Conference reaches out to black youths with workshops, musical acts

Published: 2007-07-18

BUFFALO, N.Y. (CNS) -- The 10th National Black Catholic Congress helped further its goal of getting youths involved in the church by offering a variety of workshops and other events geared toward young people. Ansel Augustine, who coordinates black youth and young adult ministry in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and works with campus ministry at Xavier University of Louisiana, presented the workshop "Keeping Your Hustle Holy" to teach teens how to live their daily lives according to God's plan. He used a game involving more than 100 crumpled balls of paper. The game's goal, he said, was to get rid of the balls of paper by tossing them to the other side of the room. The difficulty was that the teens on the other side of the room had the same goal. At the end of five minutes, time was called. Augustine told the teens that the pieces of paper represented problems. As a teen handled one problem, several more showed up to take its place. That's when he told the teens to unroll the papers. On each were listed the priorities of faith, finances, family, friends, feelings and fitness. Augustine told the teens that instead of focusing on problems, they should concentrate on these priorities. He drew on his own experience as a survivor of Hurricane Katrina to illustrate the point.

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