Peer Ministers: The Servant Leaders of AHC

Campus+Ministry+news+and+the+Peer+Minister+class+members.

Photo by Chianna Meza-Cuadra

Campus Ministry news and the Peer Minister class members.

What better way for LOTAs to spend their senior year than taking a whole class to help them explore their faith and give them leadership opportunities among peers? Peer Ministry is a special course offered by Campus Ministry for rising seniors. 

Juniors have just recently been offered the opportunity to submit their application for the course. This includes a form to fill out and a recommendation letter from their parishes’ peer ministers for the one-semester or two-semester class, which is not part of the student’s GPA.

Junior Madison Keefe, has completed the application process with friends to get into the class together. 

“I’m really excited to take the course with my friends.”

Teacher Linda Ruszkowski offered some insight for juniors on what to expect in this class, explaining that the class is mainly a way to gain and improve leadership and planning skills. Ruszkowski described there are three main projects the class works on, “retreats, Mass/liturgy, and prayer life/chapel.” This means getting to know and do the behind the scenes for retreat activities/planning as well as writing prayers and setting up Mass and chapel.  

Photo by Chianna Meza-Cuadra
The bulletin board right outside the chapel lists the chapel’s activities for each day.

Senior Olivia Madaras, a student currently taking the class, talked about her experience with the Peer Ministry class. She, as are others applying or already in the class, was led to the class through her faith. Being in a Catholic school, each student is already pretty close to their own faith so Maderas was interested in joining the class because she had heard a lot of good things about it. She explained how her friends had suggested she join it and she thought she should try it. She also has also been close to her faith and wanted to continue her journey in faithfulness throughout her high school journey.

“I was mainly recommended the class by friends who had taken it.”

The course offers many leadership opportunities as well as learning student planning skills (for Masses and prayer services), how to share their faith with peers, and how to keep their faith strong. Overall it is a completely “different kind of class,” Madaras stated. The course offers a different style of learning in general comparison to other classes.

The Peer Ministry course calls students to be, “servant leaders, hanging up posters, writing prayers, and in general responding to needs of the community,” Ruszkowski shared.

She described it as a fun class to take to build leadership skills, help facilitate campus ministry programs,  and grow closer to one’s faith.