World Youth Day 2019 USA Leader Guides Stateside Leader Guide | Page 36

community with the talents and resources to This will help you plan future events and develop your promotional tools, especially pilgrimages and give you insights for the next youth or young adults who may be better WYD gathering. Perhaps the stateside connected to the wants/needs of their own celebration will even inspire your local generation? Consider inviting them into the community to host an annual celebration of process so that they can share their gifts with young people. Strong feedback can help you the Church through this stateside event. make the case for such a development. Finally, never underestimate the value of one- Overall, one of the key goals to any WYD on-one invitations. Ultimately, you are leading experience, international or stateside, is to young people to an encounter with Christ, so form and equip young missionary disciples. personal invitations are key in this regard. How can you continue to keep this at the heart of your follow-up efforts? Consider After the Event how you can connect stateside participants to Like many retreat experiences, once the spiritual directors, mentors, pastors, lay “high” of this particular event wears away, it ecclesial ministers, religious men and women, can be difficult to see or feel the effects. So or others willing to accompany young people. much of the international experience of WYD Consider how you can support their ongoing is sharing the story and experience. It is also journey through faith formation, social justice important to connect the stateside pilgrims and opportunities for service and charity, with those who traveled overseas. You are prayer and spirituality, and invitations to highly encouraged to use the resources in this leadership in the community. Consider also guide that keep challenging pilgrims in the how to draw attention to God’s call in their weeks and months after WYD. This will help lives – and provide options for discernment to encourage the young people to become of that calling, including introducing them to missionary disciples. those committed to their vocations to marriage, ordained ministry, or consecrated Even though WYD does not occur often, it is life, as well as those who have been called to important to offer people an opportunity to service in the Church as lay ecclesial ministers evaluate the event. You can either provide and through the lay apostolate. All of these hard-copy evaluation sheets or offer a link to methods are key to building up a community an online survey after the stateside gathering. of missionary disciples in the Church today. 35