2006 NCCYM—Concurrent Sessions

Round B—Friday, December 1, 2:30 p.m.-3:45 p.m.

Round D—Saturday, December 2, 2:30 p.m.-3:45 p.m.

Concurrent sessions are six large-group breakouts, each featuring one of six inspiring and challenging presenters addressing one of the five National Certification Standards for Lay Ecclesial Ministry or the timely theme of adolescent catechesis. Each 75 minute concurrent session will be presented twice: once Friday and once Saturday.

Standard One: Personal and Spiritual Maturity

B-1: Choosing Faithfulness Over Success (Friday)
D-1: Choosing Faithfulness Over Success (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Lee Nagel

Sponsored by Benziger

Youth ministry can be all consuming. It can steal your spirituality, zap your energy, distance your family, and alienate your friends. Juggling won’t work. Balancing is a bit better. Centering on Christ is the ultimate answer. Learn the secrets of a disciplined, spiritual life.

Leland Nagel has held a variety of positions on both the diocesan and university level. His messages are motivational and inspirational. A faith-filled storyteller, he serves as a part-time national sales consultant for Benziger, a division of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. Lee is an educator by profession and a catechist by vocation, a teacher by trade, and an evangelist by baptism.

Standard Two: Lay Ecclesial Ministry

B-2: Whose Ministry is This Anyway? (Friday)
D-2: Whose Ministry is This Anyway? (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Sr./Dr. Susan Wood, SCL

This session addresses Lay Ecclesial Ministry Identity by examining the call to formal and public ministry as a vocation rooted in baptism. Lay ecclesial ministry is essentially ministry on behalf of the church.

Susan K. Wood, SCL (Ph.D. Marquette University) is professor of theology at Marquette University. Very active in ecumenical work, she serves on the U.S.A. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue and the Roman Catholic-Orthodox Theological Consultation. In addition to numerous articles, she has published Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Eerdmans, 1998) and Sacramental Orders (The Liturgical Press, 2000) and is the editor of Ordering the Baptismal Priesthood (The Liturgical Press, 2003). She served as a consultant to the Bishops’ Committee on Lay Ecclesial Ministry.

Standard Three: Catholic Theology

B-3: Understanding the Catholic Core: Grace, Christ and the Spirit (Friday)
D-3: Understanding the Catholic Core: Grace, Christ and the Spirit (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Dr. Robert Ludwig

The dynamic relationship between the triune God and human beings is the very center of Catholic faith. This session explores the God who gives his very self to us as the focus of the whole of our faith and spirituality.

Robert A. Ludwig, Ph.D. is director of the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University in Chicago, a center for lay ministry education for more than four decades. Dr. Ludwig has published several books, including Jesus and Faith (with Jeffrey Carlson) and Reconstructing Catholicism for a New Generation. He is married and has three young adult children.

Standard Four: Pastoral Praxis

B-4: The Changing Reality of Youth Ministry (Friday)
D-4: The Changing Reality of Youth Ministry (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Dr. Michael Carotta

Sponsored by Harcourt Religion Publishers

This session is designed to help us “get to the balcony” and spend time re-evaluating the current value of some of the assumptions and practices of our work. In light of what we know about the social and spiritual life of young people today, how much of youth ministry’s foundational direction should still guide us? Why? Why not? We’ll try to look at hard questions together and see where it takes us.

Michael Carotta has worked with the spiritual lives of adolescents in pastoral, clinical, and educational settings for more than 30 years, including four years with at-risk youth at Girls and Boys Town. He is a nationally known author, religious educator, and consultant currently serving as the adolescent catechetical advisor for Harcourt Religion Publishers while teaching graduate courses on adolescent spirituality at several Catholic universities.

Standard Five: Professional Practice

B-5: They Will Know Us By Our Actions: Issues Facing the Professional Minister in the Contemporary Church (Friday)
D-5: They Will Know Us By Our Actions: Issues Facing the Professional Minister in the Contemporary Church (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Dr. Brian Reynolds

As lay ecclesial ministers, youth ministers are asked to fulfill their roles in a professional manner. This session will examine the issues of professional practice that form the foundation of competent and quality service to the church and to youth.

Brian Reynolds is the chancellor and chief administrative officer for the Archdiocese of Louisville. Besides his work as a diocesan administrator, Dr. Reynolds has served as a consultant, trainer, and author in church ministry for more than 25 years.

Adolescent Catechesis Track

B-6: New Directions in Adolescent Catechesis (Friday)
D-6: New Directions in Adolescent Catechesis (Saturday)

Featured Speaker: Most Reverend Richard J. Malone, STL, Th.D.

Sponsored by the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership

Our Catholic vision of comprehensive youth ministry calls for a strong catechetical component. It is critically important for teens to be growing in their knowledge of the faith! Most of us committed to the faith formation of teens have been struggling to find ways to accomplish this mandate. The National Study of Youth and Religion has alarmed us with its claim that “On most measures of religious faith, belief, experience and practice, Catholic teens as a whole show up as fairly weak.” We have the message. We have the motivation. What are the means? Let’s talk!

Bishop Malone is the eleventh bishop of Portland, Maine, installed in 2004. He earned a doctorate in theology (Th.D.) from Boston University and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) at Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, in 1990. Bishop Malone serves on the Committees on Catechesis and Evangelization for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and is the episcopal advisor for the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership.