How Can We Minister More Effectively By Young Latino Catholics And Help Them Increase Their Participation

The ODU consulting panel provided four diverse individual of the Latino community from Puerto Rico, Buenos Aries and Bermuda. Their biological makeup, heritage beliefs and feelings all varied exemplifying the fact that individuals cannot and should not be categorized by their birthplace or parents’ birthplace. One Puerto

Immigration has increased through out the years and President Trump has made controversial statements regarding those who are undocumented in this country. Time during his campaign, and up to his presidency, has become a heightened scrutiny for undocumented immigrants; perhaps, mainly Hispanics. Hockenberry and Puzzanchera (2016) define them as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race” (p3). I identify myself as a Hispanic because I was raised in Honduras, the heart of Central America, and I understand the climax that immigrants from these countries attempt to flee from. Thus, my interest in exploring more in depth the contact that Hispanic youth have with

The teenage years often set the trajectory for a person's life. It is my hope that with an engaging youth program that speaks the Gospel to the needs of teenagers to help them realize their identity, vocation, and gifts. It is my hope to create an dynamic, exciting environment for youth ministry that speaks blatantly about the issues the student's are facing and present an open opportunity for confession and doubt. I believe in challenging youth to form their own faith and embrace a habit of spiritual disciplines that will remain beyond their teenage years. I also believe that discipleship is pivotal in fostering ones faith. I feel called to form networks of relationships between teenage peers, adult leaders, and parents to help instruct

Central to this family–centered culture was the Roman Catholic Church, a trademark of these peoples’ Spanish heritage. Alas, though these immigrant pioneers were brothers and sisters of the one true apostolic church in a predominantly Protestant Texas, they were still just Mexicans in the eyes of the Anglo St. Mary’s Catholic parish. Duron still has trouble understanding the discrimination at the pews as she remembers that whenever she went to mass ”they let the Mexican people on one side and the white people on the other side”, segregating the congregation right down the middle. The Chavez siblings actually recalled that the priest of St. Mary’s would occasionally give the Mexicans mass in a basement “hidden in the bottom” of the church whenever all the Anglos had left.

In the United States, the Latino community continues to grow at a steady pace and with this increase in population comes a greater complexity in family relations and a unique set of problems. Nowadays, Latino Families feature children who were born in the United States but have at least one foreign-born parent, and also foreign-born children who immigrated to this country. Whether they are first immigrants or second generation, Latino youth deals with different levels of acculturation and the stress that this process brings. Realizing that acculturation plays an important role in the Latino families, a number of studies have examined the negative effects that acculturation stress brings to adolescents and family relationships, including behavioral problems, perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, depression symptoms, and substance abuse.

According to my experience with Hispanics people in my Parish, before you know it, the population become bigger. I can say they are more than fifty percent in my Church community, they have the charismatic prayer’ group, they worship every Wednesday; on Monday they have Bible sturdy. Every First Friday they have devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When the youth have program for the Church the Hispanics youth join the youth that we always with the three communities together. They are the one keep the Church ground clean and good condition at all the time. In my Parish the Hispanic community grow rapidly. They how to welcome kind and bring them to Adoration, I like to see when they went to go to the Chapel, event their little close their

Religion plays an important role in Hispanic and Latin American culture. Hispanic and Latin Americans are highly religious and they represent a highly Christian constituency. The majority of Hispanic and Latin Americans identify as Catholic and Protestant. Catholic affiliation is much higher among first-generation than it is among second- or third-generation Hispanic or Latino

According to Encuentro some pastoral contexts operative in Hispanic cultures that have implications for parish Youth Ministry are: Ministries for Evangelization where small Christian, develop the pastoral ministry to youth. Youth are not just the upcoming of the Church but quite the young individual of today's Church. However, it is a common knowledge that they do not permanently have sensation this way then, as a substitute, feel relegated and unnoticed. That is why youth have remained one of the main concern during the course of the procedure of the III Encuentro. Our youth are called to be bonds among the Hispanic and the North American cultures, therefore mixing. There is a requirement to be more membership of the Spanish communication

Relationships are the most powerful tools to make differences in the lives of individuals. They can direct people down a certain path, build different personality traits, and crush or raise the overall spirit of a person. The power of interpersonal relationships is put into use by youth pastors in Christian churches world wide. They strive to develop connections with adolescents in order to help them grow stronger in their morals and their faith in God. The adolescent years are often full of rebellion, confusion, anger and doubt, but youth pastors take the challenge of reaching these uncertain teens and steering them down the proper path. The big question is: just how do they go about conquering this challenge?

The acculturation theory aims to explain the interactions between immigrants and the host country. In this particular scenario, it will be used to describe the effect that American culture has on the Latino population who immigrated to the United States. When Latino immigrants arrive to the United States, they are faced with socioeconomic, linguistic, cultural and political challenges that can potentially affect the way they view cultural norms in the United States (Rogers-Sirin 2014). Given the multigenerational Latino identity, it is important to understand how place of nativity and time (generational differences) affects acculturation levels particularly in sexual behavior and ultimately teen pregnancy.

Teens discover new friendships, new interests, and new beliefs about everything from family to faith. When asking a leader a question like "Why do we think that we are right and everyone else is wrong about how we get to heaven?" Some people may shut it down and not give an answer. We are told and taught to follow blindly but that just doesn't cut it. We have questions, which need to be answered. A teens faith a big part in the puzzle of discovering one's self and identity. This journey of finding identity with the support of loved ones is essential in resulting in deeper faith. The church offers nothing more than a moralistic therapeutic deism which means a disinterested divine power who wants to give them personal peace and prosperity. In

The family-integrated church model (p. 182-183) is not easily compatible with the format of Christian Endeavor. The family-integrated model does not have age-specific ministries, but CE is set up in such a way to work with churches who have a separate children’s or youth program. While CE values and encourages intergenerational learning, this happens in age-segmented group. Age-segmented grouping can be helpful because it can supports children and youth to learn, grow, and serve in ways that are most appropriate developmentally and spiritually where they are, while still valuing intergenerational connectedness.

Luke’s has show that Faith Formation is only as successful as is the parish and parents are involved in it. Unfortunately, many of the youth do not go to Mass on a regular basis but have a good attendance at CCE classes. The chasm of understanding of the faith between those who go to Mass regularly and those that do not is deep and wide. It has revealed the need to find ways to engage and support parents more and to bring Mass to the kids. Faith Formation is lifelong and takes great effort. One cannot assume everyone is doing his or her part in growing in and proclaiming the faith. Thus as a community, people need to remain vigilant in supporting one another and ready to pick up the slack for as a community the people stated they would serve as a catechists to all the baptized. Faith Formation is not simply a set aside time during the week, but a continual moment-by-moment

I wanted everyone to experience the peace, love, and value that Jesus gives us. Thankfully, I’ve been able to bring a couple of my cross country friends closer to Jesus… it took much time, effort, prayer, and frustration, but it was incredibly worth it. Now this brings us to the main question I will be addressing today: What can Christian adolescents (or any-aged Christian, for that matter) do to bring the younger generation closer to God? Well, from much study and prayer, as well as from my personal experience, I’ve developed a couple steps that can help bring youth closer to

“57% of adult Hispanics, in the US, self-identify as Catholics... The ‘retention rate’ for Hispanic youth is 71% ... By comparison, only 61% of non-Hispanics raised Catholic remain in the faith as adults.” (Georgetown page 1 paragraph 2 and 3) This means that nearly the entire Hispanic population in America is Catholic. Sure enough, my family fell in that statistic. I went to a Catholic private middle school with theology class every day, I went to church every Sunday for about fifteen years, and I even served as an altar boy (the teens that help priest enter mass and hold the instruments) for three years. The priest at my local church had even hand selected me to go on a priesthood