St. Joseph High School is launching a new religion program this year, believed to be the first of its kind in the south. Under the direction of Father Matthew Kemp, students are being challenged to put their Christian commitment into action through personal encounters.

Lectures by guest speakers on pertinent topics relevant to today’s teenager are reinforced by group discussions in an effort to avoid reiteration of material year after year, and to allow for a meaningful response to Christian ideals.

“Faith”, states Father Kemp, “is much more than an above-the-shoulders assent to doctrine; it is the response of one person to another person”. St. Joseph’s new course evolved from a belief that previous courses and approaches were primarily intellectual in their appeal. “They were not,” Father Kemp said, “completely geared to involve the total person of each student.”

Father Alan Dillman, pastor of Our lady of Lourdes, and Father Conald Foust, administrators of the Community of Christ Our Brother, are guest lecturers for the first school quarter.

Junior and senior religion classes meet three times a week. The guest lecturer initiates the week’s program, speaking on a subject such as ecumenism, the Christian and peace, contemporary moral problems, the Christian Church and poverty, marriage, and the Christian and race. Christian witness and personal encounter are major themes for the year.

Classes are broken down at the next meeting into small groups or “communities” to discuss the topic covered in the week’s lecture. Students themselves conduct the community discussions. Forty upper classmen serve as community leaders. A special training course in leadership development and group dynamics is being given for these community leaders by the Southeastern Area Red Cross.

Each week the third class meeting remains flexible. Movies may be shown or projects under taken to concretize what students have learned in the course of the week’s program.

Ninth and 10^th graders also meet three times a week. Classes are structured along more traditional lines, but with greater emphasis on audio-visual materials and worship experiences.

Emphasis is on class and community Masses, rather than on celebration of the whole school.

Development of individual responsibility, response and commitment is the aim of St. Joseph's new religion program. Father Kemp says, “Our hope is not merely to inform Christians but to form responsible Christians.”