Sponsering

What is Sponsorship?
Each young person who attends Chrysalis has a "sponsor" who supports and encourages him/her before, during, and after the Chrysalis experience.

Sponsorship is the way in which the Chrysalis experience is passed on from person to person, reflecting the manner in which God purposefully reaches out to people through other people. After a Chrysalis Weekend, participants want to share the gift of those three days with others. Sponsorship provides them a caring and disciplined way for them to share. And in doing so, sponsors participate in and demonstrate God's outreaching love.

Sponsorship is taken for granted in many communities. The assumption is that everyone knows the how and why of sponsorship. Sometimes sponsorship is only discussed with reference to the number of participants signed up for a Chrysalis Weekend.

Sponsorship, however, is the most important job in the Chrysalis Movement. It is a job shared by the adults who have been through Emmaus and the young people who have been through Chrysalis. It is more than simply "signing youth up." The importance of a Chrysalis Community being educated about good sponsorship cannot be overemphasized. The quality of sponsorship impacts the new participants, the health of the Chrysalis Movement in an area, and the churches being affected by Chrysalis.
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What is the AIM of sponsorship?
The aim of sponsorship is the same as the aim of Chrysalis: the spiritual growth of young Christians as disciples of Jesus Christ through churches and their youth groups. Every sponsor should reflect upon his or her motivation for wanting to sponsor a young person and make sure it is consistent with this aim. Some examples of mistaken aims include:

* "to get all of my friends to go"
* to have a full weekend
* to reproduce one's own religious experience in others
* to fix a young person's problems or crisis

Sponsorship can be motivated, however, by a number of hopes and prayers for young persons which are consistent with the aim of Chrysalis. These include giving young persons the gift of three days apart:

* to experience the accepting and healing grace of God through Christian community
* to realize they are precious in God's eyes, that they are here on this earth for a holy purpose
* to discuss without judgment their questions and struggles as young persons with peers and mature Christian adults
* to hear anew the gospel of God's love in Jesus Christ and the basics of Christian faith and life
* to make friends with other youth who share the faith and will support each other in living as Christians
* to develop relationships with mature Christian adults, relationships which might extend beyond the three days
* to be strengthened in their decisions to follow Jesus
* to be better prepared to live as Christian witnesses in home, school, church, and community
* to learn what goes into building their lives and relationships on a solid foundation
* to bring new vitality to the church youth group upon returning, to inspire the sponsorship of other youth, to energize the
body of Christ through young people whose hearts are on fire with the love of Christ.
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What is the age of participation?
High School Chrysalis is for high school (tenth through twelfth grades) age young people. Chrysalis is especially meaningful for young people who are ready to think and share about the realities and struggles of life on a more adult level: "What am I going to do with my life?" "Who do I want to become?" "What do I believe?" "What kind of relationships are lasting and most meaningful?" "What does it mean to live as a Christian and how can I do it?"

Common experience has been that young people who are not yet tenth graders will benefit from waiting and should be sponsored with their age group. Young people will gain immensely more from Chrysalis when they are developmentally ready and are in tune with the life experiences of the other youth participants. Sponsorship of participants who are too young can sometimes detract from the value of the three days for the age group for whom Chrysalis is intended.

College-age Chrysalis (or young adult Chrysalis) is the same program and is for young adults eighteen to twenty-three (18-23) years of age. College-age Chrysalis has emerged to fill an age gap of persons who are often not being reached by either high school Chrysalis or the Walk to Emmaus for adults. Nevertheless, young adults who are beyond high school can be sponsored to the Walk to Emmaus as well. Sponsors must discern the most promising route for the each young person.
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