Second Semester Course Offering
27 January to 12 May 2022
Thursdays, 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm via Zoom
FUNDAMENTALS OF YOUTH MINISTRY
Fr. Jerome Vallabaraj, SDB
Professor Emeritus of Youth Ministry and Catechetics
Pontifical Salesian University, Rome
This fundamental course on Youth Ministry is intended to assist the participants to become more effective thinkers so as to minister to the young more fruitfully. Hence, it is not a course on “how-to-do” or “techniques” of Youth Ministry but a course on the non-negotiable fundamentals of Youth Ministry.
Vision without action remains a dream. Action without a vision is a mere pastime. Action with a vision is fruitfulness. Vision in Youth Ministry is formed and shaped by those non-negotiable principles, values, convictions and strategies that emerge from one’s Christian faith perspectives, supported by a reflection on the contributions made by the human sciences with regard to the young, and from the critique of the current practices on behalf of the young.
The course elaborates the seven non-negotiable pastoral-pedagogical fundamental criteria in every Youth Ministry setting. It briefly presents the drawbacks of the three prevalent management paradigms (Scientific, Human Relations, and Human Resource) and then focuses on Animation Paradigm as a more compelling paradigm in Youth Ministry since it is founded on the spiritual character of human nature and desires to initiate the young into the process of conferring meaning, truth, identity and values.
About the Visiting Professor
Fr. Jerome Vallabaraj, SDB is a Salesian priest from Tamil Nadu, India. He holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology with specialization in Youth Ministry and Catechetics from the Pontifical Salesian University, Rome. From 2002-2013, he was Professor at the Faculty of the Sciences of Education at the same University. He is currently professor at the Don Bosco Theological Center, Kavarapettai, the theological center of the Chennai Province of the Salesians.
He has authored a number of books on Youth Ministry, including “Empowering the Young Towards Fullness of Life: Seminal Thoughts on Some Pedagogico-Pastoral Requisites in Youth Ministry” (2003), “Animating the Young: An Introduction to a Holistic Paradigm of Youth Ministry” (2005), “Empowering Through Animation: A Pedagogical-Pastoral Paradigm for Youth Ministry” (2010, with S. Korath), “Faith-Focused Mentoring as a Paradigm for Youth Catechesis: Towards the Articulation of a Frame of Reference” (2012), and others.
Enlistment in the course will be held during the regular Second Semester registration period beginning on 10 January 2022. Students may enroll only as credit (with grade). No audit or sit-in students are allowed. Estimate tuition and fees for non-LST students enrolling only in this course is PhP 8,800. Non-LST students and cross-enrollees are requested to email admin@lst.edu for registration instructions.
