ve experienced it in ministry. And we kind of pride ourselves here at the University of Virginia of being a relational ministry. But one of the things I found currently is the fact that we are no longer the primary formatters of our students, like the internet is the primary formatter And so then we end up doing digital content and we do these types of things, but then, you know, are we adding to the problem? Are we forming somebody else’s parish? Are we doing those types of things? So like, I want to talk about that tension and doing an engagement like this, which hopefully can facilitate interpersonal relationships because its relationships that actually form people. But how do you hold that in attention? How do you approach a digital project like this? Knowing the breadth that it could provide, but at the same time, knowing that there’s attention in there.
Mark Hart: I live to blow up people’s feeds. I just think it’s the most fun thing. It’s the greatest thing. And I’ll tell our social media team, and our staff are like, hey, we can’t control everything they watch. All we can do is offer an alternative. All we can do is offer an alternative so that when they are on and they seek something, they seek out truth. And it might be at one o’clock in the morning. I mean, after they’ve looked at God knows what, and they’re looking for truth. That there is a voice, that there is a channel of voice, a podcast, a video, something, right? That’s actually going to speak truth to that. And I said before, I said, you know, we’re just going to offer as JPII would say truth beauty goodness, right? So I envision the teenagers on their Instagram and they’re looking at, you know, God knows what, this, this, this, this, and all of a sudden something pops up from, from our staff, my team, me, whatever. That’s just, it could be, it could be something as simple as a saint quote, it could be something as simple as a scripture verse. Do something as simple as a photo that really does kind of just stop you and it draws in the eyes of your soul. And it says, if we interrupt and blow up someone’s feed, just once a day, you know what, that’s a start, that’s a start. Because I believe we all are hardwired for truth, beauty, goodness, right? But it’s it really does take thinking outside- it’s such a cliche to say, think outside the box, but really you think outside that box. And to say, I have to trust that at the end of the day, my head hits the pillow. Lord, I’m doing everything I can with what you’ve given me. So I pray it glorifies You and You alone. But Lord, if this is something You don’t want me to do, then just, I honestly turn off the mic, shut the door, close the window. But I have to trust, I’m gonna take, my loaves and fish and, and putting them at Your service, and do with them what You will. And I think that’s, I think that what, fear is always that we’re going to let fear stop us from being effective because that’s really what the enemy wants. When St. Paul says in Romans 7, “When I seek to do good, the devil will be at hand.” Like, evil will be at hand. When I seek to do good. So realizing, going into it that you’re going to get attacked from outside or inside no matter what. So may as well put the head down and do everything you can like for this this leg of your race as hard as you can. But also to be humble enough to say if it’s not working I’ll shut it down or humble enough to say now it’s becoming more about me than is it about God or humble enough to say we can do more you know what I mean and we’re not sure how we’re going to do will take on even more because there’s this passion, this putting in my heart that I got to do something with. Putting at the end of the day, the fact that you guys are doing this, that says a lot because people will come across it, they’re going to come across it. And that’s just those regulars who follow you and who support you. But you know, you just never know. I get the most random emails, the most random messages from people in different parts of the world, the most random times a day, who just stumble across a video. You know what I mean? And at that moment, the Holy Spirit just all the dots aligned and they happen to be receptive to that moment.
Fr. Gregory: We are coming to the end of the episode, but I wanted to take the opportunities kind of if you have particular thoughts. Like what are the best things in youth ministry right now? So I imagine that, you know, there might be some young people listening to this. There are more parents I imagine listening for whom this would be pertinent. But then there are other folks who are like, we just have a lot of young adults who listen to the podcast, and these are folks who are going to be plugging into their parish. And they’re going to be like, I want to be of some service insofar as I can be of some service, but I don’t know how I might be of some service. So like, what are the best things going on right now in youth ministry that you think people listening to the podcast could implement in their own lives and perhaps make part of their own service to the church.
Mark Hart: Yeah, you know what, um, Catholic summer camps are exploding. I mean, we have we still have weightless. We have camps all over the country. These experiences, these are a week long experiences. You can accomplish so much more over a span of seven days, you know, than you can in a two or three-day retreat. And there are opportunities not just for teenagers to go through summer camp, which is great, but I mean, for college aged students, we have, we need summer missionaries. So I mean, imagine you’re leaving your college campus and you’re living in community with other college students. You’re going to daily Mass and daily Holy Hours and you’re going through formation together and you’re being as lifelong friends. You know to otherwise never would have met. So their opportunities there, their constantly opportunities like the youth conferences like you mentioned summer new conferences. We host five, we’re always looking for help. Not just for teens to come, but for adults to come and to help. And, truthfully on a parish level, if you’re able to make a one-year commitment, and I always say one, you’re not one semester, or one year, you’re gonna say, I can show up one hour a week. I can make a couple meetings here and there, all of those ones. And to understand for adults to understand, you don’t need to be a theologian. What you need is to have patience and humility and have a heart for young people. And if you can’t make that commitment, that’s fine. ‘Cause I bet you any money, if you have a youth measure of your parish, you say, I can’t be a leader, but I can cook a meal, and I can show up with it Sunday afternoon. I mean, I think there’s probably a hundred ways if you call the parish and say, “What do you need and how can I help?” They’re not just going to ask for a scholarship for a kid for a retreat. There’s something else that can be done. I mean, when I was on a parish level, I had so many adult volunteers. I had dads who were just really, really handy with tools and really good at carpentry and stuff who built all kinds of stuff for me because I wasn’t great at that stuff. There’s always somebody who has a need, it’s just a more matter if you’re willing to show up. But I just want to say I – people keep worrying about you know, the future of the church, the future of the church. If you don’t have youth ministry is not your – is going to be a problem. If we’re not investing in the future right now you know what, start closing the churches guys because we’re not going to have bodies left. Like we have to catch them while they’re young. We got to catch them in middle school, high school, college. Otherwise, it’s not going to be a problem.
Fr. Gregory: Boom. All right. That’s the time that we have. Maybe by way of conclusion, if you have any resources to which you could direct folks ways that they could follow up with you or ways that they could follow up with your work.
Mark Hart: Sure. If you want to check out the encounter series, you go to AscensionPress.com. You can see some previews of the videos on there. You can actually get a free kit that’ll send it to you. And if you don’t like it, you send it back. But you can check it out yourself. If you’re looking for anything for the parish, I think with a lifeteen.com. We have things for middle school, for high school, things for parents. We have it in English, we have it in Spanish. And if you just want to mess around online, I’m BibleGeek. If you go to Biblegeek.com, you’ll find me on Facebook. Usually that’s just where I’m just sharing new things of trying to raise saints in the suburbs.
Fr. Gregory: Saints in the suburbs. All right. I can dig that. Cool. Well, thanks so much. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for dedicating yourself in such constant and consistent fashion, which is, yeah, we were talking to Jason Evert on the podcast the other day, and it’s like, it’s like, it’s like-
Mark Hart: Okay!.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, I mean, it’s just like, you guys, you’ve been at it for like a while.
Mark Hart: Hey, fun story. Jason and I came out of the exact same Life Teen program, the exact same parish. We’d been friends since middle – friends since elementary school.
Fr. Gregory: Wow.
Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I didn’t realize that. That’s the same.
Fr. Gregory: That’s awesome. Cool. All right, well thank you and turning then to you the listener. Thanks as always for listening to this episode of Godsplaining. Be sure to follow on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and maybe TikTok depending on whether we still have the channel. And then if you would like the episode, subscribe on YouTube, your podcast app, leave a five star view. All of that helps to get the word out and potentially blow up the aforementioned feeds for, you know, whatever 1am encounter needs to be facilitated for young people. If you’d like to donate to the podcast through Patreon, you can follow the link in the description and/or shownotes. And with said, description, and/or shownotes, you also find links for merchandise and then for upcoming events, all that’ll take you through godsplaning.org. So know of our prayers for you, please pray for us and we’ll look forward to chatting with you next time on Godsplaining.