PULSE: Prayer, Unity, Leadership, Service, Evangelization
Objective: To establish effective, holistically Catholic, peer-led ministry among teenagers from ages 14-19 and specifically to empower those teens who have been fully initiated into the Catholic faith through the Sacrament of Confirmation with the skills to evangelize within their families and peer groups.
The Five Stages (Components) of PULSE
PULSE is chiefly based on 5 of the 8 components of Comprehensive Catholic Youth Ministry passed down by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in their document Renewing the Vision: A Framework for Catholic Youth Ministry (USCCB, 1997). These components are Prayer, Unity (Community Life), Leadership (Leadership Development), Service (Justice & Service), and Evangelization. It is the goal of the PULSE program that teens who show an interest in leadership be themselves led into a deeper relationship with Christ while witnessing their faith life to their peers. Additionally, the three remaining components identified by the USCCB (Catechesis, Advocacy, and Pastoral Care), will remain the primary responsibility of parents, youth ministry core team and staff, and the Pastor or Spiritual Director to ensure that the needs of the teens within the program are consistently met.
Teens in the PULSE program are encouraged to participate in each of the five components identified above. To this end, the components are laid out in a logical order. Beginning with a foundation of Prayer, teens are encouraged to foster a relationship with God through Community Life, Leadership, and Justice and Service, that will ultimately lead to them becoming evangelizers in their communities (Evangelization). The core attributes of each component and how they depend upon one another are described below.