Gary Foote

Rooted

Posted on Monday, July 25th, 2011 at 3:06 am.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to be a part of an incredible Catholic youth conference that was held in Tucson, Arizona called “Steubenville West.” I’ve been involved with the Steubenville conferences since 1999 and have had the opportunity to participate in various roles at the conferences in different locations throughout the US. The conference consists of talks from prominent Catholic youth speakers, worship, Adoration, and Mass. I wish that words could adequately describe all that takes place, but they just can’t. God often works powerfully in the lives of the Catholic high school youth that are present at these conferences. If you haven’t had an opportunity to be a part of a Steubenville youth conference check out www.franciscanyouth.com and get plugged in!

The theme for this year’s conference was, “Rooted,” based on Colossians 2:6-7,“As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” This was one of my more favorite themes over the years because the word “Rooted” instilled in me a great visual. I was excited to be a part of the conference and see what God was going to do. However, like often times happens, I had no idea how God was going to work. Although I have consistently been involved with the Steubenville youth conferences, I haven’t done anything directly with the Steubenville West conference since 2005. It was great to head back to the University of Arizona where I first experienced a Steubenville youth conference in 1999.

On Friday afternoon, I was walking with another youth minister when all of a sudden I heard someone yell my name, “Gary!” I turned around and was surprised to see a former teen of mine helping someone in a wheelchair. She ran over and gave me a huge hug. It was a great moment. This grown woman was standing in front of me who I hadn’t seen in years. I started having flash backs to the first time I met her when she was dropped off as a Confirmation prep student at the parish I was working for in the Diocese of Phoenix. Back then she was a mess but a devout mess. This poor little girl faced more family struggles than any person should ever have to deal with. I remember countless phone calls, prayer sessions, and professional interventions to help this young girl and now here she was a chaperone for the parish that I used to work for. We talked a few times throughout the conference, and she shared with me that she had just graduated from college with a degree in psychology and was going to study theology so that someday she could devote herself to youth ministry. She thanked me for all that I had done in the past to help deepen her relationship with God and the Church. I was very grateful for her kind words. I’ve never been involved with Catholic youth ministry to be praised, but it is pretty nice when you can see how God has worked in the life of someone over many years.

Later Friday night a security guard stopped me. I was thinking to myself, “What did I do this time?” and “I hope no one sees me getting busted.” Well, it turns out I wasn’t in trouble. The security guard took off his hat, sunglasses, and radio, and I almost fell to the ground. Standing before me was another former teen who was all grown up. Now, I have to be honest. This guy was the teen that you would always want to send to your neighboring parish because he was such a pain and yet he would continue to come back week after week. I remember having to ask this teen to step outside with me on several occasions to tell him that I loved him with the love of Christ but that his attitude needed to change and then he would mouth off to me. I even talked to his parents once, and his dad mouthed off to me. At that point, I knew why this young man needed as much help growing closer to God that I could offer. Anyway, here we were face to face, and he shared with me that he’s been working security at the conference for years as a volunteer because it changed his life. He introduced me to the other security guards around as “his youth minister” and had a huge smile on his face. I was so happy to see him there (and was excited that I wasn’t in trouble with the law).

Saturday morning I was sitting at breakfast and low and behold another former teen was sitting right across from me. I didn’t have much time so I said hello, gave her a hug, and was off to my session. Later during the day though, I ran into her again. This time we had an opportunity to talk for a while. She shared with me that when she went off to college, her family went through some real challenges that caused her to stop practicing her faith. As life went on, she realized that she wasn’t happy and remembered the peace she had in her high school days when she was involved with faith. She started going to Mass again and has been going deeper in faith over the last two years as she volunteers at the parish that I used to work at. We prayed together, hugged, and went on our ways.

The last surprise “blast from the past” was another former teen that was at the conference. He is now the youth minister for one of the most dynamic youth ministry parishes in the nation.

I travel enough that it is not uncommon for me to run into people that I’ve had the privilege to minister to or with in the past. But running into these 4 amazing adults in a 72 hour time frame was amazing. Why was it that all of these adults (who were in the youth ministry program I ran at the same time) were still committed to their faith when so many young adults flee from the Church? The answer is: they were rooted in Christ. They knew that their faith was the most important thing in life and fully embraced it. I had the honor to work with an amazing team of young adult volunteers who were rooted in Christ so we all worked together to minister to these teens and try our best to be transparent so that it wasn’t any of us that they saw but Christ. We prayed intentionally and intensely. We went to Adoration and Mass together. We had Bible studies and learned about the lives of the Saints. We walked through the neighborhood by the parish and prayed the rosary while we walked. We went to conferences, retreats, and seminars. Most importantly, we authentically loved Jesus and His Church. If you were to ask any of these four young adults what they remembered most about their experience in youth ministry I can guarantee you that they would say something to the effect of, “that’s where I met and fell in love with Jesus.” We did a lot of fun things like going to amusement parks, renting inflatable obstacle courses, going to the movies, and playing video games in the youth room. But, that was never the focus of what we did.

So why do I share this? Unfortunately, I’ve had many people over the years ask me if teens would be “scared away” by teaching the bible and doctrines of our Church. I even had someone tell me once that I shouldn’t teach the teens about sin because they couldn’t understand it and that youth ministry should just be a welcoming place for teens to come at the parish. In my opinion, it’s these same people that wonder where all of the young adults are in the Catholic Church. I’m writing to say have fun in youth ministry, but don’t forget the reason why we are in ministry: to help young people grow in their relationship with God and His Church. When teens are rooted, they can blossom into faithful adults. Don’t give your youth “Wonder Bread” when they deserve the “Bread of Life,” the Eucharist. If you need help transitioning to a more deeply rooted youth ministry, start praying and seeking the help of a mentor. The Church needs more rooted adults. Let’s start creating them by helping our youth get firmly rooted in Christ.

God Bless you,

Gary Foote

CEO Catholic

Posted on Monday, July 18th, 2011 at 4:06 am.

I was at Mass recently listening to a homily when a priest asked, “Are you a CEO Catholic?” Instantly, I started to think about Laurie Beth Jone’s book  “Jesus, CEO,” and then I started to think about who the CEOs of the Catholic Church really are. My wondering mind came back to focus as the congregation was told that CEO stood for Christmas/Easter Only. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be a CEO, but I did have a different take on what the priest was sharing.

I’ve had my fair share of interactions with CEOs (chief-executive officer). Some have been wonderful and some not so much. However, one thing is consistent when dealing with CEOs: acknowledgement. When a CEO walks into a room, everyone takes note. Just by his or her presence the atmosphere in the room changes and everyone’s attention is directed towards the CEO’s needs. The “regular folks” know that they will have an opportunity to meet once again with each other after the CEO leaves, but for the time being, their attention must be on the CEO. This led me to ask the question, “How often have I acknowledged Catholic CEOs?”

Unfortunately, in Catholic youth ministry we can sometimes get stuck in the rut of ministering and developing relationships with only those teens that we are use to, the “regular folks.” But when someone comes for the first time to Mass or a youth gathering (maybe on Christmas and/or Easter), they often times get overlooked. One of my favorite things to do when I am invited to lead a Catholic youth retreat or am asked to speak at a Catholic youth conference is to mingle with people before the event begins. Some people are extremely friendly, and we have a great time getting to know one another. Other times, I have received the cold shoulder and move on to find someone else who is willing to engage with me in conversation.  When the retreat starts or when I am introduced as the Catholic youth speaker for the event, people’s attitudes change. I’ve heard some people even say, “Oh, I didn’t know that guy was going to be speaking.” After I give a talk or when we take a break on a retreat, people swarm me because now I have become “someone” in their eyes. In reality, nothing has changed about me. I’m still the fun loving guy who is passionate about God, the Church, his family, and young people who I was trying to have a conversation before I was brought up on stage or to the front of the room. Now, I start to get the other type of CEO treatment.

What if we treated the Christmas/Easter Only “CEOs” the same way that we would treat the CEO of Apple, Verizon, or Starbucks? Would we start to change the way that people feel welcomed in the Church? Could we build community by allowing ourselves to become so interested in what the new person is saying that he or she might become more than a Christmas/Easter Only Catholic because there is now a place that he or she will want to call home? Isn’t this what Jesus did as He looked at the children, the woman at the well, Zacchaeus, and so many others? My prayer for us all is that we can always keep in mind that our CEOs deserve the CEO treatment.

God Bless you and all that you do,

Gary Foote

Date Night with Jesus

Posted on Saturday, June 4th, 2011 at 3:42 pm.

My wife and I began dating our freshman year of college. We had been good friends before that though. We first met when we volunteered to be a part of a team of traveling Catholic youth evangelists. We worked together primarily as Catholic youth retreat leaders and Catholic youth conference speakers. When we weren’t “on the job,” I remember wanting to spend as much time with her as I could because she was such an amazing person, and I wanted to know everything about her. Part of our agreement with the organization that we worked with was not to date anyone while we served on the Catholic youth evangelist team. Not being able to date was a struggle, but we both honored our commitment and an incredible friendship blossomed during our year of service together.

By the time we started dating in college, I already knew a lot about her. But I just couldn’t help myself from wanting to know more. We were in a deep discussion early on in our relationship, and I forgot to go to one of my afternoon classes because I was so intrigued by what she had to say. I knew that I couldn’t make that a habit. As time went on, we joined a fraternity/sorority, got jobs on campus, volunteered in ministry, and decided to double-major while graduating early. Needless to say, the carefree days our first few weeks of dating quickly faded as our “free time” quickly diminished. I would still walk her to class in the morning, we would see each other in a few classes we had in common (purposely scheduled that way of course), and would call each other to say goodnight before we went to sleep. Although we made an effort to be in each other’s lives, we didn’t have any real quality time together. We sat down and had a long conversation about all of our commitments and how they “got in the way” of our relationship but were all too important to let go of. We both needed money to live on so jobs needed to stay, our fraternity/sorority provided us with friendships that we needed, and our class schedules were the reason that we were in college. Putting our heads together, we came up with a solution, “Thursday Night Date Night.” We made a commitment to one another that no matter what came up during the week, every Thursday night we would spend the whole evening together from 5:00 p.m. – no later that 12:00 a.m. We also decided that we would always go off-campus so that we would have quality time together without any interruptions. Eventually, our “date nights” became legendary on campus, and we had a following of people who would always ask us what we did come Friday morning. It was really funny to be “famous” for that. We were even asked to speak at an all campus seminar on relationships because of the success we were having. “Thursday Night Date Night” moved our relationship from two young adults who were curious about one another to two young adults who were passionately in love with each other and eventually without a doubt in either of their minds got married.

Even though we are married, older, and have kids we still try to find time for Date Nights. Unfortunately, they are not as intriguing as when we would go to neighboring states to try a new restaurant, climb a rock wall, or go to a national park for a picnic. But we still find time to sneak away for an hour to go to our favorite chain restaurant or stay up at night alone and talk about our dreams. The point is, we still invest in each other and are excited to continue to learn more about each other for the rest of our lives.  We don’t let the “have to” discussions of who is picking up the kids when, or doing the laundry, or paying the bills consume every conversation we have. We are more than just two people who share a house and kids. We are committed to each other as best friends.

I remember when I first met Jesus. Yes, He had always been around in my life since I was conceived, but I remember the first time that I really acknowledged Him as a person. I was a freshman in high school, and it was at a youth ministry prayer meeting. When I first really realized who He was, I couldn’t stop spending time with Him. I’d stay up late at night praying or reading the Bible. I looked into what days neighboring parishes had youth ministry nights on the nights that my parish didn’t, and I would go to those too. I talked with friends about their faith. There were even times that I chose events at the parish over doing my homework. I loved Jesus so passionately that I decided to devote a good portion of my life to working in ministry. Then it happened…. I began working at a parish and had to balance a budget, ensure the teens were safe, plan events, coordinate volunteers, and everything else that goes along with working in Catholic Youth Ministry. My built in “Sunday Night Date Nights” with Jesus no longer existed as the coordination of music, greeters, ushers, and Eucharistic ministers at the Youth Mass became a part of my job, and I couldn’t just focus on worship. Jesus and I would still have conversations, but they were usually me praying for (or with) a teen or asking His guidance in the ministry. We lost our one-on-one relationship. I learned that like my relationship with my wife, I needed to start scheduling “Date Night with Jesus” where we could be together uninterrupted, not talk about the kids (the teens in my program), and just focus on us. I’ve responded to God’s invitation to spend an eternity with Him, now I just need to invest in Him on a consist basis so that we can be more than just two people who work together and know a lot of people in common. We are committed to each other as best friends.

So when was the last time you had a “Date Night With Jesus?” If it’s been awhile, maybe you should schedule one. I’m sure He has a lot He’d like to tell you.

In Christ,

Gary Foote