Canadian Catholic Students Association: Conference Pictures and Highlights
Name of Conference: “Ambassadors of Christ”
Details: Held at King’s University College in London, Ontario from January 22-24. King’s is a Catholic University affiliated with Western University in London. There were approximately 60 youth who attended from various universities and colleges across Ontario and Quebec. There were also a number of Catholic youth ministers and university chaplains including myself who participated in the events including U of T (St. Michael’s and Newman Centre) as well as Ryerson.
There was a keynote address by Reverend Raymond de Souza the chaplain of Queen’s University in Kingston on campus ministry. There was also a lecture by King’s University Professor of Philosophy John Heng on evangelization: Prof. Heng’s broke down evangelization into three main avenues: being heralds of the good news, evangelizing, and inviting.
Other points made by Prof. Heng:
- If the faith is adequately displayed when evangelizing usually any previous problems with the Catholic Church will go away.
- Trust the beauty of the message of Jesus and do not water it down.
- “Think not of the harvest, but of the sowing”.
Lecture on reconciliation by Sister Sue Wilson CSJ who belongs to the Sisters of St. Joseph. Sister Sue’s main point of reconciliation was that if we are feeling bad about a relationship, reconciliation is how to make it better.
We attended two presentations on social justice initiatives in London: First was a presentation on Hospice of London which is an organization with about 350 volunteers who minister to those terminally ill. Second, we attended a presentation on St. Joseph’s Soup Kitchen in London. This presentation made vivid the amount of work that goes into serving 350 meals a day to the local homeless, but also how fulfilling serving the poor can be. It has inspired me to promote a youth team to volunteer at the soup kitchen in Peterborough called “Out of the Cold”.
Last, we attend a brainstorming session on sharing Catholic campus ministry ideas between the various schools. Here are some of the ideas:
- Social justice initiatives during Catholic Student Week (e.g. D&P Think Fast, handing out food to homeless on streets of Peterborough, contact soup kitchen “Out of the Cold).
- Have post prayer and reflections after all events (how did that go? what worked and what can we change for next time? Survey sheets?)
- Catholic Mass at Fleming Campus (advertise by posters on campus)
- Praise and Worship Nights (looking into interfaith Bible Study and praise and worship song nights with St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Lindsay)
- “Leave a prayer, take a prayer” at Fleming College Catholics info booth (popular even with non-religious.)
- Repertoire of “getting to know each other” games (e.g. human knot; name/compliment/memory game).
- Hold mini retreats for post-secondary students (Have contacts of U of T and Ryerson Youth Ministers to obtain more information on these retreats).
Overall, this conference provided me with new insights on how to minister to post-secondary students, both philosophically and more practically. Many of the ideas also applied to high school and elementary student ministry. Furthermore, it was a positive experience to become aware of the similar struggles shared by youth ministers from other schools, but also of the progress that they have observed through perseverance in the Lord’s work.
Brad Waggoner
Posted in Youth | 
Tags: Ambassadors Of Christ, Campus Ministry, Catholic Students Association, Catholic Youth Ministers, College In London, Csj, Evangelization, Heralds, Hospice Of London, Justice Initiatives, Keynote Address, London Ontario, Newman Centre, S University, Sister Sue, Sisters Of St Joseph, Soup Kitchen, Sue Wilson, University Chaplains, University In London
