There was no diocesan launch, no glossy campaign, no strategy document handed down from above. There was a barbecue, a church full of young adults from five different parishes, and a group of leaders who simply decided it was time to stop going it alone.
On Monday 3 August, young adults from five parishes across the archdiocese gathered for the first night of a new collaboration across the south-western suburbs named ‘Ignite’: the launch of a young adults event and an informal collaboration supported by the Parish Renewal Team within the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation (SCE) and Sydney Catholic Youth (SCY).
But everyone present was quick to point out whose night it actually was.
“The best part about this is that it’s actually being led by the leaders that are in these parishes,” said Campbell Evans, from the SCY team.
“It’s not an archdiocesan thing. It’s leaders from these parishes who have come up with it. They’ve asked for it. It’s what they want. They’ve put it together and it’s beautiful.”
The young people came from St Mary Queen of Heaven at Georges Hall, St Therese at Padstow, St Patrick’s at Revesby Heights, St Christopher’s at Panania and St Luke the Evangelist at Revesby for a concelebrated Mass, a shared meal, and an ‘Ask a Priest’ session that ran on the strength of the young people’s own curiosity.
For Mary Moufarrej from St Mary’s Queen of Heaven, the reason for the collaboration was obvious long before the first meeting.
“For us young adults, we don’t have a lot of ministry in our churches,” she said. “But for our young children to grow, they need young adults to inspire them and to guide them.
“Our goal is to set up a young adults group in all our churches, then we can start to guide the youth. Then the youth will grow. It’s like a domino effect.”
Laura Hanna from St Christopher’s called it groundbreaking.
“This has been in the works for a few months now, and seeing the fruits of our labour, all our hard work and God’s blessings all combine and bring us tonight, it’s so amazing.
“We are seeing friendship, fellowship, community. We’re seeing God’s love truly activated and alive in his youth today.”
Her sister Jessie, put it plainly: “Faith in numbers, faith in family. At the end of the day it’s all of us getting together and making a bigger family, no matter what church you’re from and celebrating the same thing. God.” Fr Dariusz Basiaga, parish priest of St Luke the Evangelist at Revesby, was one of the initiators of the collaboration.
“We started this idea in response to the fact that it’s not easy for a single parish to do the event,” he said. “We don’t have so many young people or young adults, but if we bring them together, we have the opportunity to support each other.”
Fr Basiaga was equally clear about the role the Parish Renewal Team played in turning a good idea into a night on the calendar.
“The Parish Renewal Team helped us with the preparation, especially bringing us the data, looking at this area, how many young people do we have, how many are involved in the church. We brought the priests together and then we brought the young people together.”
The word that kept surfacing through the evening was collaboration and the conviction that what happened at Georges Hall could happen anywhere.
“There’s a massive future for collaborations like this across all of Sydney and Australia,” Elliott Bowen, Parish Renewal Manager said.
“Different parishes who might struggle to put something together themselves can pool their resources. And when you put people together and there’s already a critical mass, you get momentum, like we’ve seen tonight,” said Elliott.
Campbell Evan’s from SCY’s message to any young adult who feels they’re operating in a silo was direct: “It’s only a step away. It’s only a question of, ‘Could we have a young adults group in our parish? Are there other people out there struggling with the same things I’m struggling with, asking the same questions?’ And the answer is a pretty big yes.”
 and Sydney Catholic Youth (SCY).){kind=link}