By Kathi Stearns

Kathy Wolf has been named youth consultant for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, effective July 1, and will provide support, outreach training and certification for youth ministers and volunteers.

Ms. Wolf currently is the youth minister at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Atlanta where she has been employed since June 1989.

A faith experience led Ms. Wolf away from a career in broadcasting to youth ministry. “I feel that I was called by God to be a youth minister. When I was in my early twenties I had a conversion experience that really threw me for a loop. It gave me a 180-degree turn around in my life, making me focus on what God’s will was for me … I had to really ask God what He wanted me to do with my life,” she said.

Throughout a long discernment process Ms. Wolf found in prayer answers to the questions with which she struggled. “… I thought if God wanted me in youth ministry I’d be hired even though, at that time, I didn’t have the education. I was hired at St. Jude and went on from there …” Ms. Wolf served as youth minister at St. Jude the Apostle parish for a year before accepting the youth minister position at IHM.

She received her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and her master’s degree in pastoral studies from Loyola University, New Orleans.

In September 1991, when the youth consultant position for the archdiocese became vacant, Ms. Wolf volunteered to serve in the role “to provide a voice for youth ministers.” During Archbishop James P. Lyke’s illness he asked Sister Roberta Schmidt, CSJ, then Secretary for Education, to ask someone to be a contact for youth so the Archdiocese of Atlanta would be represented at World Youth Day in Denver. “Since I was the warm body, Sister Roberta asked me if I would be the contact,” Ms. Wolf laughed.

She arranged transportation and housing for 185 young people of diverse ethnic backgrounds as she orchestrated Atlanta’s youth pilgrimage to Denver. “It was incredible,” she said of her Denver experience.

She was hired to fill the newly created archdiocesan position by Father Terry Young, now Secretary for Education.

“We advertised nationally for the position and received over two dozen applications, both from in and out of the archdiocese,” Father Young said.

“Kathy is a successful youth minister who has an intimate knowledge of the needs of youth ministry in the archdiocese. The position has been vacant so long we felt (the person) must be involved from the very beginning and know the needs of youth ministry in the archdiocese. The downside, of course, is she also knows all the problems. I’m really delighted with the choice.”

Ms Wolf believes that it is important for youth ministers to help teens establish a foundation upon which they can build their Catholic faith.

“Our society is such that there is no connectedness anywhere,” she said. “A relationship with God is something you carry with you for the rest of your life. God is the only thing in the world that remains constant. If you don’t have a concrete foundation in your relationship with God, transition periods like college, careers and marriage are going to be more difficult or scarier than normal.”

Her conversion experience left her with the assurance that she is never alone. “If there is something I want for kids, I want them to know that beyond the fact that God is always with them, there exists a community of people that loves them and supports them and who will be there for them when they need us.”

Ms. Wolf believes that in total youth ministry young people must take ownership of their program. IHM began the Life Teen program earlier this month. “This program does say to the priests, ‘Look at your audience.’ Teenagers have their own culture. To meet the needs of the Hispanic culture, we have a Mass for them; to meet the needs of the children we celebrate a children’s Mass,” she pointed out. “Teens need to be reached out to because they are neither children nor adults. They have special needs which we as a community need to meet and if we don’t they’ll go away to a place where they feel more loved. That is a crime, when kids are baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church, yet they don’t feel like they are a part of it.”

She believes it is imperative that youth ministers receive spiritual and physical support. “Being a youth minister today is about being at home at 11 o’clock at night and having a kid call and say “I’ve run away from home.’ It’s trying to bring kids together from different schools who don’t know each other and trying to build a community with them; it’s about trying to help teens find a balance in their lives while providing a safe place for them.”

One of her priorities will be to establish a uniform training program for volunteers and ministers. “I’ve already started kicking around some ideas about how we can better train youth volunteers … so that every volunteer throughout the diocese gets the same training. In some churches there is great training going on, and in others there is none,” she said.

For Ms. Wolf simply saying that she supports the youth ministers is not enough. “I won’t have any problem going to any rural church in North Georgia and paying with the youth minister to determine how the needs of the youth can be better served. I know that sounds simplistic, but we need to focus not only on the program but the relationship between us as ministers with out Lord.”

Throughout her six years as a youth minister she jokes she has established three rules for new youth ministers. “If you don’t have a prayer life, get one. Your day off is the second holy day of the week. Number three is always use a pencil with your calendar.”

“Most importantly you have got to love kids and love the Lord,” she concluded. “It’s as simple as that.”