GRADES 5-6

The next SPARKS meeting will be held on Friday, December 16, 2011 from 6:30-8:30pm in the St. Joe's gym. Our theme for this night is: "BIZARRE BOX NIGHT"

WHAT IS OUR MAIN FOCUS?
The main focus of SPARKS is FUN and FAITH. We will begin each meeting with FUN STATIONS like basketball, speed stacks, board games, coloring, bean ball and more! Then we use the "St. John Bosco method" and have a short time to learn about our Faith and spend some time in prayer. Finally, we have some snacks and then end with several crazy, run-around games and activities.

WHY DID WE CREATE SPARKS?
A few years ago, several members of our Youth Ministry Core Team attended a day-long educational seminar presented by the Diocese featuring a nationally-known youth ministry expert who took us through the findings of a huge, 5-year long study of teens and their beliefs. Among the many interesting findings was the information that said if a young person did not have a “significant spiritual experience” before the age of 14, that the chances of them experiencing one in high school were dramatically lowered. Since the main part of our youth ministry focus at St. Joe’s did not even begin until teens are around 14, we felt that we were not doing our ministry as effectively as it could be done. Hence the formation of SPARKS for students in grades 5 and 6, and another youth group for students in grades 7 and 8 called OXYGEN. The other interesting part of these findings were that these “significant spiritual experiences” never occurred in a classroom setting, whether it was in a Catholic school or Religious Education program, so we knew more was needed than what we had currently been offering these young people.

WHAT ARE OUR GOALS?
Our hope and goals for SPARKS is that it will be 1) an opportunity for children from St. Joe’s school, the Religious Education program and from the home school community to be together, 2) create opportunities and environments for the above mentioned “significant spiritual experiences” to occur, and 3) to create a “feeder” program for future involvement in the other parish youth ministry programs and events. Overall, we hope that more and more young people see "being in youth group" as a normal part of their Catholic upbringing from 5th grade through 12th grade.