Nic Frank spoke to us this afternoon about families and the impact that we can have on our own family. He began by making a comparison to Canada’s own All Dressed Ruffles. If you took out any of the flavors, these chips wouldn’t be the same. Something would be missing. The same can be said for our families. If we took away any of its members, they would be changed. Something would be missing.

Everyone’s family is different, but regardless of the family you come from, our hearts long for family. We were brought into this world through family and they are all around us. That being said, it is easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to the families we see on TV shows and social media. It can be easy to begin asking ourselves “Is this as good as it gets? Could it be better?” Additionally, some families have been taken down a path that no one intended. The path of divorce, addiction and other hurts can be devastating.

Continue reading

Dan and Julie Mohan are volunteering at this weekend’s conference as part of the production team. Dan is our Live Stream Engineer and Julie is the Assistant Producer of this weekend’s conference.

As a senior at Chaminade, Dan attended the very first SteubySTL conference in 1999 at Marquette High School and the next one in 2000 at SLUH as a volunteer. Fourteen years later he reconnected with an old friend from his youth group, Denny Handley, and in 2015 he began his current role as the Livestream Production Engineer.

Though Julie never attended as a teen participant, this is her 4th year volunteering. In addition to her role this year, she has served as a chaperone and has been a spotlight operator.

Continue reading

The challenge this weekend is to make that ‘Amen’ we always say mean something. Brian challenged our attendees to look at all of the passion we have inside us this weekend and imagine if we took that to prayer. For many of us we’ve only scratched the surface of all God can do with us. The enemy wants you to be silent and doesn’t want you to do anything. 

We are taught in this society that being a man of God is simply not good enough. We are afraid of people “bullying” us and are intimidated. We are called this weekend to stand up and be the man God wants us to be. However, we need people around us to give us strength and hold us accountable. 

Continue reading

For the women’s session, the men left the building so Lisa Cotter could just address the ladies. She stressed the importance of our female friends because being feminine can be complicated and only women truly understand what it is like to be a woman. We need each other. But how do we create deep and lasting friendships?

Three Types of Friendship

Aristotle said there are three different types of friendship:

Friendships of Utility– This type of friendship is based on someone being useful to you, like a friend from a class.

Friendships of Pleasure– These friendships are based on the fun times together (teammates, friends from a club, etc.)

Friendships that are useful or pleasurable are not necessarily bad, but as soon as the usefulness or pleasure is not there, the friendship ends.

Friendships of Virtue (Excellence)– These friendships are based upon doing the right thing at the right time, in the right way. These are deepest forms of friendship.

Continue reading

This morning as we gathered for Mass, Fr. Chris Martin shared with us times in his life where he did not feel like he belonged. Many of his stories took place outside of the country. Being 6’4 he often stands out, but one story in particular was when he traveled to Calcutta, India to teach with the Missionaries of Charity. Fr. Martin likened the Sisters to the Marine Corp. of the Catholic Church. Every morning, the Sisters would go to the trash dump down the street and pick up the children that had been thrown away and would bring them back to their house to care for them. He was amazed by their amount of charity and love and he did not feel as if he belonged.

Continue reading