Today we, Catholics and those that follow a similar lectionary cycle, celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This feast is the end of each liturgical year. Next Sunday begins Advent and the anticipation for Christmas, and the new liturgical year.
With tonight's youth group taking a sort of "new year's" perspective and the shift in the liturgical cycle, I really feel the newness coming. December is fairly lightweight as the youth ministry bows to the pressures of other parish events, school vacations, and the festivities of the Holy Days and holidays.
I will escape to Cleveland for several days to the NCCYM and NCYAMA conferences. This will be a chance to get new ideas on youth and young adult ministry, search out new resources, and share stories (good and bad) with others in similar ministry positions. This will be my third NCCYM conference and I am looking forward to it.
I also am looking to the new year, calendar wise, as we will begin working on several major projects and continue developing others in greater detail. There will be our parish common conference. A parish youth retreat, a joint (4 or more parish) youth retreat, a girls retreat, a young adult retreat, a state Catholic Young Adult Conference, Sunday night youth groups, Bible studies, young adult nights, a trip to Honduras, and the initial plans for World Youth Day 2011.
I find though, that much like I do when the year changes on January 1, that my outward plans are tempered by a bit of introspection. Knowing what is all on my plate and recognizing the challenges that those events pose, I am trying to make some spiritual resolutions - prayer time, fun time, and just me time. Those ideas got pushed to the side, slowly but surely, over the past several weeks.
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