Facts of life

It has been a busy 3 months now since i have arrived in Hastings, Minnesota where i am posted for a total of 8months leading a team of 5 women and 4 men. The ministry has been so engaged and demanding that i have hardly had the time to update my blog so i apologise for this late and extensive update. The next two entries will primarily be focused on filling you in on the facts of our ministry, how it differs to the rest of NETs mission, with a break down of each area. The updates following these two will be focused on the ins and outs of our daily life, team life, living arrangements and some juicy gossip that will add another 40 years or so onto purgatory for me.

Lets get the facts out of the way:

Here is how NET define the areas of its/our mission:


NET Ministries is an international youth ministry organization, and it fulfills its mission by:

1* Proclaiming the Gospel of Christ through a personal witness of faith
2* Inviting young people to live for Christ
3* Forming young people in Christian character through the study and practice of their faith
4* Equipping youth workers and young adults with the ministry skills needed for evangelization.


Our ministry here differs greatly to the ministry of the other 8 NET teams. The difference is quite simple the travelling teams encourage youth to live as young Christians and the parish team encourages young Christians to live as disciples. Why dont we look a bit closer; Traveling team ministry, teams 1-7 and 9, are also known as retreat teams and they fufil the first two points. Their primary focus is to, in the limited time they have, be it a weekend or a couple of hours, lead the youth to a point of conversion through talks, small groups, testimonies, games and prayer ministry. In this sense they literally 'challenge' the 'young catholics to love christ and embrace the life of the church' by not only 'proclaiming the gospel of chirst' through their actions and words but also by 'inviting', through their testimonies, 'the young people to live for christ.'

The parish teams differs as it fufils all four points.'Parish team ministry is focused on long term evangelization and building relationships that will grow throughout the year and beyond.' -netusa.org.

I have numbered the following areas particular to our teams ministry (taken from the Netusa.org website) to illustrate how they fit in with the four mission points listed above.

1/2 * High School Youth Group
1/2 * Jr. High Ministry
3/4 * Discipleship Groups
3/4 * Young Adult/Core Team ministry
1/2/3 * Confirmation Classes
1/2/3 * Teen Mass
1/2* Retreats for Parish Youth

As you can see these different areas fufil all of NETs mission parameters. The other NET teams focus entirely on the last of these points fufiling 1 and 2 of the four mission parameters.