BY CASSANDRA (CASEY) LEE ASSOCIATED DIRECTOR, YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY
D
ue to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS) decided to postpone the Young Adult Ministry (YAM) Symposium to next year, 12 – 15 August 2021. This postponement of the AMS YAM Symposium stirred an idea to refocus the Symposium’s goal to “renew the vision of young adult ministry” as a process of discernment through virtual webinars over the next year leading up to August 2021. The webinars will be facilitated with Zoom, a video conferencing tool that has the capability of oscillating between a large group and smaller breakout groups. To reach multiple time zones, each webinar presentation will have one live session (the last Tuesday of each month) and two recorded sessions (the Thursday following). Keynote presentations are being recorded and made available on the website to view later, as well. The discussions will not be recorded so that an exchange of ideas may be less inhibited among those who connect to either the live webinar sessions or the recorded sessions. The Office of Evangelization hosted the first two webinars in this series, one in September and the other in October. The first webinar introduced the inspiration for the YAM Symposium, which was the Holy Father’s invitation in his Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit for (arch)dioceses to explore renewing young adult ministry as a way of “journeying together” (Christus Vivit, 203). The journey helps “young people use their insight, ingenuity, and knowledge to address the issues and concerns of other young people in their own language.” This document was the result of the Synod on
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