“As Sa-Fa Family, we feel the call to walk with young people “
“To be with young people where God preferably makes you aware of their expectations and challenges
to live the present and build up the future.
To look, listen, discern, and walk with them as Jesus did.
To encourage special moments of encounter close to them (sports, music, recreation). (CG 2019).
We are aware that young people often do not find answers to their concerns, needs and problems in the usual structures (Cf. ChV 202). From this reality, the Sa-Fa Family in the General Chapter of 2019 proposed a new style for youth ministry: “walking with young people”.
Following the invitation of the Church, we intend to encourage their active participation in the overall pastoral care of the Church. A double conviction drives us: “it is the whole community that evangelises them and the urgency for them to have a greater role in the pastoral proposals”.
Young people “are agents of youth ministry, accompanied and guided, but free to find ever new paths with creativity and daring” (ChV 203).
We are aware of the “need to assume new styles and new strategies”, to act with flexibility and to call them to places where they are not only formed. We are called to invite them also to places that “allow them to share life, to celebrate, to sing, to listen to real testimonies and to experience the communal encounter with the living God” (ChV 204).
And “to walk together” towards “a Church that is participative and co-responsible, capable of valuing the richness of the variety that composes it, that welcomes with gratitude the contribution of the lay faithful, including young people and women, the contribution of the consecrated life of men and women, of groups, associations and movements. We must not exclude anyone, nor let anyone exclude himself or herself” (ChV 206).
