La Dimensión Educativa de la Pastoral Juvenil

The educational dimension of youth ministry is emphasized by the fact that youth ministry is education in the faith. To educate in faith means to lead the young person to a personal encounter with God. This is also considered as an experience of God or religious experience. Religious experience favors cognitive and affective development, the desire for the absolute, the creation of relationships, commitments to justice and the construction of personal and social life history and, in this sense, religious experience becomes an educational fact. The evangelizing action in youth ministry is not carried out through isolated actions, but through a process, that is, a set of educational dynamics that lead young people to open themselves to their personal and social reality, to seek answers to their concerns, to be actors in society and to build their life project. In pastoral ministry, every gesture is at the same time and with the same intensity an educational event and a proposal of the mystery of God for the life of young people. Youth ministry has educational means - objectives, contents, educational places, processes, methodologies, those responsible for education, etc., which can undoubtedly be evaluated.