Catholic Thrive , a new series of world-class events for young adults and singles, holds it’s first conferences over the upcoming Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends in California and New York.
The mission of Thrive is to transform the lives of young adults and singles by drawing them out of the isolation in which they often live, and into the family life of the Church.
The Catholic Thrive conferences are inspired by the National Catholic Singles Conferences (NCSC) which began in 2005 and continue to draw large and enthusiastic crowds. Dave Sloan, Catholic Thrive co-founder and conference emcee, was a keynote speaker and emcee at the first six National Catholic Singles Conferences.
Thrive conferences feature some of the world’s best-loved speakers, including Phil Mango, Mary Beth Bonacci, and Father Stan Fortuna, CFR. These powerful speakers help us understand what it means to be true men and true women, forge stronger relationships at every level, face down and defeat bad habits and the assault of evil, and give our lives fully to the mission for which God has made us.
Events include live praise and worship and pop music from the world-famous Fr. Stan and the 12 Gates Band and a DJ for dancing as well. Mass is offered each day along with perpetual adoration, reconciliation, and walking rosaries. There are opportunities to make care packages for the poor and homeless. These packages are distributed the day after the conference, and everyone is invited to participate in these encounters which are led by the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR’s) who have extensive experience with this work.
The Saturday evening conference gala is a benefit for Singles Serving Orphans (SSO). SSO, which began in 2008, has conducted eight mission trips to Casa de Elizabeth orphanage in Sonora, Mexico, and is expanding this year to include work with orphans in Jamaica. More information on the missions is available at the conference website.
Thrive conferences also include extensive opportunities to get involved with ongoing Catholic groups in the conference areas and across the country. The primary focus of the talks, music, spirituality, and the many conference exhibitors and sponsors, is to get every person connected forever to the Catholic family.
Catholic Thrive Anaheim takes place across the street from Disneyland, and includes beach parties and sports, and tours of LA and Hollywood and the California Missions. Catholic Thrive New York takes place at the New Yorker Hotel and the adjacent Manhattan Center, located across the street from Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan. Conference related activities include shows, outings in Central Park, tours of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and museum excursions.
Thrive is helping to drive a dynamic movement underway in the Catholic Church to reach the largest group of people in every city in America, a group which has until now been largely overlooked—singles. There are over 100 million singles in America, forming a majority of all households. In our cities, the rates of singleness are much higher, and the marriage rates much lower. It is not good for the man to be alone. A full, rich, and thriving Christian life can only be lived in a family context, in God’s Family, and that’s what Thrive is all about.
Until now, there has been no effective way to reach this new, enormous demographic with the message of all that the Catholic Church has to offer. Catholic Thrive conferences and the CatholicThrive.com website are helping to change that.
