Why Vocation Programs Don't Work

[LouisvilleFan]

Not the first time I've read an article about the general failure of vocations programs that hit the underlying problem of discipleship, but Fr. Ference has some good words here and thought his summation of the typical youth group experience was very relevant:
http://www.hprweb.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=265:why-vocation-programs-dont-work&catid=34:current-issue

Hopefully will be convicting and encouraging to all of us to follow Jesus more eagerly.

[Catherine Therese]

The article was good, but IMHO he could have said all that needed to be said with a single paragraph that he wrote, sandwiched in between a whole lot of other stuff:

[quote][color="#333333"][font="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"]If youth ministers and, more specifically, priests take the time to teach their young people how to pray alone, in community, liturgically, before the Blessed Sacrament, with an icon or crucifix, in nature, with Scripture, or with a journal, disciples will emerge. Don't be fooled; young people desire to learn to pray and to pray well, and they want their leaders to teach them.[color="#000000"][font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"][/quote][/font][/color][/font][/color]

The rest of the article was why he picked the label 'discipleship' to summarise the issue.

Kids need more support in learning how to pray, learning to pray well and learning how to set time aside for prayer and fit life around it.

Actually that kind of thing really needs to happen on family level a whole lot better. Parents need to be creating a culture within their families where John has to take out the garbage before he is allowed to play/read/do-whatever, but he doesn't have to do the garbage until he's taken 10 minutes of personal prayer. Establishing the prayer-work-play priority list when they're young would go a long way to making sense of things when they're older.

Young people who are praying regularly and have a relationship with the Lord are going to be much more attuned to His voice when He calls them.

Edited February 12, 2011 by Catherine Therese