Union Funeral Home Lytwyn & Lytwyn

Heidi Schlumpf) Bloomington, Minnesota — Although Lisa Lytwyn has worked in campus ministry for almost a decade, she had never attended a national convention of the Catholic Campus Ministry Association before. Visit our brand new Online Classifieds to learn about job opportunities, events, retreats and more! But an emphasis on the "new evangelization" at this year's gathering motivated her to trek to the Minneapolis area May 29-June 1 to network with 300 others who work in campus ministry. The theme for the conference — the organization's first after a hiatus of five years — was "Called: That Your Joy Be Complete.""It has been wonderful to be with other campus ministers and see that there's a lot of us interested in evangelization," said Lytwyn, coordinator of campus ministry at the Catholic Student Center at the University of Maryland in College Park.Among the attractions for Lytwyn was keynote speaker Sherry Weddell, a leader in the new evangelization movement, which emphasizes a personal relationship with Jesus and tends to attract more traditionalist Catholics.In an address titled "God Has No Grandchildren," Weddell explained that faith — including Catholicism — is no longer inherited, so church institutions must evangelize the one third of young Americans who don't believe in God and don't even have memories of religious practice."We're living in 'mission-dom' now, no longer Christendom," she said to an audience feverishly taking notes. "The rules are different. All institutions must be missionary now."Weddell urged the campus ministers to shepherd young people into "apostleship" or "spiritual adulthood," which she estimates only 2 percent of baptized Catholics reach. Apostleship builds on personal conversion that then inspires "missionary disciples" to try to bring others to a similar conversion."If we don't have disciples and apostles, we might as well close up s...