Late archbishop’s vision leads to campus and young adult ministry
By Natalie Hoefer
When Matt Faley was offered a position in 2010 as associate director of the archdiocese’s new Office of Young Adult and College Campus Ministry, “I said, ‘Sign me up—this is beautiful,’ ” he recalls.
The office was the vision of then‑Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein.
“Really, he was out on the frontier with this ministry,” Faley notes.
The late archbishop commissioned the office in 2007. Faley became its director in 2013.
‘Start from the inside out’
Archbishop Buechlein’s vision for young adult ministry “was to start from the inside out,” Faley says. “He was thinking of starting with one parish in Indianapolis, and then work out from there.”
The parish chosen for launching the archbishop’s vision for young adult ministry was St. John the Evangelist in Indianapolis. The program eventually came to be called Indy Catholic—just one part of the archdiocesan effort for young adults and college students.
Indy Catholic offers those ages 18-35 opportunities for spiritual growth in community, such as through Emmaus groups for Scripture study and spiritual support, Theology on Tap, service outreach, mission trips and more.
The group outings and intramural sports Indy Catholic also offers may sound strictly social. But Faley says through these activities, stories abound “of people really coming authentically to Jesus and the Church—it’s how we know things are happening.”
Further along the path of moving young adult ministry outward, Indy Catholic is now an archdiocesan ministry for the four Indianapolis deaneries.
“With what we’ve created here in Indy, now we feel like we have a tool box of ministry that we’re able to bring to different areas,” says Faley.
“I really feel like this is the future of ministry to young adults in the archdiocese, taking what we learned here in Indy to the unique needs of each deanery.”
‘Leading people to Jesus and community’
The office also offers programs and services for young adults outside of Indy Catholic. They can perform parish assessments “to see what we can do to help make a parish young-adult-friendly and to have programming for young adults,” says Faley.
Two years ago, a program was launched to train young adults “how to lead other people to Jesus and community all centered on the Bible,” says Faley.
Nearly 70 individuals have completed the program through training sessions held in four of the archdiocese’s 11 deaneries. The graduates then lead a local Emmaus group.
Another traveling young adult program Faley’s team developed is called First Fridays. At the monthly event, held at a different parish in the archdiocese each time, young adults gather for a night of adoration, praise and worship, a meal and fellowship.
The office also holds an annual retreat.
“We had close to 130 people last year,” he says. “It’s like everything we try to do in a year, we try to do in two days.”
In all, about 4,500 young adults participated in the ministry’s events and programs last year.
Building relationships at colleges
When it comes to college campus ministry, says Faley, “Our biggest role is to be a resource for those ministries that already do exist.”
One of those ministries is the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). The organization sends missionaries to campuses to form missionary disciples of Christ through the Catholic faith. In part through promoting the organization, Faley’s office has helped expand FOCUS from one campus to three.
His staff also seeks to build new relationships with Catholics “on campuses where their needs aren’t being met yet,” he adds, noting that four of the 15 colleges and universities in central and southern Indiana do not have a Catholic student organization on campus.
“We’re trying to see if we can help start a ministry or help find a chaplain or parish that can serve the Catholics on [those four] campuses.”
Faley’s office coaches archdiocesan priests newly assigned as campus chaplains. Once a semester, they bring the chaplains and campus ministers together at a different campus in the archdiocese “to create a space for them to talk and share best practices,” says Faley.
With the 18-35 age group being the leading demographic leaving the Church, Faley says the work his office does is “like triage.”
He sees the work of the archdiocesan college campus and young adult ministry as a perfect example of how “the Church is starting to be bold and creative in how we change this paradigm.”
(For more information about the archdiocesan Office of Young Adult and College Campus Ministry, go to www.archindy.org/youngadult or contact Matt Faley at 800-382-9836, ext. 1436, 317-236-1436 or mfaley@archindy.org.) †