Hundreds of teens expected
for North Branch Praise Night
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published August 17, 2007
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Teens from the MP3 Youth Ministry tack up fliers for the North Branch Youth Praise Night, coming up Aug. 23.
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Detroit Hundreds of teens from throughout the northern part of the Archdiocese of Detroit are expected to converge on the grounds of SS. Peter & Paul Parish in North Branch Aug. 23 for North Branch Youth Praise Night.
"We want to expose the kids to Christian music, and also help them grow in Christ through praise and worship," says Fr. Rich Treml, pastor of SS. Peter and Paul and its cluster partners, St. Mary Burnside in Burnside Township and St. Patrick Mission in Clifford.
He says he hopes the event will motivate the teen-agers to focus on Christ, and wants it to be an ecumenical outreach to other churches in the area. "We've sent invitations to all the parishes in the Thumb Vicariate, and to all the Protestant churches in the area," Fr. Treml continues.
Teens from elsewhere in the archdiocese are also welcome to attend the free event," he says.
Fr. Treml says the idea came from nationally known lay evangelist Bill Richart, who will host the evening's program: "The big tent for our annual parish festival is always set up the Thursday before it begins, and the tent is just sitting there empty Thursday night. Bill suggested we use it to bring the youth of the area together."
Music will be provided by Mission, Nate Kreger, Benedetta Lanni and the Saginaw Diocese Praise Team.
"Nate Kreger has performed at SS. Peter & Paul before, and our kids are very gung-ho to hear them again," says Pat Krebs, youth minister for the cluster's MP3 Youth Ministry (M for Mary, and three P's for Patrick and Peter & Paul).
Parishes in the rural north of the archdiocese can "kind of feel like they are forgotten" by the rest of the Church of Detroit, but North Branch had a previous success as host to the World Youth Day at Home event in August 2005, Krebs says. That event drew teens from throughout the archdiocese.
Adults might balk at the idea of driving to an event in rural Lapeer County, "but there isn't a teen-ager around who doesn't love the words 'road trip,'" she says.
The idea is that the praise night could recreate the kind of enthusiasm produced by the WYD event. "We hope to build on the enthusiasm from the praise night to build a large-church youth ministry feeling in this small-church setting," says Krebs, who started her job with the cluster this summer.
In the past, the cluster's youth ministry was pretty much synonymous with the youth choir at SS. Peter & Paul Parish, but Krebs says the concept is to build the MP3 Youth Ministry beyond that.
"The choir is great, and many people got to hear them when they sang at the ordination of Fr. Anthony Camilleri back in May, but we also want to involve kids who aren't singers," she says, adding there are about 60 teens in the group now.
Krebs says she has seen Richart work before, and is confident he will go over well with the teens. "Bill Richart is amazing he's very teen oriented, but also very deep."
Richart has built a reputation among Catholics involved in the Charismatic Renewal and was music director for the Amazing Grace conference at Detroit's Cobo Center back in February.
Richart, a member of St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Bay City, will lead the night's praise activities and play keyboard and guitar with the Saginaw Diocese Praise Team.
He promises a night of "up-tempo, joyful music some rockin', jammin' music."
It has been his experience that teens really respond to contemporary praise music, Richart says: "It's music played with their instruments, and performed with energy and vitality. They're clapping and moving, they get involved with their whole hearts, and if we're doing it right they won't focus on us, they'll focus on the Lord.
Benedetta Lanni is a young woman whose day job is working at the Divine Mercy Center in Eastpointe, Richart says. "She has a just beautiful voice, and she performs with some guys who have an edgy style," he says.
Mission is a Detroit-area group whose co-leaders are Tom Clark, director of religious education at St. Joseph Parish in Trenton, and Mary Schulte. Clark and Schulte both play acoustic guitar and do vocals, and the group also includes a bass player, keyboardist and other vocalists. "The basic idea is to use music to bring people to Christ, but we also have a lot of fun with the music," Clark says.
Nate Kreger is both the name of a 23-year-old guitarist and singer from Lapeer and also the name of the six-member band he leads. "Essentially, we believe music is one way to express our love for God. When we play, we really want to lead people to have an encounter with God," Kreger says.
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