The Strive end-of-the-year rock climbing adventure in May 2025.
There is a different energy that comes with the start of a new year. Life feels busy again, filled with schedules, new routines, and the return to work and school after a break. Here at Christ the King, the word I’ve heard most lately is excitement. Something is stirring in our community, especially among our youth. As the year begins, two programs that have become staples at Christ the King return: Blaze and Strive. These ministries help tweens and teens learn how to live out the Gospel in truth.
When families attend Mass together each week, teens regularly encounter Scripture and the Sacraments. This shared, consistent practice helps teens recognize that faith matters. From there, it can lead them to ask how faith fits into their choices, relationships, and everyday experiences.
To assist our teens in answering these and many other relevant questions, we offer Blaze for girls and Strive for boys. The other young adult leaders and I of these ministries intentionally walk with our youth to learn the world that they are navigating. The realities, stressors, and social pressures vying for our youth’s attention can be overwhelming. These ministries create space to name those challenges honestly and to model what it looks like to respond with faith. In that process, teens encounter the greatest truth of all: Jesus surpasses every competing voice. He calls us higher and invites each of them into a personal relationship with Him.
The importance of Catholic youth ministry cannot be overstated, and it is powerful to see how deeply our young people recognize this. In a world that often encourages comfort over holiness, young people are not so different from adults. When teens see their peers practicing the faith, it gives them the confidence and courage to do the same.
Blaze and Strive emphasize that no matter our age or the times we live in, we are called each day to live the truths of the Gospel. Each week, we share those truths in creative and engaging ways, through conversation, prayer, games, snacks, and time to build genuine friendships.
Meeting on Fridays, Blaze begins January 23 and continues through May. Strive will start meeting in March.
To our youth at the start of 2026: you were not made to fit into the world’s mold. You were born to stand out. What might it look like to stand out for something greater?
Kate Braunstein is the Coordinator of Evangelization and she is a member of the CTK Ringers ministry.