1 High School, 62 Discipleship Groups, 333 Students, and Unbelievable Results
Note: In 2017, Dowling Catholic High School contracted with Andrew Ministries to explore the development of small group discipleship within their Catholic School campus ministry. Everett Fritz assisted in the hiring of Addie Croegaert and he helped Addie to recruit and train a team of mentors to launch their new discipleship focused campus ministry. Everett has since been a resource for Dowling Catholic as they have grown the ministry. Today, Dowling Catholic High School’s “Ut Fidem” ministry is one of the most successful high school campus ministries in the United States. The following testimony is written by Addie Croegaert. Addie shares the incredible results of what they have accomplished and how a focus on discipleship has transformed the entire school culture.
I can still remember the first initial months in the office waiting for our ministry to take off. I had been hired in July and it was now October. While the first few months were filled with launching a prayer team, developing paperwork, and recruiting and training adult mentors, I was now anxious to get to the meat and potatoes of the ministry- connecting with students.
I strongly believed that at the end of the day this was God’s ministry. If he wanted to make it happen, he would. I pleaded and prayed in the chapel, “Lord, bring me the right students and the right mentor to get us off the ground. You know who is to make up our first small group.” We were a school of 1400 and in a small city of close to 700,000.
In an effort to meet more students I put on an evening of Adoration on a Sunday night. In the middle of the prayer event I saw a young boy get up from his pew, walk directly up the center aisle, and kneel at the foot of the Eucharist. I remember the Lord specifically highlighting him to me. I made a small request, “Lord, if you want him to be in a small group, bring him to me.”
The next day around 2:00 in the afternoon, he walked into my office. Despite my poorly worded invitation, he ended up helping us start not only one small group, but our first THREE. Turns out, he was the quarterback of the varsity football team, and I had no idea. The most amazing part of it all- Jesus brought him to us.
Since 2017 our ministry has grown tremendously. We finished our fifth school year with 62 small groups, or 333 students who were participating in small group discipleship with an adult faith mentor each week. Our growth tactic? Word of mouth from students. If students are truly introduced to the person of Jesus Christ, then they can’t help but share with other students. This is a process that must be rooted in authenticity and go at a different pace for each person involved.
We started our ministry, Ut Fidem, in 2017 after coming to the honest conclusion that our high school graduates couldn't be far off from the national stats which showed that more students walk away from their Catholic faith after high school than remain rooted in it. Current studies show that students actually decide whether or not to keep the faith when they are in late middle school and high school. Our high schools have become the battle grounds for the future of the Catholic faith. If we truly want our students to keep the faith, then we need to begin investing in students in the same way Jesus did with his disciples 2000 years ago.
Ut Fidem is a simple set up. Same gendered groups of 5-6 students meet with an adult mentor each week to be discipled in the Catholic faith. While study is an aspect of their meetings, our groups don’t follow a set curriculum. Instead our mentors are trained to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance and groups grow their devotion to personal prayer, the Sacramental life, understanding of Church teachings, and enter into the lifestyle of an on-fire Catholic.
What began as a dream and a prayer to help students keep the Catholic faith beyond high school, has begun to turn into a lived reality for many who have participated in Ut Fidem. C1C consulting, a research arm of Pew Research, performed a 4-year study on Ut Fidem and found that 59% of Ut Fidem graduates were still attending Mass 4 or more times a month in their senior year of college. The study also found that Ut Fidem graduates were more likely to be committed to their faith, feel more confident in defending it, continue growing in their faith in college, and engage in faith behaviors like daily prayer, Mass, reconciliation, and faith groups than non-Ut Fidem alumni.
Our name, Ut Fidem, comes from a longer Latin phrase meaning to keep the faith, and was inspired by 2 Timothy 4:2-7.
“Proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
ADDIE CROEGAERT is the Director and Founder of Ut Fidem. She has a background in teaching and entrepreneurship. Addie has received missionary training from the Fellowship of Catholic University Students and is a graduate of the Catechetical Institute. Addie is passionate about the New Evangelization and strives to continue to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit in any way He calls.
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