Aktuelles

 Minieinteilung

 Über uns
    mininside
    Minigruppen
    Gruppenleiter
    Minimailverzeichnis

 Minilager

 Minihandbuch

 Mini werden

 Kontakt

The MINIS IN GERSTHOF are 70 or so young people aged between 8 and 20 years who are the altar servers in the parish of Gersthof. There are 10 altar server and two youth groups under our administration.

Our church, a neo-Gothic building, is situated in the 18th district of Vienna, the capital of Austria, and is dedicated to St. Leopold. Our parish also has its own kindergarten, priest’s house, a community centre - and an old Baroque chapel (consecrated to Johann Nepomuk) nearby.

16 honorary group leaders care for the children and young people. Due to this big group, a smaller team, called 4U-team, assumes the preparation of important decisions as well as the representation of our group. Beside our monthly leaders´ meetings we have had our own conference once a year since 2000 where we discuss matters of current importance to our group.

Beside our weekly group meetings we organise various events, look after the financial side of things - we are more or less financially independent of our parish -, create our own homepage, publish an altar server’s magazine every two months and do much more.

We think it's a challenge to have the opportunity to help in the education of our children and youth. So it's our target to give our children a place where they can develop according to their needs. We try to realise this with different leisure activities.

Naturally our emphasis is on our service at the altar which we understand to be a way leading to active lifes as Christians. In our group meetings we try to give qualified religious education and to prepare the young people for their service during mass. Through our assistance of the priest during mass we are able to be part of and support the ceremony and festivity of the liturgy. This service is the tip of the iceberg with all the other activities we have, and yet it is also the highlight of our lives as altar servers.

In 2000 we produced our own server's manual which was well-received Austria-wide and earned the respect of our archbishop, Cardinal Schönborn. By 2005 we have produced over 1000 exemplars of the manual.

Our groups have grown fast in the last few years: finding friends, having fun together, discussing, celebrating parties, learning about Jesus and the liturgy, simply staying together – these are the main aspects of our group life. The older youth groups have fallen in love with travel and have travelled far and wide within Europe.

Apart from our weekly group meetings we try to offer one activity for all altar servers monthly, where our feeling of being part of a larger community can develop. We start with a reunion after our annual summer camp, followed by a night hike, the altar servers´ annual pilgrimage to the abbey of Klosterneuburg, various excursions, rallies, competitions and many other events.

The summer camp is the biggest project in the year and is indeed always extraordinarily popular: a time of games, shows and leaders who try 24 hours a day to organise everything to make it all an unforgettable event.

Our altar server group is a community in which we can trust each other. It is particularly impressive that we can observe how age limits vanish and how older altar servers care for the younger ones. Our community offers support if children have problems in school or with their family – but we can also share pleasure with others and have a great time together.

Our team leaders act as a guarantee for all these points. They are constantly busy realising our slogan: "we speak your language"

If you need further information or if you simply want to write us, feel free to do it. We look forward to hearing from you @ minis@pfarregersthof.at