Creative Adaptations: Running Discovering Christ in a Public High School

By: Colin Reitmeyer

The American public school system has been overrun by ideologies opposed to Christ and His Gospel: transgenderism, abortion, secularism, and other deceptions are taught regularly. After my conversion to Catholicism in my freshman year, I went through the ChristLife Process at my parish, which further inspired me to share the Lord with my peers. The next year my parish ran Discovering Christ again, and I invited dozens of fellow teenagers to come hear the Gospel. Due to multiple stumbling blocks, particularly busyness or lack of transportation, very few of them were able to attend.

It was then that this idea struck me: What if, instead of bringing high schoolers to ChristLife, we brought ChristLife to the high schoolers?

This year, my senior year, I endeavored to run Discovering Christ weekly, after school, in a classroom. First I needed to get the club approved by the administration, and by the grace of God, it was approved. Next I needed to find a teacher willing to sponsor a new club. Unfortunately every teacher I’d had either couldn’t commit or wasn’t willing to, so I prayed, and the Lord prompted me to send out an email to every teacher at the school. The Lord was faithful, and I found a teacher to sponsor my club! I couldn’t run the courses alone, so I recruited fellow Christians of all denominations to help serve as facilitators and inviters. In this small context, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Christians were able to unify together to spread the Gospel in a public high school!

I needed to make adaptations to the usual formula, like cutting worship, cutting the videos in half, shortening the meal, and creating new discussion questions that better apply to teens. We were able to condense the sessions into 65 minutes. Me and my team invited all our friends, and at lunch we invited dozens of students to join us. In our first session, 35 students came and heard how Jesus Christ is the meaning of our lives! Over time, we experienced some attrition, and at this point we have a strong group of 10 students. We certainly had some challenges early on in the course, like rowdy participants talking during the teaching, and students trying to take food and then leave early. As we lost the non-serious participants, the discussions got better over time, and now around the end of the course, we are all comfortable sharing our faith with one another. 

I’m so grateful to the Lord for making this possible, and to all the donors who generously gave to support the costs of the course, like food and supplies. The fruits of the course have been bountiful. In total, over 65 teenagers from all different faith backgrounds heard at least part of the Gospel proclaimed! The seeds of the Gospel were spread to lukewarm Christians, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others! One student, who had only recently discovered that Christianity is true, had been praying at the start of the year for community with fellow Christians, and just a week after that, the club started! He is now seriously considering converting to the Catholic faith! Another student who was a lapsed Catholic was hesitant to join the club because he was trapped in serious sin, but early on in the course, his brother and I shared with him about the redemption of Jesus, and he ended up repenting, going to Confession, and now he comes to Discovering Christ every week! Multiple participants have told me and the team how through Discovering Christ their faith has become an essential part of their life.

Colin Reitmeyer is an 18-year-old high school student, and current intern at ChristLife. Colin has a passion for evangelization, and is continuing the club the rest of the school year.