January 24, 2009
Gifts, spirit of young people will be focus of convention in March
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Gene
Monterastelli, left, and Brad Farmer are the members of APeX ministries,
a duo that teaches and ministers to youth groups through a presentation
style they call “Christan vaudeville.” They will be the keynote
speakers at the Diocese of Sacramento’s 56th annual youth convention.
The Christian vaudeville ministry team APeX will headline the Diocese of Sacramento’s 56th annual youth convention with the theme, “HEROES: Many Gifts, One Spirit,” on March 28 at the Bishop Francis Quinn Catholic Center in Palo Cedro.
APeX members Gene Monterastelli and Brad Farmer have won national recognition with an unusual ministry style that includes “death–defying juggling, humor, skits, story-telling, audience participation, and personal testimony,” according to the team’s Web site.
Kevin Staszkow, director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Sacramento, saw APeX recently at the National Catholic Youth Conference held in Cleveland, Ohio. “They’re multi-talented and good speakers, but really, the great thing about them is they’re funny,” he said.
The diocese’s annual youth convention welcomes high school youths in grades 9 through 12. Youth ministries in the diocese that combine high school youth and young adults ages 18 to 24 are also welcome to attend, Staszkow said. Registration for the convention is available though the diocese’s Web site at www.diocese-sacramento.org (go to family, youth and young adults tab).
The convention’s purpose this year is to challenge young people to examine their lives and discover their unique gifts or abilities. “Everyone has been endowed with special abilities, and those abilities have been given for a purpose — to build Christ’s kingdom,” Staszkow noted.
The conference will include a workshop on the lives of the saints, focusing on each saint’s abilities or charism, he said, and activities to help young people discern their own charisms.
The HEROES conference will feature a range of activities, workshops, booths, and music to showcase all of the diverse youth ministries in the 20-county diocese. The “battle of the bands,” scheduled at the end of the conference, will display the range of music styles across the diocese, including praise bands, youth Mass bands, bilingual bands and traditional liturgical bands.
The music at the conference is central to youth ministries, Staszkow said, because young people spend so much time listening to music.
“If you really want to know what young people are thinking,” he said, “listen to their iPods. The playlist they put together — the style, the content — addresses the issues of their lives. Music is central to young people’s experience of the world, and it should resonate with them in their experience of church.”
Some people can be put off by the music young people prefer, Staszkow noted, “but youth ministry and youth music go hand in hand.”
“In successful youth ministries across the board, in all Christian churches, music plays a huge part, and that makes sense when you think about it,” he said. “Anyone who wants to minister and evangelize has to speak the language and learn the culture of the people.
“And as St. Augustine said,” he added, “he (or she) who sings, prays twice.”
One of the youth group choirs performing at this year’s convention is the youth and young adult group from St. Dominic Parish in Benicia.
Youth minister Joe Lucero, who shares the work of youth ministry with a team of other adults, including his wife Merlynne, is also the music director for a choir of between 40 and 60 young people at the parish.
“We have an average of 35 young people singing in the choir at Mass, and maybe 25 to 30 at the weekly youth group meetings, and 60 to 90 at the retreats,” Lucero said. The youngest singer is eight years old (one of Lucero’s five children) and the oldest are in their 40s, but most of the singers are between 13 and 18.
“To have a strong youth choir you must have a strong youth group,” Lucero said. “Music attracts the kids, but the community they form in retreats together and in weekly youth group meetings, that’s what makes the music good.”
As a child, Lucero grew up singing and playing music at Mass with his family, and as an adult he became a professional musician, leading a 10-piece jazz and rhythm and blues group known in the Bay Area as “Papa Joe and Bouncers.” He continued to sing and play at Mass, he said, though often wearing dark glasses at the 9 a.m. Mass after getting to bed at 2 a.m.
As music director for the choir, Lucero chooses music that will attract and speak to the kids, he said, and his choices have been rewarded by the kids’ enthusiastic embrace of their role in the liturgical choir.
“Our kids work hard to be a choir, to be as professional as they can,” Lucero said. “Standing in front of them is awe-inspiring. I’ve been brought to tears two or three times by the heartfelt emotion on their faces when they get on the altar to praise the Lord in song.”
This year’s convention will mark the first time the Shasta Deanery has hosted the event. Located eight miles east of Redding, Palo Cedro is 170 miles from Sacramento, 200 miles from Benicia, and 270 miles from South Lake Tahoe.
“It’s a very large diocese,” Staskow noted, “but it’s still important to let different deaneries host the conventions so that we include all diocesan communities and showcase different youth ministries. The Shasta Deanery has a vibrant youth ministry and I’m happy to introduce people to what’s going on there.”
To make the trip north easier, he said, the diocese’s office of youth ministry is working to raise funds to provide bus transportation to the conference. “We’d like to make the bus trips part of the conference experience, with activities and games,” Stazskow said.
But the travel time has a further advantage for teens.
Noting that most teens are overscheduled and time-pressured, Staszkow observed that the journey north gives them a window of downtime, where they can hang out and get to know one another. “A long bus trip can be just the thing to create community,” he said.
