Young Life

[Karl_Gustav]

I am a Catholic, very familiar with Catholic doctrines and have been a volunteer leader with Young Life in upstate NY for 4 years.

Young Life has a few doctrinal principles, but are more in the spirit of being ecumenical and non-confrontational than anything else. Leading in New York state, I’ve been taught to encourage kid’s whose families do belong to a particular Christian denomination, to continue going to church with their family. In NYS over the past year, many other Catholics have gone on staff with YL.

At the end of the day, the theological culture of any YL club depends on the staff and volunteers running it. I have no experience with YL outside of the Northeast, but in NY and New England, the environment is certainly Catholic friendly and I would encourage any Catholic high school kids to get involved with YL.

 

[maythaddaeus]

I am an active Catholic and an active Young Life volunteer leader in Houston Texas.
Within our leadership team we have several Catholics, and many of the students who attend our weekly meetings and Bible studies are Catholic or Orthodox.

YL is a historically Protestant organization, and this of course influences the leaders it attracts and some of the pietistic aspects of how Jesus is proclaimed. With the caveat that every YL group is a bit different, I would put forth that there is NO contradiction between YL’s mission and that of the Catholic church.

YL is a classic youth focused para-church organization whose mission is not to push children into a particular denomination or congregation. Rather YL’s mission is support the efforts of local churches to catechize their youth, and to introduce kids who are not Christian to Jesus the Christ. The preferred medium for this mission is friendship.

More succinctly put by a senior leader; “Jesus is the message and friendship is the medium”

With respect to the initial post that started this thread; I would offer that YL camp is an amazing and encouraging setting for kids to experience positive fellowship with other Chrisitan youth, as well as leaders. In the past two years I have seen multiple high school kids return from camp, determined to pursue closer communion with Christ, setting aside unbelief, as well as self destructive habits such as drug abuse.

Please feel free to e-mail me at maythaddaeus@gmail.com, if you have any particular questions that you would rather not post.

AMDG