The archdiocese of Halifax- Yarmouth hosted a launch party at Saint Mary’s University on Jan. 10 for the eighth Steubenville Atlantic summer youth conference. The conference will be held in the archdiocese July 4-6 at Dalhousie University, the first time it has been held outside of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish since the conference came to Canada in 2007.
The Steubenville conferences are an outreach program of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. They run 18 conferences across North America, with about 40,000 young people ages 14-18 attending each summer. Youth will engage in praise and worship and hear from dynamic faith-based speakers.
The first Steubenville conference in Toronto will be held on July 4-6.
The Steubenville Atlantic move to Halifax comes as organizers try to grow the conference.
“We’re looking to attract more people. Halifax is a little more central,” said Aurea Sadi of the office of pastoral life and the new evangelization for the archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth.
Last year about 700 youth and chaperones attended. This year they hope to fill the venue with 1,000. The conference dates have also changed from the August long weekend to July 4-6.
“Young people were finding they were having to choose between family stuff, work, tournaments or Steubenville,” said Sadi. She said this way people can use the conference to kick off their summer.
The archdiocese wants to show teens “that God is fun, that church is far from boring and that the music can be really rocking stuff that inspires, empowers and helps you meet God in a different way,” said Sadi.
The launch party was meant to get people excited, with worship music, vibrant MC’s and inspirational witnesses.
Archbishop Anthony Mancini welcomed the teens to the launch, thanking them enthusiastically for coming on a Friday night and asking them to bring all their friends to Steubenville.
This year’s conference theme is “God Is,” from Isaiah 12:2. Mancini said the theme is like a declaration that God exists. “In our world right now that is not a self-evident truth.” He said it’s hard to make that declaration on our own, but the conference community strengthens the message.
Grade 12 students Matt Ross and Adele Orovec shared with the youth their previous experience at Steubenville.
Orovec was reluctant her first year, but her mom encouraged her to give it a try. The conference gave her a sense of belonging.
“It’s really hard at my school,” said Orovec. “No one else goes to church or believes in God. For me it (the conference) gives me confidence to know I’m not alone. When I go to school, I can be who I want to be, because I met all these amazing people that have the same beliefs as me.”
Ross said that Steubenville is “a party and a half.” Also, he said “it let me know how big of a deal my faith should be to me.”
Guest speaker Pete Burds flew in for the launch party, and he’ll be back in the summer. Burds, a campus youth minister at St. Thomas More High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has worked on Steubenville conferences for the past seven or eight summers.
“A lot of times we see God as a master or a judge,” said Burds. “The idea with the theme (God Is) is to heal the image of God a lot of people have, to see Him as a Father who loves us, who wants a relationship with us, who has a plan for our lives.”
Grade 9 students Cat McDonald and Riley Pilapil went to the launch with their confirmation class. McDonald attended Steubenville for the first time last year.
“I was brought up in the Catholic faith but I never took it seriously until I went to Steubenville,” she said.
Pilapil is going this year for the first time.
“I heard it’s a blast,” said Pilapil. “I’m looking forward to meeting new people and having fun.”
(Brown, 23, is a fourth-year journalism student at the University of King’s College in Halifax.)