High School Ministry
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Why “The Well?” In biblical times the activity at the local well was everything we are looking to provide for our youth. Water is a necessity and in times where there was no indoor plumbing residents would go to the well every day for their supply. There they would have conversation. They would help one another. Their thirst would be quenched. Their bodies would be sustained. We read in the gospel of John the famous story of the woman at the well where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well around noon and offers her living water. This story is a great example of why we are beginning this initiative called “The Well.” In this story, Jesus reveals to her everything about herself and reveals himself to her as the Messiah. By the end of the encounter she knew Him as her Savior and she left and told everyone about Him helping them to become disciples too. This is our hope with The Well. We hope that our youth will come and be refreshed, encounter Jesus and come to know Him as their Savior, share and discuss the depths of our faith with their groups and desire to become more faithful disciples drawing from their experience at “The Well” every day. |
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Format At the beginning of the year each student will choose a group to belong to for all of the sessions. 9th and 10th grade students will be allowed to join the groups they want to and 11th and 12th grade students can choose their groups. All 9-12 grade students gather together in a designated location for a short time of praise and worship and prayer, followed by a 20-30 minute presentation on a specific topic. These presentations will be given by many gifted presenters from around our region. The students will then meet with their chosen groups and discuss the evening presentation and how it impacts their life. These discussions will be led by adult volunteers who have responded to the opportunity to serve as CORE group leaders. In addition to the 8 catechetical nights there will be two evenings per semester where we bring in nationally known presenters to share on given topics with our youth. Many of these speakers will be familiar to our youth from Steubenville conferences and various media that we have used with our youth. These will be evenings where students from the surrounding communities will be invited to join us. BURN. This will be an evening of praise and worship and Eucharistic adoration where the Blessed Sacrament is placed on top of the “burning bush” in the school gym. There will be a time for prayer and reflection along with the opportunity for our youth to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This will replace the evening where we bring our youth to the parish penance service and provides them with a more personal, prayerful evening where the youth can decide if they are ready to go to confession or not and enter into a time of prayer and praise. Community Involvement Still another component of this new direction is community oriented. We want to encourage community members to attend any of these events they wish to. We want to extend the invitation to not only come and check out what we are doing but to come and be fed, and hopefully participate by choosing to get involved. |