What Works?

As I start to think about what will come next from my work on young adults and social justice, I'm wondering about the best way to reach and educate young people about Catholic social teaching. Is it online? All the research shows that this is where young adults go first to get their information and the answers to their questions. Lots of information can be organized on websites, and flashy multimedia presentations are both eye-catching and memorable. But can a website adequately engage the depth of Catholic social teaching? And what about the fundamental call to relationship that is the foundation for CST - can this be conveyed online? 

Is it a book? Young adults want to share their stories and learn from others. But theirs is also the generation that no longer reads newspapers in print, that has moved from emails to even shorter text messages, that has been criticized for their short attention spans (even as the result of too much Sesame Street watching in their early days). My book-lover's heart sinks every time I hear a young person offer the equivalent of "who reads books anymore?" But the reality is that the multiplication of communication media has given us infinitely more choices in conveying information.

And what about the plain fact that both a website and a book allow for purely solitary pursuits, with no connection to community or engagement in direct action? If Catholic social teaching is intended to teach us what it means to live in relationship with each other and work for justice through concrete actions for the common good, then it hardly suffices to read about it on my own in front of a computer screen or curled up on a couch. Besides, one of the clear cries I have heard from young adults is the desire for connection, for community, for real interaction beyond social networking sites. While I embarked on this project thinking that the Internet was the way to reach today's young adults, I'm no longer convinced that it provides the whole answer. The newest ways aren't necessarily the best ways, and the computer age has hardly satisfied our deepest longings as humans. But Web 2.0 is changing the way we communicate, and I believe that good ministry often starts in the world of the people it wants to reach and uses what's working in order to show that the Gospel is always true, in every age. 

As I ponder these questions, I am also reflecting more on Christ's own ministry. For my own spiritual journeying these days, I am trying to deepen my understanding of the person of Christ and what his life, ministry, person, and message mean for my own life's work. Jesus' ministry was personal - he called individuals by name and gathered a small but dedicated group around him to support his work of preaching, teaching, and healing. He told people stories - parables that seemed to speak to the simple familiarity of their own lives, but in fact challenged accepted ways of thinking in powerful and uncomfortable ways. He lived and ate and moved among the poor and the outcasts; he did not look for affirmation by the powers-that-be or try to win favor with those in authority. So how would Christ move and live and teach among us today? How can Christian ministry take Jesus as our model and invite people into a church that he would recognize? I don't want to boil the question down to the pithiness of a WWJD bracelet. But in discerning my next steps on this journey of young adults + social justice, I honestly wonder what Christ's model has to teach me. 

To reach young adults, does the message of Catholic social teaching need to go online, in a book, into churches, onto the streets? How, when, and where? What works best?