Volunteer

EDGE Core Team Members

Core Membership means that you are responding to God’s call to holiness in your life by loving and caring about his young Church. Following the example of Pope John Paul II, we foster a ministry of accompaniment, where we walk alongside the youth as older brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ through all of their trials, joys and hurdles. Middle school years are a period of significant change and formation. We hope that Jesus Christ is integral to that formation, and it is you, the EDGE Core Member, who makes that happen.

The Role of the EDGE Core Member

1. Authenticity

2. Charity

3. Service

4. Advocacy

AUTHENTICITY

Authenticity means that you are personally striving for holiness. It means that you are a practicing Catholic who is in love with God and regularly receive the sacraments of the Church. It does not mean that you know all the answers but instead that you have the humility to tell a teen, “I am not sure of the answer, but I will find out for you.” Authenticity does not mean you are flawless or sinless but that you are animated by his grace and fully assent to his Gospel in the Catholic Church.

CHARITY

Charity is all-important. In this case, it means that you know, love and serve the young Church. Each and every middle schooler is destined by God for salvation, and in middle school ministry, it means that you are God’s instrument to reach out to these youth and build relationships with them. RELATIONSHIPS ARE THE CENTER OF MINISTRY. If you do not have relationships with the teens, then you do not have a ministry but just another program. The relationships that the Core form with the youth are not intimate friendships or buddy-buddies but older brothers or sisters in Christ. You have to know them, know what is going on in their world before you speak the truth of the Gospel into their lives.

SERVICE

You serve the EDGE in two main ways: Planning and Executing

Life Teen Inc., sends SJN a semester curriculum guide and DVD three times a year. The youth director takes the guide and creates an outline of the semester and a skeletal outline of each EDGE Night. Once a month there will be a Planning Meeting. At this meeting the Core Team will be broken up into smaller groups, each taking one night a month. At this planning meeting, the Core group will flesh out the night through some good brainstorming. The youth director will take it and finalize it, sending it out to the Core Team via e-mail, usually one week in advance.

In executing the EDGE Night there are three main tasks: set up, welcoming and small groups. If it is your Core group’s night, then you all get with the youth director to figure out what needs to be done to be prepared for the middle schoolers to walk in the door. Secondly, we need to make sure that each and every teen feels welcomed, feels like the EDGE is their home away from home. No one should be alone tonight. Finally, and most demanding, the EDGE Core Member, alongside an assigned teen assistant, will facilitate their small group. There will be different needs (discussion questions, projects, crafts, etc.) depending on the night. But this is the crucial component of each EDGE Night, where the teens can really contribute, share their lives, their opinions and get to know one another.

ADVOCACY

You do not have ministry until the whole community welcomes the youth. Until then, its just another program. Often at parishes, and SJN is no exception, the youth are used for little more than chair stackers or table flippers for other ministries. There is no other placed carved out for them to really contribute to their home parish. This involves a change in culture, not just administration techniques. Each Core Member can become an advocate for the youth in whatever other ministries take place in their lives. Once this occurs, you have real, living ministry!