When I first came to the parish in 2003, I was blessed to start a youth program from scratch.  Coming from a very small parish back home I knew the one thing that the youth did was a Living Stations of the Cross.  Everyone gets dressed, one guy is asked to be Jesus, and you carry the cross down the aisle of the church.  I looked online and it is very hard to find a script with good explanation.

Now we do have a Living Stations script in our members section that is ready to go and will be developed more and more as I use it, but this will help you learn how to start from scratch or tweak the content you did find.  I will start with what I did.

1) Set up the structure

The congregation will appreciate a structure.  After the first two stations they should have a good idea of what is expected of them.  It will also make it more comfortable for them to delve in to what is happening.  Our basic structure that we used is scripture, a voice (prayer by us), and Jesus’ response.  So just about every station includes that.

2) Scripture

I knew I wanted our script to be enriched with scripture.  So I went to the Vatican website and found what they used that year for scripture.  If you dig deep, you will find that each year they switch it up a bit.  So you can go back and look at what they have used for several years and use that.  You earn some brownie points when you join in prayer with the Vatican anyways!  Or just grab your stations of the cross pamphlets that you use in church and see what they use for scripture.

2) Meditations

For the meditations in our living stations script I used writings from my favorite saint, St. Alphonsus Liguori.  There is already a stations of the cross manual that came from his meditations so that made it easy.  These were what I used for the voice of the person.    I changes a few of the words to make it more youth friendly, but did not want to take away from the richness of his writings.

3) Jesus’ Response

It was important for me to have a part in the script where the youth would hear some things that may have been going through Christ’s head.  I wrote my own words for Jesus (bold I know).  They were very simple and spoke entirely of love.  Our main audience is the youth and I just wanted the youth to know that Christ loved them, so much they might get sick of hearing it.  I had three priests look it over and went with it.

4) Music

I was a music major in college and also do worship often for youth events so I knew what I wanted for music.  If you want suggestions here are a few songs that I use:

Love Song – Third Day
Via Dolorosa – Sandi Patty
Were You There

We also use the short worship song “Come Into My Heart” in between each station.  There are several different verses of it.

I would just recommend using a good mix of music that they know, that they can meditate on, and that truly brings out the meaning of lent.

5) Costumes

To be blunt, I do not know much about costumes.  When I arrived, a lady had already made the costumes and they were amazing, so we have used those every year.  I would recommend leaving this to a pro.  There are not too many ladies who know how to sew that wouldn’t do this for the parish if the materials were paid for.

So that is how I wrote up our script.  There are so many ways that it can be done.  If you need a quick fix, I have seen someone just do the regular pamphlet for a script.  Then they would have stills of a scene for people to look at.  They used a spotlight.  Turned off the spotlight during the transition song and then the next scene was up when they announced the station.

Have other ideas?  Please comment below and let us know what you do.

As I was focusing on our last post about safety in networking through sites likes facebook, I decided to write another post focused on developing a web site for your youth group.  I actually do web design and networking for small businesses and parishes on the side, so I have built up some experience and knowledge and have learned many things that may be helpful.

I created a web site specifically for our youth group at www.sacredheartym.com.  I have had this site for about seven years and have made tons of changes to get it to where it is today.  I have it set up now to be very low maintenance, but also offer tons of information that is always current and easy to access.   I will use this post to have you focus on a few aspects of it.   Here are some things that I think have been key in the success of our web site.  There should be more to your web site than links to PDF’s.

Current Pictures – The first thing youth notice about the site is the header images.  I changes these at least quarterly and always use current pictures or memories from trips I want youth to remember.   When they visit the site they are immediately brought back to a great memory they have from being involved in youth group.

Way to Stay Updated – Having a spot for youth to sign up to become a fan on Facebook, follow you on Twitter, and receive updates are key to bringing them back to your web site.  Don’t think you have the time for these things?  I probably spend 10-15 a week on these updates.  It is well worth the investment.

Big Event Promos – For every big event I create a new 150×150 promo ad.  This same picture is used for Facebook events and any other promotion that I do.  For regular events like our monthly adoration, I use the same picture for every month and change it maybe each year.  Having a spot on the home page of your site just for your big upcoming events is a great way to constantly remind them.

Discussions – These have been great for youth who spend time just browsing the site.  I can post something funny, serious, educational, basically whatever I want.  The youth do not need to sign in or set up a user name and password.  They just put their name, email, and their comment.  I have my youth group site set up so I must approve every comment (takes about 3 seconds) before it is posted online.  Which great for when the kids are discussing duct tape and one kids says “why do have to be so abusive with duct tape?,” even though they are joking, you may not want parents reading that.

Also when I know a comment has been sent I can have the quick response time to answer questions or shoot back a quick response to them. I put a discussion on another church’s web site asking youth to talk about their favorite saint.  It was a great way to get them discussing.

Upcoming Events – This section is automated and clears out as events are done.  No maintenance after a simple form is filled out with the event info.

Behind The Scenes – I have a page for the volunteers that has all of the upcoming lessons, pictures of our youth group trading cards (so they can remember names), and also pages for the team for our Diocesan Retreat Program.  All of these files are password protected.  It is a great way to make sure people have the current information they need.

Stewardship – Although it is not up to date when I am posting this, it usually is.  I have a spot for volunteers to sign up to help.  It shoots me an email and I follow up with them.

Online Registrations – Since this is time sensitive, I can’t give you an example that will last forever, but I have found the perfect online registration system for just about any event.  You can embed the registration form in to the site, or you can do what we use for our retreat program and just have it go to the registration site.  The site we use is EventBrite.  The thing I love about it is that you can both manually enter info and it is free or people can sign up online and they pay the site fee (you still pay the typical credit card processing fee).  The reports are great and can be used for mail merging and just about anything you are creative enough to think of.

These are things that have been most helpful for me and really make is that much easier for youth to be involved and to stay informed.

A quick tutorial on how to easily maintain your Facebook and Twitter profiles.  Set up the page on your website and link to it from Facebook.  Link your Twitter and Facebook accounts together and you only have to do it in one spot.  You can actually connect the web site also so each time you make a new post on your site, it updates on Facebook and Twitter also, but I like to add little comments on the Facebook page anyway.  To link your Facebook page to your Twitter account go here.

Now how do you get this set-up?  Well I recommend Parish Web Assistant. You can get all of these feature for your entire parish for about $500.  You can also have them do your maintenance for you.  You simply fill out a form, attach any files you want uploaded, and they do it for you.    You can see all of their features here.

You can have them set up your whole parish site also and your staff will be very happy!  Once you get a site set up, if you do everything yourself and you do it the right way, it shouldn’t cost any more than $75/year.

The biggest mistake I see are sites that are not current and only provide links to PDF’s.  Set up a site now that will remind your youth of the great times they have had, keeps them coming back looking for more, and gets them involved.

Please comment below if you have other ideas or questions!

Our Diocese has a Safe Environment program that is used to help train volunteers throughout the Diocese. The training is typically done online. This last years training was on Professional Boundaries and was very good for the times we are in right now. Keep in mind this training is for all volunteers and not just those in youth ministry, but does focus on protecting our youth.

One thing that shook up many of our volunteers is that the training suggests ‘NOT’ having a facebook page and, if you do, ‘NOT’ connecting with the youth in the parish that are under 18. They had some very good points, but anyone who is involved in youth ministry, probably understands the effect Facebook has had on networking and connecting with youth. This article will be on how to make sure you are protecting yourself while still connecting with the youth.

To be blunt, some of the best connections I have made with the youth in our program has been through Facebook chat. The you are sitting on their computer, thinking and bored, and have a lot on their mind. It’s as convenient as can be to chat once they see their youth minister or volunteer online. There is a sense of relief when they are looking for someone they can trust and they find them.

But is this safe? I have heard many horror stories of simple allegations that have led to a volunteer or paid youth leader getting fired by something a youth ’said’ happened. Here is my quick ‘play it safe’ guide for those who truly want to protect themselves.

1. Don’t Set Yourself Up
If you are worried about protecting yourself, than just do not put yourself in that situation. Facebook is great, but you do not need it be a great volunteer. Learn more ways to connect with the youth and use your time you have with them wisely. A volunteer that goes to school or parish events to support the youth is doing much more than one could ever do on Facebook.

2. Use Other Means
If your youth director does not have other ways for you to connect online with the youth, it is time that they do. There are tons of other ways to connect with the youth. If your youth group has a web page, work on getting a section where there are discussions and anyone can post. Make sure your youth leader is also emailing anything that is being passed around and talked about online. Sign up for other networking sites that do not offer private chat or messaging like Twitter.

3. Use Facebook Safely
Since you are reading this, you probably already have a facebook account. You can still have one and just network in ways that are safe. Have the youth minister set up a Fan Page. These are pages where everything is public, people can chat, there is a spot for discussions, and more. It is also a great way to create events and invite people to those events.

It is not rude to let youth know that you have a policy about being friends with them on Facebook. It would not even hurt to ask the youth minister to take the heat of it and set the rule for all of the volunteers. Encourage the youth to make a phone call if needed to or to pull you aside during your weekly meeting. Best thing you can do is to remind them that you care and show them your support.

If you are not too worried about protecting yourself from false allegations or rumors using facebook, at least do your best to keep things public. Be cautious of youth that you do not know too well yet and just be smart.

Please discuss any other concerns or ideas you have below!

This is our Catholic Trivia Zillionaire game.  This is a sample game from the actual product available in our store.  It is much like the game Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.  You can download a sample game for free, the complete version of the game can be earned by sending us some questions for the game’s use or through our member section.

Download Sample

Learn how to get the product free