Learning Life Experiences at Youth Leadership Retreat

LOGAN — Imagine you and 19 others in a life raft. There are many more people in the raft than can survive on the food and water provided. It falls to you to determine which of the 20 people, including yourself, will be allowed to stay in the raft’s 10 places. All you know about your fellow survivors is their occupations and their ages. Who would you choose?

Two dozen youth leaders from seven parishes in the diocese divided into teams to consider the above scenerio at the annual Diocesan Youth Leadership Training Retreat July 15 at the Eccles Conference Center on the Utah State University Campus. Mary Fasig, outgoing diocesan director of youth and young adult ministry, encouraged youth leaders to be creative in selecting those who would survive.

The life raft activity was just one session the Leadership Training Retreat team offered in teaching youth leaders how to best use the leadership skills they have and develop new skills. Throughout the weekend, the leaders also learned basic facts about the Diocese of Salt Lake City to better prepare them and the young people they will lead when the ninth bishop of the diocese is appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in the coming months.

Fasig led the group in a study of the diocesan crest, an illustration of a boat, "the bark of St. Peter," Fasig said, sailing on the waters of the Great Salt Lake, and being led by a comet, signifying the diocese’s first bishop, Lawrence Scanlan.

"The Diocesan crest began with the crest of Pope Leo XIII," Fasig said. "It symbolizes the constancy of the church and that our bishops are the successors of St. Peter, the church’s first pope."

The importance of providing a safe environment for all people who participate in diocesan youth and young adult activities was emphasized throughout the retreat weekend, and Fasig and her leadership team urged all youth ministers to, "know the rules, and enforce them."

"It is our responsibility to teach youth and young adults that the first rule of our activities is safety," Fasig told the Intermountain Catholic. "We teach them that all behavior has consequences, and we emphasize safe Catholic fun."

Safe Catholic fun includes physical safety, emotional safety, safe language, and safe thought for all youth and young adults who participate in diocesan activities, Fasig said. "We want to make sure people are safe at any event or activity that comes up."

This month Fasig, a member of St. Ambrose Parish, Salt Lake City, will pass the torch of the office to Matthew Boerke of St. Ann Parish, Salt Lake City, who will take over the reigns of the Diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry when Fasig steps down to begin working as a campus minister at Juan Diego Catholic High School.

As Leadership Team members Deb Barham of St. Mary Parish in Ogden and Mary Ann Barnett of St. Henry Parish, Brigham City, led participants through the life raft activity, Fasig said the life raft is a lesson in judging people and their right to survive with very little information on which to base that judgment. The future leaders compared their lists of survivors, then learned a little more about the people they’d chosen to survive and those they had not selected for survival.

"Judgment by first impression or judgment by personality traits is not always a good basis for decisions," Fasig told participants. "What does this activity tell you about how you judge people, and how you should judge them? Where do labels come from, and can we depend on labels to help us choose our friends or our colleagues?"

Christiann Mallory of Blessed Sacrament Parish, Sandy, said she found the leadership training weekend to be fun and full of information she will need to make her an effective youth ministry leader.

"The weekend has been kind of what I expected, but it has also made me more hopeful that I will be able to handle this ministry," she said. "It’s taught me more about my faith, more about the diocese, and what I’ve learned here will help me pass on my hope to the young people in my parish."

This leadership-training weekend was not the first for Anthony Martinez of St. Patrick Parish, Salt Lake City. "It’s important for youth leaders to come to this kind of training whether they’re new on the job or not," he said. "The training reminds us why we’re all here, and it helps us to focus on our faith. By becoming acquainted with other youth ministers and the diocesan staff we become aware of the larger focus of the diocese, we get new and better ideas, and we share our experiences."

Martinez brought five people from St. Patrick Parish to the training weekend, two adults and three youth.

Boerke said he is looking forward to the challenge of his new job.

"I’m still evaluating programs and setting goals," he said. "This weekend has let me know what to expect, and I’m excited. This has been a fun weekend, and I hope everyone here believes we have a lot of good things to look forward to."

With youth ministry leaders from St. Patrick Parish, Blessed Sacrament Parish, St. Martin de Porres Parish, St. Henry Parish, Our Lady of Lourdes in Salt Lake City, St. Mary Parish, Ogden, St. Ambrose Parish, and St. John the Baptist Parish, Fasig said she would have liked to see more parishes represented, especially those parishes from the more rural areas of the diocese.

"This is a high energy weekend, and it’s become an annual tradition here in Logan. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll see some involvement on the part of the high schools, and more from parishes throughout the diocese."