By Thea Jarvis

They called it Life Teen, a model of life and liturgy for and with teens.

But the congregation that turned out for a recent Life Teen Mass at St. Ann’s in Marietta represented a broad, colorful spectrum of parish membership.

Grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, preteens and toddlers, young adults and singles joined teens in their joyful noise – prayer, music, song and Scripture, breaking bread, sharing fellowship with the characteristic energy and spontaneity of youth.

While folks in the pew piggybacked on the teens’ enthusiasm, the liturgy, celebrated every week at St. Ann’s and at two other parishes the archdiocese focused on satisfying a spiritual hunger endemic to the restless years of adolescence.

The Life Teen Mass that draws nearly 400 teenagers a week around the altar of St. Ann’s is a blend of contemporary culture and traditional values. Teens take part as lectors, cantors, greeters and Eucharistic ministers. Homilies are fashioned to meet their needs. The Mass unfolds against a steady backdrop of high-volume religious rock that shakes the body and stirs the spirit.

“The center of the (Life Teen) program is the Eucharist,” said Randy Raus, youth minister at St. Ann’s who implemented the program in the parish last September. “We’re using our greatest resource as Catholics to bring teens to Christ.”

Following the liturgy, teens gather for a 90-minute Life Night, where contemporary issues are presented in the context of solid Catholic doctrine. Planned for and by teens with adult input, Life Nights expand the dimension of community to social and informational levels. Teens are given a forum in which to hear and be heard.

Life Teen is new to north Georgia. Begun in Mesa, Ariz., in 1985 by Father Dale Fushek, the program started at St. Ann’s after Tucson transplant Greg Treanor introduced it to Raus.

“I wanted to share some of the experience that had been special to me,” said Treanor, 19, who moved to Marietta in his junior year of high school and joined St. Ann’s youth group as a hedge against the transplant blues. “I told Randy about the (Life Teen) program. He took it from there.”

Treanor and Raus participated in the Life Teen training conference in Mesa in June, 1992. Patti Jugenheimer of St. John Neumann in Lilburn and Immaculata Marnell of St. Theresa’s in Douglasville, youth ministers who, like Raus, later implemented the program in their parishes, attended the same conference.

Now a student at Kennesaw State College, adult core members who help coordinate Life Teen at St. Ann’s, offering support and friendship even as they provide sound role models for teens in the program.

Rozlin Broome, 20, another core member, said the power of Life Teen was captured by one young woman who had become an atheist but returned to the church after experiencing a Life Teen liturgy.

“A Mass like this can’t happen if there isn’t a God,” she had told Ms. Broome.

Life Teen draws all manner of teens, “from jocks and bops to hippies and preps,” Ms. Broome said.

One of those it attracted was Chris Carfi, 15, a sophomore at Pope High School in Marietta. Carfi’s engaging smile and generous welcome is the first thing a visitor notices at the entrance to St. Ann’s. With a handful of other teens, he distributes song sheets and greets the faithful filing into the church.

During Mass, Carfi’s clear, strong voice carries out over the congregation as he reads the Scriptures. He has caught the fire of faith and it fits easily, naturally.

“I get to do something with everyone I want to do it with,” Carfi said of Life Teen. Young people get involved in the program because “it’s a peer pressure thing. They see most of their friends come here. They don’t realize it’s a whole package.”

Carfi, an aspiring actor, delights in Life Night programs he has directed and facilitated. In small group discussions that follow the weekly presentations, “You can really share and open yourself up if you choose to,” he said.

Life Teen changed all that. Now a member of the Servant Squad, teens who take a leadership role in the program, he enjoys the dual supports of friends and faith.

Life Teen’s stated purpose is to create an environment that leads high school teens into a relationship with God. The goal is met through celebration of the Eucharist, presentation of Catholic teachings, and the love and acceptance teens like Carfi experience in the program.

“You don’t give them your opinion about morality,” said Life Teen founder Father Fushek, pastor of St. Timothy’s Church in Mesa. “You give them conservative Catholic doctrine” in a modern context.

Life Teen is sometimes criticized for being too conservative in its liturgies, Father Fushek said, “but we are absolutely down the line Vatican II.”

Life Teen developed out of Father Fushek’s experience with teens during his field training days in seminary.

“I hated it,” he said candidly. “They were a difficult group to work with.”

When an especially promising young man left the Catholic Church and joined a fundamentalist community, a disappointed Father Fushek asked why.

“For 16 years of my life I went to Mass every week,” the teenager told him. “Never once when I was there did I feel loved.” After just one visit to the new congregation, he had felt welcome and appreciated. The young man later became a minister in that church.

“That was a conversion moment for me,” said Father Fushek, now 40. He vowed to “do everything in my power so that (teenagers) don’t leave,” sending the message that “the church loves them and has something for them.”

The state of youth ministry in the church is “fairly dismal,” said Father Fushek, who was never swayed by the argument that numbers don’t count.

“There are thousands that we’re losing,” he said, adding that teenagers are looking for an experience, not an explanation of Christ.

“Sacraments are an experience of Christ. I really and truly believe in the presence of Christ in Eucharist. Everything else is secondary.”

How is Life Teen different from other youth ministry models that have come down the pike?

“It works,” Father Fushek said modestly. “I wish I could take credit for it,” but success comes because Life Teen “makes Eucharist the center of faith life.”

Today, some 150 churches have incorporated Life Teen into their parish life and about 600 parishes have ordered Life Teen training videos and explanatory booklets.

“We don’t have a product to sell,” Father Fushek insists. “People actually came to us,” asking what it was about St. Timothy’s model that attracted teens.

In addition to the experience of Christ in the Mass, the program gives teens open-armed hospitality, clearly stated boundaries and personal ownership.

“It’s the double-edged sword of youth ministry,” said Patti Jugenheimer, “challenging teens to be who they are called to be in the Body of Christ,” while at the same time offering them “the gift of hospitality.”

Mrs. Jugenheimer, with 10 years’ experience in youth ministry, said Life Teen is a model that proves “it doesn’t have to be boring in order to be good.” Experiencing Christ in the Eucharist “is the starting point” that can transform teen lives.

St. Ann and St. John Neumann, suburban churches with parish populations that number in the thousands, have a significantly larger turnout at Life Teen Masses than does St. Theresa’s in Douglasville. Yet, even in a smaller setting, the program has been “overwhelmingly successful,” said Immaculata Marnell, youth minister at the parish named for the Little Flower.

“The numbers at our Mass keep increasing each week,” she said. Between 27 and 35 teenagers turn out for the 12:30 p.m. Sunday liturgy, where a five-piece band and 10-member choir keep things humming.

“We’re getting our feet wet this year,” said Mrs. Marnell, “seeing where we can best serve (teens).”

Parents have told her that before Life Teen it was difficult to get their children to Mass. “Now they want to be there,” she said.

All three parishes have had visits from other churches eager to learn about Life Teen. And as teens are touched by the program, “it’s changing the adults, too,” said Raus, who went full-time as St. Ann’s youth minister last month.

Mother Teresa attends a Life Teen Mass when she is in Phoenix for medical treatment, he reported, and during Pope John Paul II’s U.S. tour, he celebrated Mass in Phoenix with a Life Teen format.

“It’s sanctioned from way up high,” Raus laughed.

Life Teen is about “making (teens) think being Catholic is cool, that it’s all right to share your faith,” he said. “You don’t have to be a square-peg Christian.”