St Thomas More College, Assistant Principal for Religious Education, John Thomas, and campus minister, Marnie Hewitt, with a copy of the Generation Z Prayer book
TWO staff members at St Thomas More College, Sunnybank, have released a prayer book aimed at engaging the least religious generation - Generation Z (Gen Z).
Generation Z are digital natives who are predicted to work 18 jobs in six careers and live in 15 homes in their lifetime.
St Thomas More Assistant Principal for Religious Education John Thomas and campus minister Marnie Hewitt both wanted to a produce a resource to engage these digital natives.
Everything out there was from the 1970s, Miss Hewitt said.
What the pair ended up with was a sleek, modern, 95-page book that aesthetically was closer to an Instagram feed than a volume of the Summa Theologica.
It retained a Catholic feel with traditional prayers – from the Our Father to Salve Regina – filling the front section, and prayers written by St Thomas More students, teachers and parents filling the middle.
The last section was prayers for life events like birthdays.
Ms Hewitt said many young people had never been spiritually nurtured or experienced sacramental care.
She said the prayer book would help with that.
“It’s a big step for them to be open to (spirituality), because if they’re not raised to be open to spirituality, it’s quite foreign,” Ms Hewitt said.
“That’s why journeying with them is so important.
“Because you get them comfortable and you get them familiar with you, and, once they’re familiar with you, they’ll be open to what the source and summit of your life is.”
Mr Thomas said to build young Catholics who were connected to their faith took investment – both time and money.
Miss Hewitt said the benefit of students being able to take the prayer book home and put in the bookshelf was beyond anything a photocopy would ever achieve.
“If I had a resource like this when I was at school, I’d appreciate it, because someone put a lot of effort into that,” she said.
“We’ve had a lot of traction even with people wanting to give them as graduation gifts.”
Mr Thomas said while the book would not find a proper place in curriculum, it was invaluable for a school’s prayerful devotions.
Mr Thomas said having a long-term view of what you wanted to do was essential.
“We don’t get everything right – that’s the other thing – and we spend a lot of time reflecting on the things we do and what didn’t work and why it didn’t work,” he said.
The pair already have a new book a retreat journal for school retreats, at the printers.
For more information about the Gen Z Prayer book, contact John Thomas at jthomas@stmc.qld.edu.au