For the past few years, the Church of the Assumption in Broadview Heights hosted The Culture Project’s Cleveland team, a small group of young adults with a big mission.
The missionaries live in the old convent from fall through the end of the school year while they exercise their ministry throughout the Diocese of Cleveland. Recently, the Assumption community bid farewell to the 2021-2022 missionary team.
“We are a group of young people striving to live a life that honors God and we have all seen the ways our culture tries to replace him,” said Cameron Bick, Cleveland team leader. “We aim to restore our culture and show young people the beauty of living a life with God. We remind people of their God-given dignity, and we go into churches and schools and discuss the issues their young people are dealing with. We invite them to live the lives of virtue to which they are called with a large focus on chastity and sexual integrity.”
The Culture Project, which is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, recruits, trains and assigns missionary teams to dioceses throughout the country each school year. Twenty-one missionaries served during the past year.
Bick, a San Francisco, California native and a graduate of Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit school in California, was one of five Cleveland team members. Others were Michelle Nguyen of Boston, Massachusetts; Brenna Dillon of Overland Park, Kansas; Lily Kamphaus of Leipsic, Ohio; and Peter Ogden of Baltimore, Maryland.
The Culture Project assists with needs throughout the eight-county Diocese of Cleveland and at its resident campus. At Church of the Assumption, that included the eighth-grade confirmation retreat, the monthly Thank God It’s First Friday faith and fellowship gathering, various school activities and parish events like Stations of the Cross, Bick said.
“As servants of the diocese, we help out in a number of unique ways, but the vast majority of our work is in the classroom,” Bick said. “We speak to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults in schools and parishes on human dignity, sexual integrity and virtuous social media use. In addition, we also offer a parent talk and a pro-life apologetics talk.”
Outside of the usual talk schedule, the team’s work depends on the diocese. Bick said every team prays outside of an abortion facility on a regular basis and some teams give back in different ways.
“In our case, we’ve volunteered our time helping out at Zelie's Home and have been asked to help out with the confirmation group at Assumption whenever possible including helping run their retreat, while another team regularly helps out with a homeless ministry,” he added. Zelie’s Home, a nonprofit ministry, empowers pregnant and parenting women to take positive and effective action on behalf of themselves and their children. It offers housing, support, career training and other resources to pregnant women and new mothers.
On top of the good they do, TCP team members said they also are fulfilled personally by their mission work.
“What I find most energizing are the few times a kid will come up to me after our program and thank me, or when a student asks a question during our Q&A portion that’s moved me to tears and says, ‘Thank you for telling me I made good in God’s eyes,’ or that they’ve suffered the hardships of bullying or suffered from addictions, and for them to come up to me and thank me for believing in them … I will never forget these encounters. They give me so much power in our mission,” Bick said.
Team members also contribute regularly to their team’s social media presence. In a recent blog post, “Your True Identity Lies In Christ,” Bick discussed the burden young people have trying to identify who they are and what makes life worth living.
“Since we’ve been tasked with taking so much ownership over our stories, it’s very difficult to allow God to take control,” he wrote. “Luckily for us, holiness is not a threat to our individuality! Trying to live a life in accordance with God will not take away your uniqueness; it will remind you of it and allow you to see it with greater depth than before. Trusting your identity in the hands of your Father, who loves you beyond your capacity to understand, will drive you to know who you truly are,” Bick wrote in his blog post.
As their time on Assumption’s campus drew to a close, the Cleveland team reflected on what members learned while ministering in the diocese.
“The Assumption parishioners taught us what a healthy and generous parish looks like. They showed us more hospitality and kindness than we could have possibly asked for and made us feel as if we'd been a part of the community for a long time,” Bick said. “We're going to take that example of hospitality with us for the rest of our lives. When one day we're in a position to give back to missionaries in our parish or diocese, we will remember how generous the Assumption parishioners were to us and follow their lead.”
Click here to learn more about The Culture Project.
Photos: Church of the Assumption and The Culture Project