God sent me a light of encouragement for RCYM when I really needed it this past summer.
Here’s Mark’s story…
In 2015 I was asked to lead a freshman boys’ small group.
I was still pretty fresh in my role as the director of youth and young adult ministry at the Diocese of New Ulm and the Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus were leading campus ministry at Cathedral High School. In the two years leading up to my time at the Diocese, a NET team of about a dozen young adults had served at CHS. They did great work, but when they left, it created a bit of a vacuum.
During their tenure, they were leading boys’ and girls’ small groups for every high school grade. When they left, the Handmaids wanted to continue that effort, so they called me to ask for help.
“We’re wondering if you would be interested in leading the freshmen boys’ small group. It would be during their lunch break, so around 11:30,” they said.
Since the chancery was just up the hill – and since I fancied myself as a leader of youth – I obliged.
“Great! Why don’t you come down during their theology class to introduce yourself and give a little pitch,” they said.
So, one day I traveled down the hill in New Ulm and gave a rousing call-to-action to the Cathedral High School freshmen boys. They gave me the blank stares typical of that age, but I thought it went over well enough. I gave another pitch as the date of the first small group approached.
Then the date arrived. I had prepared a nice little agenda for the meeting and was fully prepared for at least 75% of the freshmen boys to show up, excited to talk about life, Jesus, and maybe some fart jokes (I always felt in my element working with teenage boys; I was able to condescend to their maturity level and really speak their language…or maybe it was the other way around).
The bell rang and I waited for the boys to show up.
I heard the commotion of students in the hallway.
Things started settling down within a few minutes.
One boy entered the classroom.
I greeted him – his name was Mark – and asked if anyone else was coming.
“Probably not,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I waited a little longer, but no one else came.
This was going to be a VERY small group.
The next week arrived, and once again, only Mark showed up.
After the third week of only Mark showing up, I started feeling pretty insecure. “I’m THE director of youth ministry for the Diocese! How can this be happening!?” I thought.
Maybe I should go down to the cafeteria and join the students during their lunch break instead of expecting them to come to me. You know, “meet them where they’re at.” People in my youth ministry circle were always saying that we need to get away from “voluntary youth ministry” and instead get into the trenches with the kids. But something didn’t sit right with me when I thought about joining them in the cafeteria. Maybe it was the fact that no one knew me and it would’ve been really awkward for a random adult to sit at the lunch table with them. 😅
So I never did. And after a few weeks, I resigned myself to the fact that just Mark was going to show up.
Eventually Advent arrived and I found a Fr. Mike Schmitz video to show him (I definitely cut back on the planning aspect of leading the small group by this point)
(Btw, if you want a little pick-me-up, listen to Fr. Mike Schmitz videos on 0.5 speed😆)
I showed the video and Mark turned around and said to me, staring off at the ground, “Yeah…I don’t make enough room for Jesus in my life.”
To a discipleship-focused youth minister, those words were music to my ears.
“Okay,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. “Well, the best way to do that is to start praying everyday. So, let’s look at your schedule and figure out when you can do that.”
“I don’t have a whole lot of time before school and then I’m at school all day, then I have practice,” he said.
“When is practice?” I asked.
“It’s either right after school, or there’s a little window between the end of school and the start of practice,” he said.
“Great,” I said, smiling. “Well as it turns out, your school is attached to a church. So whenever you don’t have practice right after school, you’re going to go into the Cathedral to pray for 15 minutes during that window. Do you drive to school? Is anyone dependent on you for a ride?” I asked, knowing he had younger siblings.
“No, I just drive myself,” he said.
“Okay, so on those days when you have practice right after school, get your prayer in before you go home,” I said.
I went over some of the basics of mental prayer and then the bell rang.
As our meetings went on, Mark found it most helpful to “vent” to God. He would spend his 15 minutes telling Him about his day and relating his feelings to Him; as a teenage boy, his feelings gave him plenty to talk about in prayer.
One day, as we were gathering before a diocesan staff meeting, a priest exclaimed in amazement, “So I’m walking through the Cathedral the other day and I look over and there’s Mark Schommer! Just sitting in the dark by himself!”
I smiled.
Mark and I stayed in touch through high school. After that, we slowly dropped communication. I would occasionally check in (mostly just to recruit him to be a Totus Tuus missionary), but he was an excellent pitcher with a future ahead of him, so his summers were always quite busy.
Fast-forward to last summer.
Mark and I hadn’t spoken in a while. I found myself standing in the back of a conference room watching my oldest son take part in the awards ceremony for the camp I used to direct, this time as a spectator. It was an emotional experience for me – I had literally poured my blood, sweat, and tears into making that camp what it is today – and so I didn’t pay much attention to the guy with a mustache standing on the other side of the room. I thought he was a parent I remembered from my days as diocesan director, but I couldn’t remember his name.
After the ceremony, the mustache-man approached me, “Kevin! How are you!?”
He seemed awfully friendly for a guy I barely knew, and for the life of me I could not remember his name. This happens to me frequently, so my brain went into “can’t remember this person’s name” mode: context clues, context clues, who is this guy? Come Holy Spirit…
Then it dawned on me: the man with the mustache (and very large neck and biceps) talking to me was Mark Schommer!
“Give me a life update, Mark!” I said.
“Oh, there’s so much,” he said, looking off into the distance. “Well, for starters: I’m going to seminary!”
“No way!” I said. “Mark, that’s awesome! Wow!”
“Yeah,” he replied. “And I just have to thank you, because you are a big part…well, basically the reason I’m going. Remember when you lead that small group at Cathedral and I was the only kid who showed up?”
“Oh yeah, how could I forget?” I said. “I use that story all the time to tell people that it’s not about numbers.”
“Well, you taught me how to pray back then and it got me through a lot. I mean, I was engaged and playing professional baseball at one point!”
We agreed to meet up before he left for seminary and I got the whole rundown at a later date.
Mark is proof that rural youth ministry is worth it.
Legend tells of a perilous journey in which St. Francis Xavier crossed a snowy mountain peak hoping to find a village on the other side. He crossed the mountain, only to find the village abandoned, and along with the abandoned village, an abandoned baby left to die in the snow. He melted some snow in his hand and baptized the infant just before it passed away. “This one soul was worth it,” he said, and then turned around and headed back over the mountain.
Evangelization isn’t about numbers; it’s about individual souls. Jesus would have died on the Cross even if there were only one soul in the world needing saving. Our God is the God who leaves the 99 just to save the 1.
All across the country, there are kids just like Mark waiting to be told that they need to make more room for Jesus in their life. Kids waiting to feel seen and loved by the Catholic Church. Kids waiting to find some light in this dark world. Kids waiting to start their prayer life.
And all across the country, there are adults waiting for encouragement and support to tell kids they need Jesus, that He loves them, that the Church is here for them, and that they can meet the Lord in prayer and He can give them light and life.
And that’s why Rural Catholic Youth Ministry exists. To equip the called and support them in their mission to serve rural youth, even if only one shows up. A course that can train anyone to lead a youth group and a community that can support those who are. And it’s all tailor-made for rural people by a rural person.
So let’s go find some more Marks.
Why? Because
Jesus was a small-town kid.