Our ministry was first developed in July 2005 by two young Catholic sisters in their 20s: Allie and Jen Jones (me). After completing the Christ Renews His Parish retreat program and formation in the spring of 2005, we felt a void in our lives without any young Catholics with whom we could share our faith. After visiting a couple existing young adult ministries, I didn't feel as if I fit in with the wide range of ages in the existing young adult ministries (the Catholic Church classifies a young adult as anyone ages 18 to 39).

After praying for direction, God moved me to meet with the business administrator of my home parish, St. Theresa Catholic Church in Austin, Texas. In the matter of a weekday lunch meeting, the Catholic 20-Somethings was created. In response to my question, "How does one go about starting a ministry at church?" the business administrator replied, "You just did!" Simple as that. Well, not so ...

Allie and I discerned to narrow the focus of the new ministry to young adults in their 20s. Experience proved that a 20-year-old doesn’t have all that much in common with a 32-year-old. Typically, someone in their early 20s is in a different place in their lives than someone who is in their mid-30s. Though the same can be true for those in their early 20s and those in their later 20s, the age range seemed to make a comfortable fit without limiting the demographic too much.

We also discerned that this ministry would not be a "singles ministry" or "dating service" for single Catholics. The ministry's mission was to connect young adults in their 20s, regardless of their marital status, to Jesus Christ and to each other. Our focus would not be to seek out a potential spouse – our focus would be completely based on our Lord, not ourselves.

A couple months passed as Allie and I worked with the parish office to acquire the names of young adults in their 20s who had in the past inquired about a young adult ministry and send a letter out to all registered 20-somethings in the parish.

The first event would be a happy hour at El Arroyo. Eight 20-somethings showed up and thus became the foundation of our group. We decided that we'd make the Sunday 5 p.m. Mass at St. Theresa's a regular time for us all to try to attend Mass together and we would build other events from there.

In the last year and a half since then, our ministry has grown from eight to 193 20-somethings from all over Austin. The need for a ministry focused on our specific age demographic has been so strong that we've attracted young adults from Pflugerville to downtown Austin to Buda – all over the Austin metropolitan area.

We have established a strong Leadership Team to include:

• Jen Jones, Coordinator
• Matt Balhoff, New Member Chair
• Matt Bogner, Technology Chair
• Chris Scaperlanda, Spiritual Activities Co-Chair
• Mary Scaperlanda, Spiritual Activities Co-Chair
• Katie Weber, Service Activities Chair

This team meets twice a month to discuss and pray for the needs of our ministry and plan regular monthly events to include an official new member happy hour, service project and spiritual activity.

We've seen several members grow from "pew-warmers" to active members of the church (extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, CRHP retreatants and organizers, parish film crew, youth group leader teams, choir members, etc.).

The Leadership Team recognizes that prayer is an essential part of any ministry; leaving only six people to pray for the spiritual health of such a large group is too large a task to expect. To address this, we have just recently formed a Prayer Team, which will come together regularly to pray for our ministry and not only our members but also those 20-somethings in our community, country and world who haven’t yet been reached and don’t have a ministry like ours to be fed spiritually.

We will again have a retreat in August 2007, making this our second retreat, and an event to expect annually.

Service is also an area the Leadership Team feels needs to be addressed with more prayer. As the Lord calls us to "serve one another in love" (Galatians 5:13), our ministry provides a monthly service project for us to meet that calling. With sporadic attendance at these events, we will be praying about how to move our members to serve.

The 20-Somethings' small groups have been met with large success – the group went from offering four weekly small faith-sharing groups to now five groups, one following a book format instead of being based on a rotating weekly topic. The number of these groups will continue to grow as the demand increases. We have capped the groups at 12 members so as to allow for the communities to stay small and foster deeper friendships and more comfortable faith sharing amongst members.

Given the great success of our small groups, you can expect that these will continue into the future as long as the interest is maintained.

The Catholic 20-Somethings Ministry is an instrument of God's grace to so many of our young adults, praise God. The Leadership Team thanks each and every member for their contributed efforts to make our ministry what it has become. We ask for your continued prayers in direction for the group to make sure it glorifies God. May He continue to shower you and yours with His every grace and blessing ...

Peace be with you.
Jen