WelCom April 2020:
Life Teen Summer Camp 2020
Nick Wilson
Photos: Supplied
What a colossal success this programme was! In January 2020, two week-long summer camps were run with over 150, 13–17 year old campers at each week! More than 60 summer missionaries and the leadership team working to bring alive the Life Teen kaupapa – leading teens closer to Christ!
This reinforces for us that young people want to know and love Jesus. Feedback from the event says that our young people are reinvigorated in the mission across the country! Imagine that!
Life Teen Summer Camp has now run for the sixth year in New Zealand under a small group of young leaders who have a passion to bring teens closer to Christ. Particular mention has to go to Isabella McCafferty who is now the official Life Teen International New Zealand Liaison. She is part of the group that has worked to grow Life Teen in numbers and energy to the point where two camps have been necessary! Imagine that!
Pope Francis in Christus vivit! (Christ is alive!) reminds young people they are the Church of today (n.178). It is vital that young people are invited to be fully part of the life and mission of the Church. But young people cannot necessarily do this by themselves. Our Catholic theology calls us to community to live faith. We are well past the point of letting someone else do this. We ALL have a baptismal responsibility to share and mentor in our faith with those who are still discovering, daring to see, curious to know. And they want to grow! Imagine that!
A mentor should believe wholeheartedly in a young person’s ability to participate in the life of the Church. A mentor should therefore nurture the seeds of faith in young people, without expecting to immediately see the fruits of the work of the Holy Spirit (CV. n.246). So, older disciples – your job in this mission is now to actively engage them and encourage them in their faith journeys – just as you have been in yours! So together let us reinvigorate ourselves with the Gospel to continue to invigorate our young people! Don’t just imagine that!
Nick Wilson, Pou Ārahi o te Mana Whānau Mana Taiohi – Diocesan Young Catholics Team Leader.