The Essentials
Summer Projects involves a dynamic, jam-packed weekly schedule with various spiritual, intellectual and social opportunities. Below, we have listed the eight most important elements of Summer Projects formation:
- Students are
expected to develop their prayer lives, spending approximately 30 – 60 minutes
in silent prayer daily. Summer Projects chaplains, missionaries and student
leaders are all available to help students meet this goal.
- Sacraments. Every
location offers Mass at least once every day on site and also offers regular
times for confession and adoration (usually daily). While students may not be
able to attend Mass on site every day, the general expectation is that
participants should attend Mass 3 – 7 times per week.
- Discipleship. Summer
Projects students meet with their discipler at least once every week. This is a
peer mentor (either a missionary or returning student leader) who will
accompany the participant throughout the summer. At FOCUS, we call these
mentorship relationships discipleship. At its core, discipleship entails
a relationship between two Christians, each committed to spending time together
in mutual imitation of Christ. In comparison to the FOCUS campus experience,
discipleship within Summer Projects is a bit more structured in that each
student should read and discuss at least five of the articles in the
discipleship curriculum.
- Reading Plan. Each Summer Projects
program has a reading plan, usually no more than 250 pages, which is to be read
and discussed throughout the summer. (Learn more about the curriculum in the
“Intellectual Formation” tab.)
- Speaker Series: The Summer
Projects speaker series includes required and optional talks, and students are
encouraged to attend both. Most speakers will hold office hours prior to their
talks; you should take advantage of these as opportunities for individualized
intellectual formation. (Learn more about the speaker series in the
“Intellectual Formation” tab.)
- Spiritual
Direction. Spiritual direction is an essential component of the Summer Projects
experience. Spiritual direction, at least as defined in the Summer Projects, is
a regular, transparent meeting with a spiritual mentor for direction in
building virtue and divine intimacy. Every student should make every effort to
attend spiritual direction every week, at a minimum once every two weeks.
- Big-Ticket
Programming: Summer Projects includes plenty of formal and informal
programming. Students should try to participate in both; first-year participants
have a responsibility to participate in the formal programming. This
includes (but is not limited to) a discipleship retreat, at least one camping
trip and other planned weekly recreational events like white-water rafting and
hikes. All Summer Projects programming is intended to form students in the
“school of community,” building up one another as friends in Christ.
- Bible Study: Every student will attend a Bible study along with other members of their small group (usually 4 – 6 other students).
