By Thea Jarvis

On the steamy Tuesday following Labor Day, a group of teens gathered in the parish hall of Holy Cross Church in Chamblee to kick off a year of faith and fellowship. Billed as an ice cream social, the evening had a can't lose combination of food, prayer and socializing.

"It's a building. We have to start here and build," said Sue Tuvell, a member of the Holy Cross volunteer youth ministry team which will facilitate home Masses, service projects, guest speakers, discussion sessions and socials for the 1990-91 school year. "We all have to get comfortable with one another and then introduce things a little at a time."

Mrs. Tuvell, a CPA who has raised four children and had three years' experience in teen ministry, has a positive feel for what catechists refer to as total youth ministry. This holistic, building block approach to spirituality for adolescents emphasizes religious instruction as a sensitive movement from fellowship to spirituality to liturgy to study and service, not an abstract notion that can be pulled out of the air and forced to fit.

"Hopefully, they'll learn some things about the Catholic Church, feel some things that they haven't felt before," said Mrs. Tuvell. "We're not expecting miracles, but we're really excited about the program."

At Holy Spirit Church in Atlanta, Mary Jo Pratt has been directing total youth ministry since the summer of 1988. The eighth of 11 children, with a growing family of her own, Mrs. Pratt's background allows her to share her faith naturally with others.

"Religion has always been important to my family. I feel comfortable with religion and God. The kids like who I am and love my husband," Mrs. Pratt remarked, adding that "if we are comfortable 'doing religion' in front of them, then they'll be comfortable too."

Mary Jo Pratt is a Notre Dame graduate and certified teacher. Now a full-time salaried staff member at Holy Spirit, she admits starting her total youth ministry "from scratch. I just did things I enjoy and the kids enjoy," she explained.

Currently, this includes everything from rafting the Chattahoochee and hosting a tennis tournament to adopting a pediatric unit at Grady Hospital and serving at Saint Francis table, a downtown soup kitchen, once a month. Religion classes are held Sunday mornings from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Retreats, youth Masses, penance services, outdoor Stations of the Cross and the rosary are intermingled with home parties and social outings to offer a healthy mix and balance.

Holy Spirit has 55 teens registered for religious education. Each month, over 100 newsletters are sent to parish youth with a calendar of upcoming events, birthdays and new items.

"We try to do things that are uniquely Catholic because so many kids go to different schools. I know how busy (students) can be. I don't want to make anything mandatory," Mrs. Pratt explained. "There's so much going on in the world. We bring them in first with fun things, then, hopefully, they'll be comfortable with religion later."

The idea of a total ministry to youth is not new to the Catholic Church. Publication of "A Vision of Youth Ministry" by the U.S. Catholic Conference in 1975 presented a goal for adolescent catechesis that wold be implemented "to, for, by and with youth."

Taking the old Catholic Youth Organization format as a model, total youth ministry would mean "reaching into the daily lives of young people and showing them the presence of God," according to the vision statement. Catechesis would be "a return to the way Jesus taught," the USCC said, quoting from Archbishop John Quinn's paper at the 1974 Synod of Bishops in Rome, "putting ministry before teaching and people before instruction. In this ministry, religious content is a way of life for the person ministering and the young person reached through a sequential development of faith dependent on the readiness and need of the adolescent."

The 1975 document indicated that effective youth ministry works to nurture the total person, thereby enhancing spiritual growth. Drawing young people into the life, mission and work of the Church community, youth ministry must include word, worship, community-building, guidance/healing, justice and service.

"Any youth ministry in a parish should have dimensions of these components if they're doing total youth ministry," suggested Mary-Anne Plaskon, who has spent 14 years in religious education and is currently youth minister at Holy Family Church in Marietta.

Ms. Plaskon holds a graduate degree in theology from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore and directs a program that includes 30 elective classroom courses covering such topics as responsible decision-making, love and lifestyles, differences between Catholics and Protestants and teen integration into the larger Church Community.

"Sunday night is out time for formal religious education," said Ms. Plaskon, who has 120 students registered and a pool of trained volunteers to implement the program. On Wednesday nights, the parish offers alternating components of youth ministry identified in the NCCB vision statement. Service projects, speakers, scavenger hunts and socials are all possibilities. Weekend retreats and youth liturgies are integral parts of the program.

"All (components) are equally important" in developing the total person, Mary-Anne Plaskon believes. Affirming the success and effectiveness of total youth ministry, she realizes that this workable model needs support from Church leadership.

"I don't see national support heading in (the) direction (of total youth ministry). We're not filtering trained professionals into the field, not encouraging people to go into professional youth ministry," she observed. "The vision is there but we need to train people to carry that vision out."