Story by Reagan Scott
PHOENIX (SNR) - From Dec. 30 through Jan. 3, FOCUS (the Fellowship of Catholic University Students) hosted its biennial Student Leadership Summit, or SLS.
According to FOCUS, SLS is designed to train leaders in discipleship, prayer and small-group facilitation. This year’s conference was held in Phoenix, and was attended by students across the country.
Despite its “student” name, SLS is for more than just students. In addition to the Collegiate Track for students, there was a Campus Ministry Track offered for campus ministers and school chaplains and the Lifelong Mission Track for parish priests, parishioners and seminarians.
Throughout the conference, attendees for each track had the opportunity to meet in small groups to learn about the “whys, whats and hows of prayer, leadership and missionary discipleship” according to FOCUS.
Father James Morin, an associate pastor at St. Cecilia Parish in Hastings, had the opportunity to take six seniors from St. Cecilia High School to SLS. As a priest and teacher, he had a unique opportunity to participate as a priest and see the impact that the conference had on the students.
Father Morin had the opportunity to attend FOCUS’s biennial SEEK conference (before it was called SEEK) when he was in the seminary, and again when he took a group of seniors from Lourdes Central in Nebraska City to SEEK last year.
“It was by far the most effective thing in their faith that I did,” Father Morin said. “Students got to meet people in the college they were going to and got to make those connections before they got there which was really cool.”
He described SLS as an event with an aim to provide tools to those who want to be better disciples.
“For these high school students, I think it really shows them how big the Church can be. There are a lot of their peers who are asking the same questions. To see that many students living out their faith… it opens their eyes into the Catholic world.”
Father Morin said some of his favorite parts of the conferences include seeing friends from the seminary that he wouldn’t otherwise see, and giving students the chance to get to know him outside the classroom setting.
“We talk about life in a way that’s a little freer and more honest,” he explained. “They can see me as a pastor and a priest rather than just a teacher.”
Father Morin said that having the opportunity to give students these experiences gives him a lot of hope for the future of the Church and he enjoys the positive responses he gets from students who have attended.
“A lot of the students I’ve had, they’re there because they choose to be there,” Father Morin said. “That gives them a sense of that they’re the ones doing and looking. I think for a high school student, they find that exciting.”
