Renewed approach to young adult ministry helps transitory age group find their place in the Church

Once a week, Gabriela Borchers gathers with several other young adult women to dive deeper in faith.

Borchers grew up in a parish with a largely older congregation. When she reached young adulthood, she started seeking a community of Catholics in the same stage of life. At her first Theology on Tap event, she sat down at random next to a young woman, struck up a conversation and was invited to join her small group. In the six years since, they’ve become like family, Borchers said.

“It’s just really beautiful to have people my age that are just in love with Jesus as I am,” she said. “It makes me feel like I’m not alone.”

A renewed approach to young adult ministry in the Archdiocese of St. Louis is taking shape to help young adults find their place in the Church. Last fall, Fathers Charles Archer and Charles Samson took the helm of young adult ministry, moving it out of an archdiocesan office and into a more collaborative effort known as Salt + Light.

“Young adults need Jesus,” Father Archer said. “It’s a time in life when there’s many transitions, and often people are not settled geographically. They might not be settled in their career or their vocation. And so with all these different transitions, different relationships that people are discerning, it’s important that the Church has close pastoral accompaniment to help walk with and accompany these young adults in those moments of their life.”

While the USCCB has long defined “young adults” as ages 18-39, the majority of people involved in St. Louis young adult ministry are single adults in their 20s and early 30s, moving from the post-college transition years through settling down in a parish community (often after marriage), Father Archer said. Salt + Light takes a two-fold approach: “Cast the nets wide,” by offering opportunities for large events, and “cast the nets deep” through spiritual formation and fostering small faith-sharing groups.

Father Archer, associate pastor at St. Peter in Kirkwood, and Father Samson, an assistant professor at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, see their leadership roles as “a shepherd of charisms, or a shepherd of the gifts that people have,” Father Archer said. “When someone comes forward with a good desire and they have a gift in a certain area … we’re quick to encourage them and to fully empower them.”

Part of the ministry’s new dynamic is a “healthy decentralization,” Father Samson said. For many years, the Office of Young Adult ministry coordinated small Emmaus Groups; now, the priests encourage young adults to start their own — and keep an eye out for others to invite. They’ve approached existing local or regional groups first with gratitude, Father Samson added, then an invitation to work together however possible.

Several new groups have sprung up under this approach. While some are location-based, there are also men’s and women’s groups focused on chastity, a mental health support group and more special-interest groups in the works.

For deeper faith formation, Salt + Light offers periodic days of reflection. The first weekly formation course for young adults kicked off on Sept. 12. Plans are in the works for creating ongoing service opportunities, starting with food pantries in north St. Louis.

Ultimately, “Our goal is to form a culture,” Father Archer said. “So our goal is not any particular event, and it’s not driven by numbers — it’s a formation of a culture in which someone is fully alive in their faith.”

Wide nets

Many young adults are first introduced to the local Catholic community through a literal net — on the sand volleyball court.

When Paul Voss moved back to St. Louis after college, an online search led him to Frassati Sports, a young-adult-led Catholic sports organization in the archdiocese. Voss, now a parishioner at the Oratory of Sts. Gregory and Augustine, was just starting to get back into his faith after falling away.

Now, he serves on the board of the organization and expanded sports opportunities, helping launch regular pickup volleyball games at Our Lady of Sorrows. Soon after, the weekly game attracted so many players that they added a second location at St. Peter in St. Charles.

No matter the venue, the conversations and friendships that start on the court open up space for further invitations, Voss said.

“Once you’re there and you start making friends, you realize these are very good practicing Catholics, and it kind of normalizes living this lifestyle, living the Catholic life,” he said.

On Friday night, the young adults’ most happening spot is not a gym but a darkened, quiet church.

Once a month, Salt + Light hosts “Nazareth Night” at St. Mary Magdalen in Brentwood, offering an evening of eucharistic adoration, confession, music and fellowship. Inspired by a similar event held during the school year at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, Nazareth Night Brentwood was established early on as one of the “flagship events” of the renewed young adult ministry, Father Archer said, because it can be nourishing to people in all stages of faith journeys.

On Aug. 16, Father Ray Buehler offered a short reflection on the day’s Gospel. Nine priests were available for confession or spiritual conversation — more than the number of confessionals or quiet spaces in the church, so some walked with young adults outside.

In the choir loft, Maggie Feder led the young adult choir in contemplative music. Feder, a parishioner at Immacolata in Richmond Heights and music teacher at Ursuline Academy, was looking for a way to get more involved when Father Archer asked if she’d be interested in starting a choir.

“It’s been amazing seeing how many people have come out of the woodwork saying, ‘Hey, I’m coming back to the area, and I’m a musician, but I can’t find a choir. Can I join yours?’” she said. “And it’s really been exciting to be part of that, seeing how many people are craving that, how many young adult musicians are craving that musical connection but they don’t know where to look.”

Deep nets

After adoration was over, Sarah Wingbermuehle joined the rest of the Nazareth Night crowd out in the courtyard for conversation in the fading evening light.

Not long ago, Wingbermuehle seriously considered becoming a missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. Instead, she felt God calling her to be a witness in the workforce and returned to St. Louis after graduating from the University of Missouri.

Her close friends were scattered around the country. She still had the sacraments, prayer and daily Mass to keep her close to Jesus — “but it made me realize that in addition, you also need fellowship, and you need people who can hold you accountable and journey with you and walk through life with you,” she said.

Now, she leads a weekly women’s small group and hosts monthly young adult brunches to help foster connections in a more personal setting. “You can go to these events and meet a lot of people, but then it’s like — what’s the follow-up?” she said.

“In our day and age, when you have social media and so many distractions of our computers and our phones — isolation provides a false comfort,” she added. “So for me, I want to fight that, in a sense, by using these more intimate settings, getting people out of their normal routine … You never know what your friendship can do for another and how the Lord can utilize our relationships to bring them closer to Him.”

The weekly small group has become a vital part of Kristin Brocker’s faith life. Right now, the women are working through a series on identities in Christ: daughter, sister, bride, mother.

“I’ve been able to dive deeper and really open up about some of the stuff I’m going through, and they can relate, because we’re in a similar stage of life,” Brocker said. “We can all support each other as we’re finding our identity in Christ, as daughters, going through all these stages — not only understand more fully what that means, but see how we can all apply it in our lives.”

‘On-fire disciples’

Since launching Salt + Light, Father Samson has been traveling around to parishes and deanery meetings to share the ministry’s vision with fellow priests. A few have commented to him that they don’t see young adults in their pews or involved in parish ministries.

“My approach has basically been: Look at all these people doing all these things. You’ve never asked. Look how much they’re doing. All you have to do is ask, and they’ll come,” he said. He and Father Archer are there to help them make those connections, he added.

As young adult involvement grows, the goal is to then move away from a “siloed” young adult Church, Father Samson said.

“We want these on-fire disciples going and getting involved in their parishes, too,” he said.

“My approach has basically been: Look at all these people doing all these things. You’ve never asked. Look how much they’re doing. All you have to do is ask, and they’ll come.”

Father Charles Samson

At Incarnate Word in Chesterfield, Levi Krauss is navigating that bridge. About two years ago, he and two friends started a young adult group at the parish to foster community and encourage involvement.

They’ve since handed the reins on to others. Now, Krauss serves on the parish council and volunteers with the landscape team that helps take care of the grounds.

The young adult community helped bridge his transition from college to parish life, he said, especially because the group engaged in the larger parish, too. Young adults would make it a point to volunteer at fish fries and parish service days.

He advocates for young adults to register at a home parish as a simple, administrative way of letting parish leadership know — we are here, and we want to be part of the community.

“Part of it is just showing up and being joyful, and people in the parish will see that, and wherever your gifts are meant to be used and shared, then that will happen,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re going to get there by being negative toward maybe older people who have been in positions for a long time. I think it’s a working with the parish as it currently is, and yet seeing a new vision at the same time.”

“Be joyful. Be a witness,” he said. “Even just being there, your presence can be a witness.”

Read more about young adult ministry and the Church

“Sons and Daughters of the Light: A Pastoral Plan for Ministry with Young Adults,” USCCB, 1996

“Christus Vivit: To Young People and the Entire People of God,” Pope Francis’ 2019 apostolic exhortation

“Listen, Teach Send: A National Pastoral Framework for Ministries with Youth and Young Adults,” USCCB, 2024

Salt + Light young adult ministry

Learn more about the archiocesan young adult ministry and how to get involved at stlyoungadults.com.

Facebook and Instagram: @stlyoungadults