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The Pixel Punk Diaries |
What Life Teen Does in the Summer
It's summertime, which means that our life here behind lifeteen.com flips upside down. For people who are familiar with our ministry, this article will be nothing new to you. But if lifeteen.com is your only connection to Life Teen, then let me explain what we do in the summers and how it relates to our whole ministry.
Summer Camps
We own and run two camps: Tepeyac in Prescott, Arizona, and Covecrest in Tiger, Georgia. We partner with Catholic Camps of America to run Life Teen Camps at RockyVine in Dutzow, Missouri. Through most of the year, each of our camps is run by folks who live right there at camp. Parishes and other church groups will rent the camp from us to host retreats and conferences. But through June, July, and some of August, we host our own summer camps for teenagers (Life Teen weeks) and junior high students (EDGE weeks). Most of the members of our staff who work in our offices during the school year will travel out to these camps to help lead the week. (It's a lot of fun!) By the end of the summer, a couple thousand teenagers will have spend time at one of our summer camps.
Our goal for summer camps is that parish youth groups would have the best week of their lives. We work hard to make sure that we have the best music, activities, teachings, and high adventure. We want teenagers to build strong relationships with one another, but especially with God. When you come to a Life Teen camp, you go to Mass everyday, and you get to experience different types of prayer.
Our goal for summer camps is that parish youth groups would have the best week of their lives. Keep checking by the website throughout the summer for thousands of photos from camp.
Conferences for Adults
One of the big facets of our ministry is training adults in catholic youth ministry how to do effective ministry. This weekend we have the Life Teen Convention, and 100s of adults from around the country will leave their parishes to come out here to Phoenix, Arizona. The people who play music at your church will have a chance to learn new music and be taught how to play it better. New Core Members will get an idea of how to give better Life Nights. New Youth Ministers will be educated on how to reach out to teenagers who don't come to church. Of course, we cover a lot more than this, but you get the idea. Our hope is that everyone who comes to the Life Teen Convention will get back to their churches with a new passion and joy for their job at the church.
Conferences for Teenagers
Throughout the summer, the Franciscan University of Steubenville hosts dozens of weekend-long high school youth conferences around the country. We partner with them to host two conferences, one in Arizona and one in Georgia. These weekends are fantastic for Catholic teenagers who don't know if they want to be Catholic. You know, if you think this “God thing” is all made up. Because when you come to a Steubenville Conference, you'll go home a whole new person. God moves in powerful ways through the weekend!
Our most intense conference for teenagers is one we host up at the campus of Notre Dame in Indiana. We called it LTND, short for Life Teen Notre Dame. Teenagers who have good potential to be strong leaders are selected by their youth ministers to travel with their group to LTND. So you know when you get there that there will be 300-400 teenagers who are really into their faith. So you don't have to worry about people making fun of you. Everyone's on the same team. This week is consistently the most powerful and life-changing weeks for the parishes who come.
Resource Shipments!
The word “resource” may not mean anything to you if you are a teenager, so let me explain. Basically, a resource is any book, DVD, pamphlet, or booklet that helps you do something better. All of our resources are crafted to help Catholic parishes do better youth ministry. So we help musicians pick out the right songs through printed Liturgy Guide. We help youth ministers and Core members lead good Life Nights by offering the Life Night Planning Guide. It includes scripts for skits, outlines for teachings, and ideas for group games. You get the idea.
Well we recently shipped out our latest box full of resources to all of the Life Teen parishes out there. Pretty soon, we'll be packing and sending out a new box of resources for the EDGE parishes who have junior high ministry. So for our resource team who writes and produces this stuff, they're doing a lot of work this summer!
LifeTeen.com Reviews
Everybody knows that summer is the big time for movies. This summer we want to cover every blockbuster movie, something we've never done before. And, like I mentioned before, we're adding thousands of photos each week to our Yearbook so everyone can see what we're doing at camp.
Have a great summer!
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Matt Smith is the Director of Internet Ministries for Life Teen, an international Catholic youth ministry based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the creative force behind Life Teen's cluster of websites that receive nearly 2 million visits a year. Since staring on MTV's "Real World" and MTV's "Road Rules Challenge", Matt has traveled the country speaking at colleges, universities, schools, and Catholic parishes.
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