How Steubenville Florida Rocked My World

[Deb]

Kujo,
I am sitting at my desk at work, crying. Thank you so much for sharing your weekend with us. You wrote it beautifully, from your heart, and the joy and love that God has graced you with comes right through the written word. Oh, what a wonderful way the Lord has with us.
I will pray that God will continue this great work in you. I think you will be an awesome youth minister.
Deb

[Archaeology cat]

Thank you for sharing this, and you'll be in my prayers.

[Deb]

I do have one question for you about the conference. What was up with the guy telling his story about sexual abuse? Is he a regular speaker for those kind of things? His behavior does not sound like something that would be condoned at that type of retreat. I also would have to question the announcement on the evil spirit.
I hope someone does bring up those things to whomever sets up the retreats. Otherwise, it sounds so fantastic.

[The Bus Station]

[quote name='Deb' post='1574909' date='Jun 18 2008, 07:10 AM']I think you will be an awesome youth minister.[/quote]



My church is hiring, by the way

[CrossCuT]

[size=1]Wow! How inspiring Kujo!
Thanks for that!

You should totally be a Youth Minister! If you can give talks like what you have written here, youll have a lot of people crying and converting!

Powerful stuff man!
[/size]

Edited June 18, 2008 by CrossCuT

[Paddington]

Thanks for sharing Kujo.

[Paddington]

[quote name='BG45' post='1574744' date='Jun 18 2008, 02:44 AM']God. Loves. Irony.[/quote]

That would be cool. Does anybody else think so?

[kujo]

Sorry it's taken me the whole day to respond to your...responses. I worked from 11 a.m. until about 10 minutes ago. So, here we go:

[quote name='Deb' post='1574952' date='Jun 18 2008, 11:45 AM']I do have one question for you about the conference. What was up with the guy telling his story about sexual abuse? Is he a regular speaker for those kind of things? His behavior does not sound like something that would be condoned at that type of retreat. I also would have to question the announcement on the evil spirit.
I hope someone does bring up those things to whomever sets up the retreats. Otherwise, it sounds so fantastic.[/quote]

The thrust of his talk was about overcoming the barriers that society places on us. This is the context of his comments on homosexuality, for he was expressing his frustration at the restrictions on free-speech that our politically-correct culture places on us Catholics and our call to preach the Gospel of Christ. And the story of his abuse served as the beginning of his addiction to pornography and masturbation. After telling us about it, he spoke of his addiction and its subsequent effect on his marriage prior to seeking counseling for it. Still, the hurt and anger he felt about his attack doesn't seem to have subsided, as evidenced by the amount of yelling and screaming he did throughout his talk.

His antics, though incredibly inappropriate, provided myself and my fellow Youth Ministers with the opportunity to share the TRUE teaching of our Holy Catholic Church. And, though I can't speak for everyone in attendance, my teens seems really receptive to the TRUE teaching while being repulsed by that of the deacon.

[quote name='The Bus Station' post='1575006' date='Jun 18 2008, 12:59 PM']

My church is hiring, by the way [/quote]

It seems that I have been grabbed up. But I will pray that ya'll find a YM. If I hear of anyone interested, I will let you know.

[quote name='CrossCuT' post='1575412' date='Jun 18 2008, 08:19 PM'][size=1]Wow! How inspiring Kujo!
Thanks for that!

You should totally be a Youth Minister! If you can give talks like what you have written here, youll have a lot of people crying and converting!

Powerful stuff man!
[/size][/quote]

Thanks Claire. I hope that I can be a good YM and that my words would serve His will.

[CrossCuT]

[size=1]In my experience at these charismatic youth rallies, they have always failed to inspire me.
It some senses they almost annoyed me
The speakers were silly, the skits were stupid most of the time, the music was same old same old, and I HAAAAAATED it when they played "feel good" music during adoration. Silence is golden. It makes the kids FEEL like they are experiencing all this God joy when in reality, its the music driving their emotions nuts. (woah, stopping the rant. Sorry.)

But it was always the same stuff over and over, and nothing really got through to me.
As much as I agreed that what they were saying was true and stuff, it just seemed so empty...like they didnt really mean it.

So I guess what Im trying to say is that we need people with passion and fire to get up there and blow us away. I think you can do it.

[/size]

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

Kujo, I think that you're going to make an AMAZING youth minister. Keep fighting the good fight! I'll definately be praying for you and your new teens as you get started. Please also keep my parish youth group in your prayers: it's falling apart without a regular youth minister and is only 4 years old.

May God bless and protect you always in all of your endeavors!

Your Brother in Christ,

Joe