How can you get young people involved in the Church? A recent gathering in Arlington, Virginia gave a tantalizing answer:

At a youth rally this weekend at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Catholic teenagers came together to celebrate their faith and meet Catholic teens outside their own parishes.

As Bishop Paul Loverde celebrated the mass held in the school’s auditorium, a rock band, complete with keyboards, bongos and electric guitars, began to play. The band continued as Loverde, a man with decades of experience in the church, distributed the Eucharist to a coterie of priests and deacons who joined him on the stage.

After the hundreds of t-shirt and jeans-clad teenagers received communion, they ran excitedly across the hall to the school’s gymnasium where Catholic pop-metal band Superchick played a punishingly loud set. Instead of a reception with coffee and doughnuts, the worshipping teens snacked on Papa John’s pizza and Coca Cola.

“Kids have to pray hard but they play hard too,” Deacon Matthew DeForest said. “We have to meet them where they’re at.”

The Catholic youth rally is an annual event held by the Arlington Diocese, which covers all of Northern Virginia. Each year, the region’s Catholic teenagers gather to meet fellow Catholics and to re-energize their faith. The theme for this year’s rally was “Get Your Faith On.”

“The main purpose of this is to bring all the youth together at the beginning of the [school] year,” said Kevin Bohli, the head of youth ministry for the Arlington Diocese. “We want them to think of the church as more than just their parish.”

In addition to the rock music, the teens were treated to a motivational speaker, a performance from an improv comedy troupe and a seminar on appropriate dress called “Modest Is Hottest.”

DeForest is a 26-year-old deacon who gives his young parishioners fist bumps. He said that today’s teens are looking to the Catholic Church “to learn how to be a leader. … These kids are pumped to be involved in any way.”

Other Christian teenagers may be turning more towards Evangelism for their spiritual needs. But Northern Virginia has a large and vibrant cohort of Catholic teens, DeForest said. During the Mass, Loverde asked anyone who is considering the priesthood to rise. Much to the delight of DeForest and the other clergy in the room, nearly a dozen young boys stood up.

Jim Schuster, a youth minister from Leesburg, said that the key to getting young people involved in the church is to simply be honest with them. “They want to see people living an authentic Christian life,” he said. “Kids can tell [if you’re authentic]. They can smell out a phony from a mile away.”

Check out the link for more, including additional pictures.

Photo by Louise Kraft, Arlington Connection