VENITE is facilitating meaningful connections, conversations, and meetups so Catholic young adults don't have to feel like following Christ has to mean being a lone ranger (newsflash: it doesn’t).
We are helping young adults connect with communities and peers that can encourage them in their lives and support them in living out their Catholic faith.
As a collaborative effort of young adults, together we are creating spaces and opportunities where we can be free to be unashamedly Catholic and fellowship with one another, encouraging each other in our faith journeys and support each other in our multi-faceted, often fast-paced lives.
Are you a young-adult? Then this fast growing network of individuals and communities spread throughout the Diocese of Joliet would love for YOU to come be a part of it all!
The 3 reasons above are further unpacked in our “Why” post inside the network. But if you are among the countless young adults who already know they “want in” on this (pretty sweet) network, then why procrastinate the obvious next step?
Skip the remainder of the fine print and click “Request to Join” at the top of this page.
... to our fellow young-adults who have already taken the plunge, for embarking on the adventure of following Christ with us, and for making community even possible! Community is not the same (nor possible) without your presence. Building community is hard. But so is anything else worth doing in this life.
We also thank all the faithful volunteers scattered throughout the diocese for all of your sacrifices in ministry, both seen and unseen. And we also thank the Office of Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Joliet for their support of this initiative.
And last - but DEFINITELY not least - thank you Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for your redeeming love that saves, heals, and transforms; and thank You for allowing us to share this love with others.
VENITE is a social platform with a Catholic heart. Facebook’s isn’t.
VENITE is curated by local Catholic young adults. Facebook isn’t.
So if you’re a young adult Catholic in or around the Joliet Diocese, VENITE was created specifically with YOU in mind.
Facebook (most certainly) wasn't.
It is known fact that Facebook makes money out of their enormous social-media experiment. And you just might be another guinea pig in the system.
VENITE makes no money out of this. And here, you are not a guinea pig in the system - you are a valued individual in our local, faith-based family.
VENITE intentionally seeks to connect you with groups, resources, and people that can inspire you and motivate you in your relationship with Christ.
Facebook connects you with… well, let’s just leave it by acknowledging that facebook is facebook. And although certainly a social-media powerhouse, we all know the disjointed, often irrelevant/pointless newsfeed frenzy that it can be. I mean, who hasn’t wasted hours upon hours mindlessly scrolling through the feed, only to wonder where all the time went and hoping the time spent could have been perhaps a little more edifying?
If your time is too precious to you to be mindlessly scrolling it away without purpose, VENITE is your quickest one-stop shop for all things Catholic and Young-Adult related to our shared local area. You connect with people and groups on the digital platform through VENITE, but meet-up in real life. Translation: if you live around here, and you’re a young adult Catholic, you’ll want in!
Try this analogy. Joining VENITE as a local young adult Catholic is like going to your favorite local shoe store when searching for a pair of shoes (I mean, makes sense, right?). One of the store associates is your trusty friend Carlos, who helps you find your favorite shoes that actually fit in just the right style and size! Boom, done! On your way out he introduces you to his friends Austin, Megan, and Liliana who then invite you to checkout a local concert with them next weekend. You walk out with new shoes, new friends, and you feel pretty good about the whole experience.
Alternatively, the facebook (or any other big social media) experience is more like wanting to buy a pair of shoes but being taken instead to an undisclosed city miles away at a large outdoor market that sells EVERYTHING you don’t need including hundreds of fancy items you couldn’t care any less about - with thousands of people, strangers and vendors, vying for your precious time (many of them shouting or trying all kinds of gimmicks to get your attention). Others strut around with shoes much fancier than yours (or so you think), but you can’t even seem to find a decent shoe store at the market. You end up leaving the market exhausted (perhaps even annoyed), scatter-brained, and most likely without those precious new shoes you had hoped to find - which was what you were looking for in the first place. You made no new friends. You feel like you wasted your day. And to top it all off you feel worse about yourself, and your shoes.
Sounds like you should have gone to the local shoe store with your friend Carlos.
Catch our drift? ;)
If you care about your faith, seek community, or long to meet like minded peers, then here's a SINGLE PLACE that will give you all of that - without all the extra clutter, noise, and distraction found on mainstream forms of social media.
For those of you out there who parted with Facebook long ago (more power to you!), you've come to the right place. Just because you chose the road less traveled on social media, does not mean you need to miss out on a Catholic event for young adults in the area again! (or hear about it after the fact from those who do have social media). Join us and get involved! There’s a strong likelihood you won't miss facebook like you used to before you had VENITE.
VENITE is clean, simple, and powerful. That's why we love it! And we think you will too.