August 28 brought to a close 13 days straight of EDGE Camps for almost 600 kids whose parishes planned and ran the camps this year in collaboration with the Office of Catholic Youth. Three camps for 11 to 13-year-olds, aptly named Edge Camp West, Edge Camp East and Edge Camp North comprise of parishes from those regions across the archdiocese who all run Edge youth ministries for their parish kids throughout the academic year.

This year more than 34 parishes were part of the collaboration. Now in its 15th year, Edge Camp began as a vision of Fr. Peter Choi (now the pastor at Sacred Heart of Jesus parish in Etobicoke) with five youth ministers, core volunteers and 126 kids in 2009.

Over the years the camp has had to grow to meet to bring in new parish members as youth ministry continues to grow across the Archdiocese.  The camps continue to be hosted and welcomed by Camp White Pine in Haliburton.

Those interested in starting up a parish youth ministry can contact the Office of Catholic Youth at 416-599-7676.

This year on August 9th, St Paul's Parish in Alliston hosted the annual Youth Ministries Ultimate Frisbee tournament. Eleven parishes with over 132 high school teens came out to participate in what has been a classic summer gathering of youth ministries over the past 15 years. St Isaac Jogues of Pickering was the undisputed and undefeated winner in 2025, while Merciful Redeemer of Mississauga was voted by all participating parishes as the "Highest demonstration of virtue." St Paul's is looking to host again in 2026! As always any and all high school-aged youth ministries are welcome to attend.

For more information, please reach out to the Office of Catholic Youth at youth@archtoronto.org.

With 15 years in parish youth ministry, I wondered this typically (obsessively) 5 -10 times a day. Now as a parent of 3 teenage kids and my 4th a year away, I’ve developed a broader perspective, and have come to understand what so many parents already know.

The life of the Church is important; but it’s not as important as it is to those of us who minister on behalf of the Church want it to be. Period.

In truth many parents echo the same sentiment as the kids do – they find Church boring and – dare I say it – irrelevant to daily living.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It’s against our religion anyway. Look it up – Exodus 20:13
To help challenge those erroneous suppositions, I’ve put together a list of ideas that I have used to help make the message hit home when we have those precious few moments with the parents of kids we are ministering too:

1. Don’t be joyless – don’t fulfill the stereotype by being distant and monopolize the talking time. Meet people, shake hands, ask about their family, complement those sitting in the front row for being so courageous – help your audience know that they are NOT just an audience
2. Share stories – make a connection with the parents of the power of the sacraments by experience and testimony, don’t rely on “the Church says”
3. Use humour – if you’re not generally very funny, find some material to break the ice (ie. bulletin bloopers) or share some of the imperfections we’ve experienced in ministry leadership. Let the parents see we aren’t “Father’s sacramental pet” that they are expecting us to be
4. Simply, simplify – review your material. If someone had NO idea of the Church, the sacraments, etc – would they feel left behind? Have someone outside Church life review your talk and ask questions when they don’t understand what you’re saying. Don’t assume the basic sacramental knowledge is there like you expect it to be from parents.
5. Start on time, finish on time - Don’t penalize those who took you at your word when you asked them to be there by X:00 p.m. or X:30 p.m.
6. Get off the script - Don’t use the meeting time to just give information that could have just read off a handout – especially one that you already gave them. Use the talk time to engage & inspire their love of God and the love they have for their child(ren).
7. What’s important, what’s not - Know the most important 2 things you want communicated to the parents and hammer those points home. Be sure they walk away knowing the most important things you wanted them to walk away with.
8. Challenge how they feel - How do you want them to leave feeling? Guilty? Uneducated? Bored? Convicted (that they were right about Church gatherings)? Build your meeting to a point where the feelings you want embedded at the end will be felt as they leave.
9. Visualize – What can you do to help bring more life or visual engagement to your space? How can it become more inviting?
10. Affirm - Parents are the first to recognize their failings in the parent department. Don’t let the Church be the place to emphasize the point. Finish in praying for them, for God to strengthen them and thank God for them in the love they are striving to witness to their kids.

BONUS: If you want to help change the culture around how non-practicing parents engage (or don’t) the life of the parish – have something planned for them to participate in! Have an ALPHA course ready for parents, or a parent seminar series ready to help them! Let the parents know that we care about them and they aren’t simply the means of getting information (or a sacrament) to their children.

We assume in all of this that you are PRAYING relentlessly for these brothers and sisters of the Church. Ask for God to prepare their hearts for what He desires for them, then help our parents see the Church as a relational partner in supporting them in their parenting, not an institution trying to burden them with further demands on their time.

Let’s begin by recognizing that having someone who can devote time to coordinating, developing and growing a youth ministry within a parish is a good thing! Having someone who can handle youth ministry is likely one of the hardest, most challenging roles anyone can play in a parish.

Rarely is there a definitive start and end time of their involvement in the ministry each day. They have to handle a spectrum of behavior that most all other ministries do not encounter regularly outside of a counselling environment. Finding a person who can prepare a program, promote it, gather volunteers to implement it and handle youth who may or may not attend and exhibit interest that ranges from fleeting and disengaged to those who are super eager and “pumped” to be fed the Catholic faith is not an easy thing. Throw into the mix your need to be able to engage the disinterested who are on the verge of never darkening the door of the church again while settling down the young people who are loud and bouncing off the walls at the very same instant. They need to talk to the youth who don’t seem to want to talk to anyone, while finding polite ways to disengage themselves from young people who want a youth minister’s full, prompt and undivided attention – for a fifteen-minute timespan.

Perhaps that sounds familiar, but it hardly scratches the surface of what someone who wears the “youth ministry” hat is called to do in that capacity.

So listed below is a general assessment of things to consider when looking at the prospects of a full-time, part-time or volunteer-based youth minister or youth ministry coordinator:

Many parishes are looking for a "baby steps" approach to launching a youth ministry. This page provides five things that we recommend every parish consider as they wade into the youth ministry world.

Make a daily commitment in your prayer to discern how your youth ministry should develop. Anyone can get a “youth ministry” or “youth group” up and running. Building a youth ministry that is sustainable, solid and can weather changes in pastors, youth ministers and volunteers is much more challenging.

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! —Matthew 7: 24-27

Write out a detailed plan of what your youth ministry will look like. No one builds a house without first having a blueprint of what the house will look like. Too often, parish youth groups or youth ministries are set in motion with a well-intentioned volunteer, a bulletin announcement and a plug during the Sunday Mass announcements. It runs for a few weeks, perhaps until summer time. But then the group breaks for the summer months and then it’s back to square one, trying to start something up all over again. For this reason, it’s important to plan what should take place over the course of the next few years.

The list we’ve provided may sound ambitious, but there are parishes that are accomplishing those goals right now. Those items are attainable.

Perhaps you’re thinking something smaller, where your youth receive consistent weekly catechetical formation while enjoying Catholic fellowship and growing firmly and confidently in their Catholic faith.

Regardless if our suggestions resonate with you or not, it is wise to have a longterm plan in place before you begin. What does the house that you want to prepare for your young people look like?

Picture your parish teens...

• Participating as responsible and heart-felt lectors of the Word at Mass;
• Serving as role model altar servers that can train younger servers;
• Excelling at music ministry;
• Being actively involved in mission work locally and perhaps abroad;
• Helping as genuine leaders in sacramental preparation for Confession, Communion and Confirmation;
• Leading faith formation and development for children’s liturgy, parish camps, and pre-teen youth;
• Getting excited about life-advocacy initiatives and charitable activities such as elderly support events.

Contact parishes with healthy youth ministries. Arrange a meeting with the pastor, associate pastor, youth minister, or pastoral assistant who oversees the ministry, or the volunteer who runs it. Get a sense of what they are doing, how they began and—most importantly— where they are going with it. Many parish youth ministries around the Archdiocese of Toronto were built with prayer, input, support, resources and even direct guidance from sister parishes.

While developing a vision for your parish’s youth ministry, these are some areas that you may wish to pray about:

• PAID YOUTH MINISTER? Pray about whether the parish can afford a full-time youth minister. Other options include paying someone for part-time work, stipend payments, or recruiting a volunteer.
• The OCY can assist you with determining existing trends in youth minister salaries and training volunteers for success in your parish.
• BUDGET: Consider where and how money should be spent to accomplish your youth ministry plan. What can your parish afford to spend to start up the ministry?
• RESOURCES: Brainstorm a list of resources you will need. Think about time and space that your parish offers where you can operate a youth ministry. Consider who you can approach in your congregation to pray and discern about joining a youth ministry team.
• MENTORS and TRAINING: The OCY can help you by:
  • Giving you guidance based on experiences that have worked, so you can avoid making mistakes that others have already experienced;
  • Forming, training and supporting people who are willing to wade into youth ministry but feel ill-equipped or need guidance in how to work with the youth of the parish.
• TIMELINE: Set aside 5 months to plan and launch your youth ministry program. The OCY can help by providing a suggested checklist of things to consider as your implement your new youth ministry.

Once the Virus starts spreading through electronic devices, no one seems safe. Protect yourself. Protect your family.

The priesthood is anything but boring. Fr. John Muir takes us along for a day in the life of a priest to show us that becoming a priest doesn't mean leaving behind who you are and what you're passionate about. Have you asked God what vocation you are called to? Now is a great time.

Please note, that this “checklist” is general, and may need to be adapted for your parish. The OCY staff is here to help with any questions, clarifications or support you may need help at any stage of your plan. Throughout the checklist, you’ll note some lines finish with ** - this signifies that this is an area that the OCY can directly support you in.

Some important reminders:

1. No program is an instant recipe for success – ever! The Holy Spirit working through the appropriately called people is the key ingredient.
2. You will note that some areas are bolded. Despite best laid plans, some areas of planning inevitably fall behind. Don’t let the bolded ones fall behind, it will cause more stress on your team
3. Most successful high school ministries try to work in conjunction with or around a weekend Mass schedule to assist in keeping the ministry Eucharistic-centred. Many “EDGE” or grade 6-8 ministry models tend to be on Friday nights or another time away from the Sunday liturgy.
4. Be VERY mindful of trying not to condense your youth ministry plan into something less than five months. Experience around the Archdiocese shows that the stress, increased margin of error, and difficulty of sustaining the ministry (despite its successful launch) all increase with the shortened period of preparation. This is particularly heightened if the ministry launch is working without the experience of a full-time committed youth minister at the helm.

A NOTE ABOUT LAUNCH WINDOWS

Over the last few years, there have been some attempts to launch a new youth ministry either in the Spring (ie. April) or in the winter around early December. Experience shows time and again that these are not “wise” times to work around a launch for a number of reasons, and almost always fall flat. Adjust your launch to work late September/early October, no later than mid-November, or somewhere from January to April.