Poor junior high kids! They’re often too old to feel cool at Vacation Bible School and too young to go on big mission trips that older teens enjoy. They’re overlooked to serve as lectors, greeters and eucharistic ministers. They truly are in a “middle” place.

We as older members of church would be wise to see that we have a rich opportunity to form the “young” church in a unique way. Young people are still open to a fuller “Yes!” to God as members of the wider church. Because there are few opportunities to help form young disciples, the Timothy Retreat boasts the ability to provide a vibrant faith experience for sixth-, seventh- and eighthgrade members of our parish communities. So where did the Timothy Retreat come from?

Imagine a church where young people pursue the adults to get involved instead of the other way around. One is asking how she can become a lector while another is hoping to become a eucharistic minister. Imagine further that you are overhearing a conversation after Mass where a few ebullient high school students astound the pastor by wondering out loud if there was room for their voices on the pastoral council. Hearing such offers would leave us feeling joyfully confounded. At the root of this hopeful scenario is a deep gratitude that the spiritual gifts of our youth are ready to enliven and strengthen our faith community, not in some future time but right here and right now.

ROCHESTER — "Incarnation" is the blessed truth that God entered into our earthly existence in the person of Jesus Christ; forming our way of being in this world. Just as Jesus is fully present to us in the bread and wine, so too our faith must take on concrete form so that others can see, hear, taste, smell and touch this reality.

In November 2005, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) published the fruits of their discussion about how we acknowledge the presence of those lay members who wish to bring forth their giftedness to the church. Done in collaboration with many lay members, the U.S. bishops released an astoundingly hopeful document called Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord. In doing so, the bishops set forth a formalized blueprint for the development and formation of committed lay people who wanted to bring their gifts to the service of the church in a way that allows them to journey alongside those who are ordained as well as all religious brothers and sisters.