By Emilie Ng
AUSTRALIAN peer-to-peer youth ministry NET (National Evangelisation Teams) Ministries is preparing to train the next generation of Catholic missionaries and enlisting the help of popular United States speaker Tim Staples.
NET Ministries Australia’s university arm Freedom Ministries will host a four-day formation training event for young adults, particularly targeting university students.
Catholic convert and Catholic Answers apologetics and evangelisation director Tim Staples is a confirmed guest speaker, as well as Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, Australian Catholic University lecturer Verbum Dei Sister Maeve Heaney, and menALIVE founder Robert Falzon.
Director Shayne Bennett said this formation event would help young people who “struggle” with the Catholic faith find their identity in the Church without needing to commit to years of theological study.
“We face the reality today that many young people don’t have the time or commitment to do courses in theology,” Mr Bennett said.
“And so the question is, so what do we have on offer?
“My experience of the archdiocese is we’re always looking for short-term formation opportunities, and some of these need to be tailored more specifically and so that’s what this event is meant to be.”
Mr Bennett said “Training for Missionary Disciples” was a response to Pope Francis’ call in the encyclical Evangelii Gaudium for all baptised Christians to be “missionary disciples”.
In his encyclical, the Pope requested better training, greater love and a “clearer witness” of the Gospel.
“When Pope Francis writes about ‘missionary disciples’ in Evangelii Gaudium, he presents a dynamic image of a missionary formation which takes place as you actively seek to share the Gospel with others while, at the same time, acknowledging a need for an ongoing and necessary formation,” Mr Bennett said.
“The Training for Missionary Disciples seeks to respond to this need.”
Freedom Ministries director and founder Robert Shroeders said not all Catholic university students were familiar with having a “missionary mindset”.
Mr Shroeders said the Church relied on young people to find their mission and be well trained to share the Gospel message with all people.
“Being a follower of Jesus is one step as a Catholic, but to be a missionary disciple is something very different,” he said.
“It’s not something that’s commonly taught – how do we actually become missionary in the everyday, at university, in the workplace, in our community, when you have children, all those areas of your life.
“That’s something I feel there’s a lack in and this is a great opportunity to take that next step, to train people to be that next generation of missionaries.”
Another guest speaker for the formation event Renee Doyle, married to NET Ministries director Mark Doyle, said young people were called to greatness, which extended beyond the “Sunday-to-Sunday” Mass routine.
“I think sometimes we can forget, lose sight or get caught up in the busyness of our lives that we forget actually, there’s a huge mission and call on our life that is first for us to fulfil,” Mrs Doyle said.
She said when she realised the Church’s mission to evangelise all people, she was awakened to “life to the full”.
“We can go in circles saying we know we have a faith, but that doesn’t transform us, it doesn’t bring us that fullness of life that it can be,” she said.
“Even though I had a faith, I realised that when I actually sought God’s will actively, and sought to live the life that he has for me, and grow more in it, life was exciting.”
Training for Missionary Disciples is for young adults aged 18-25 and will be held at ACU’s Banyo campus from June 26 to 30.
Contact NET Ministries Australia on (07) 3217 5299 or email events@netministries.com.au for more information and to register.
