Middle School - Grades 6-8

Our Theme This Year: Encountering the Living Christ

The mission of our Edge program at St. Rose is to bring middle-school teens and their families to an encounter with the living Christ. At St. Rose, our Edge program offers a diverse blend of Adoration, catechetical nights, group-building, service projects, community building, and prayer nights. We also offer a weekend parish Edge retreat during the fall and spring semesters and during the summer.

What Does Edge Look Like Now?

Our Edge program is designed to form teens in the faith. We seek to meet every teen in the program exactly where they are in their understanding of their faith, in their spiritual walk with the Lord, in their maturity as individuals, and in their leadership and service in our community.

We want every middle schooler to experience the living Christ’s love for them and to know, appreciate, and live the beauty of their faith by forming a personal relationship with the living Christ. Middle schoolers are at a transitional stage of life, and we want each of our middle schoolers to enter high school with the best faith formation possible.

Why Do We Have Edge?

Our Edge program exists to bring our middle schoolers to a personal relationship with the Lord and to nurture their faith to prepare them for high school. We strive to form a community of young Catholics who are excited to live out the truth of our faith. Edge seeks to bring joy and life into the Church by bringing out the joy and life in our teens as they grow deeper in the faith.

When our teens encounter the living Christ through the beauty of the Catholic faith, they will transform our parish, our community, and even our culture. Teens are very transformational and passionate, and we have seen transformational teens “get it” in our youth ministry programs and transform entire families into finding a deeper love and appreciation for the faith and sacraments.

How Can I Help Out?

There are many opportunities to help our teens grow in their faith, their love of the Lord, and their appreciation for the sacraments.  Working with teens brings many blessings and graces. There is nothing like seeing the moment when a teen “gets it” and is transformed forever by an encounter with the Living Christ. Please prayerfully consider helping out with our Core Team, our retreats, and our prayer ministry!

Core Team Members

Our Core Team Members engage, mentor, and build relationships with our teens as they grapple with their faith, their identity, their self-worth, and more. Core Team Members facilitate small group discussions and other activities related to the topic of the evening. Each Core Team Member makes a huge impact on the teens they work with.

Core Team Assistants

Our Core Team Assistants help out by supporting our Core Team Members behind the scenes. Core Team Assistants substitute for Core Team Members when they need breaks, help with setup and cleanup, cover check-in and check-out, or help out in other ways.

Retreat Chaperones

Retreat Chaperones help our teens encounter the Living Christ during retreats. When on retreat, teens bond, form community, come to a better understanding of the faith, experience the sacraments in a deeper way, and grow in their love of the living Christ.

Retreat Assistants

Retreat Assistants help out behind the scenes during retreats so that the Core Team and the Retreat Chaperones can focus on our teens. Retreat Assistants take care of behind-the-scenes responsibilities such as cooking, setup, takedown, check-in, check-out, liturgy, and more.

Guest Speakers

Our Guest Speakers give a short testimony of how their lives were transformed by the Living Christ. Our own stories from our own lives mean so much to our teens because of how real, honest, and relatable our own testimonies are!

Prayer Teams

Youth ministry does not happen without prayer support from people in our parish committed to praying for the needs of our teens and volunteers. Our Youth Ministry Prayer Team is committed to bathing everything that we do to reach our teens in prayer.

What Will Edge Look Like This Year?

Our Edge program will be held each week on Sunday from 2:00-3:30pm, before the 4:00pm Youth Mass. Here is our short but exciting list of what is underway this year in Edge program!

The 4:00pm Sunday Youth Mass

Fr. Samuel will be celebrating the 4:00pm Youth Masses beginning on Sunday, August 1, once he gets settled in here at St. Rose. We invite all of our teens and young people to get involved and to consider serving as they feel called in our Youth Masses.

Edge Days

Edge Days will meet 2:00-3:30pm for our time of discipleship and growth in the faith, before the 4:00pm Youth Mass.

Retreats

This year, we plan to host summer, fall, and spring retreats for Edge as well as for Life Teen. While we have held retreats for our teens before, we want to offer more retreats for all of our youth with more consistency, since all of our teens consistently tell us that their retreats draw them ever closer to the living Christ in the Eucharist in a deep and profound way.

Sacraments

When Fr. Samuel arrives, he will be committing much of his time to serving in our religious education and youth ministries. Fr. Samuel will be assisting with our Edge program and making the Sacrament of Reconciliation available at each Edge Days meeting.

Student Leadership

We are looking for teens to step up for leadership opportunities here in our parish and throughout our community. As we restart our 4:00pm Youth Masses, we will be looking for teens to take on leadership roles in the celebration of the sacred liturgy. We also look forward to working with teens excited to help work with bringing in new teens to our youth ministry program and in engaging our community.

Questions?

Please contact Chris Bosn in the parish office at chrisbosn@stroseanthem.com.