By Mary Beth Marino

Five hundred students packed the parish hall of Corpus Christi the weekend of Feb. 3-5 to hear their favorite disc jockey priest, Father Don Kimball. He came from Southern California to bring a very special message to teenagers and their parents.

After a full day of sharing, loving and communicating; after talking to parents and teachers the previous night; after a cookout and dance that lasted non-stop for four hours, Father Don gathered all the kids around the stage Saturday night, told them to sit down and gave them this special message: “The God that I know is a God that runs around the world with a little wrinkle up the side of his nose, where he’s casting little plots, full of mischief, trying to get people to fall in love as often as they can.”

Not a sound could be heard as each teen individually and collectively listened to this “awesome” priest who won their affection.

“Maybe that’s what we forgot about…We keep thinking we can only fall in love once, but to be Christian is to fall in love as often as you can, and learn how to love properly. Maybe if that happens, you and I are going to start to mean something in this world just by the way we live our life. And I would hope that by meeting other people, we’re also bringing them to God,” he confidently stated.

Father Don was delivering this message to a background of music. He then introduced the final song for the night, Donna Summer’s “Love Moves In Its Own Circles.” As she sang, Father Don would break in over the mike, saying, “and it roams around; it holds our life together”…(that’s God kids, listen to the words.) Father Don continued to “decode” the song, bringing a Christian context to the words of the song. He saw some of this love “dancing around tonight,” and said he saw “God go by me a few times but when I looked again, he was dancing.” He concluded the song by telling all the kids to hug the person next to them and pass it on!

Relaxing with his shoes off and feet elevated, this teen minister answered a few questions for the parents chaperoning the dance. “How does this decoding work to keep our kids interested in going to Mass as teenagers?” he was asked. Father Don, with a gradual smile, answered that parents need to listen…listen to the teens and their music. If they are into music, use that to get through to them, he said. “If you don’t you lose them.” “There are teenagers out there who are having a relationship with God, but the parents do not recognize it because it isn’t done their way,” he said, adding that it is very important for the parents to realize this. “To force them to “our” way of thinking, just turns them off, and they could “turn off” God altogether.”

Father Don says the teenagers need support in this tough world today, for many reasons, including peer pressure, drug and alcohol pressure, rejection and lots of others. “They need to know that they are loved by God, and he’s on their side, no matter what they go through,” he said.

Father Don says it is in this decoded message technique, always revolving around love, that God shows himself to the teens. He recalled a song that simply went “Ya, Ya, Ya,” and he decoded it to mean “Yahweh” (Lord). “Kids will relate to that,” he said.

“He’s cool! – He’s awesome! – A neat way to bring God to us,” were the cries of teens who “begged” that Father Don’s religious tapes be bought for the parish. These tapes are rock music, with Father Don’s “decoding” interspersed and the teens want to hear his version.

This is what Don Kimball brought to Atlanta – to youth, to parents, and to parishioners from throughout the archdiocese. There was a general feeling that Father Don Kimball, the “happy disc jockey” would not be a stranger to Atlanta in the years to come. The teens and parents alike, want him back!