Friends of Theology Meeting

For those who attended last semester's FOT (Friends of Theology) meeting this will be review, for those who have yet to hear about this topic, I hope you find it as exciting as I do.

Last year a few of us majors, most of the Theology department, a brother, and our awesome campus ministers sat down and had a discussion that focused on a few main points:
1) What can we do to help "get the word out" about our incredible theology
department and the hard-to-find majors like Youth Ministry and Religious Education?
2) How can we help upcoming theology majors, PYM majors, and RE majors, gain more experience in our fields outside of class and internships?
3) What can we do to brighten the faith of, not only our St. Mary's campus, but the surrounding Winona community, and, ultimately, the church as a whole?

What we came up with was a semi-concise group of ideas that draw not only excitement, but a sense spirituality as well. These ideas were as follows:

1) An on-campus faith- based weekend retreat for high school students. Benefits: The high school students would get a sense of the campus and the Lasallian experience that can be had here. It would also give volunteers (majors and non-majors alike) a chance to flex their major specific skills (for instance, if a Marketing major wants to try their hand at marketing our retreat, they could do that). Additionally, for people in the theology majors, we could try our hand at things a parish might ask us to do in a job, like learning to manage a budget, etc.

2) A Christ Ambassador group. This would be a group of us who would go out to various parishes and put on a night of some kind. Benefits: We could try our hand at event planning for the different nights, public speaking, and leading. Also, the high school students would hopefully be getting a little taste of what we offer here at St. Mary's and learn how they could live out their faith here as well.

Obviously, we have much to talk about and even more to do. So if you are interested come to our first meeting of the year, which will be: Thursday, Sept. 13th, at 8:30pm in SM222 (right across from the Theology Suite).

Thanks so much for reading this and I pray for Christ's peace to be with you as the rest of your school year settles into a steady rhythm.

Peace, love, and joy in Christ,
Eric Michael Duffy
Junior, Pastoral Youth Ministry major