Forged

In 2025, Forged has seen tremendous growth as a ministry and in the young men we serve.

This year, we are serving in five area middle schools, where we spend time in discipleship and faith formation with students every week. We help them encounter Christ through praise and worship, Adoration, testimonies, reading Scripture, and praying in the chapel. We want to help Jesus’ face and words come alive for them in a meaningful, living way.

We live out our motto, “formed in faith, refined in friendship,” by building healthy relationships with the boys through conversations, sports, and games.

We also serve at Father Gabriel Richard High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a weekly Bible study and Mass, fitness club, and Friday open gyms, as well as monthly Adoration. We try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they’re at.

For high schoolers, we also host either squad groups or a Forged Night each week. Squad nights are grade-specific small groups focused on forming the internal spiritual, human, intellectual, and apostolic habits St. John Paul II wrote about as being important to form a man. For Forged nights, we gather as a large group to draw closer to Christ through a talk and time of reflection, and we also compete in various physical and intellectual competitions.

During the summer, about sixty young men were involved with us through additional activities we offered each week. We read The Cross and the Switchblade in our book club, worked through the Book of Acts in Bible study, went through a Life in the Spirit Seminar, and offered a board and video game club, a volleyball club, and a basketball club.

We also hosted a summertime weekly, day-long event with a talk, prayer time, and sports that was regularly attended by about forty middle schoolers and another fifteen high school support staff. In addition to this, we offered a leadership cohort for high schoolers that helped them learn that although picking up your cross every day is hard, because of who the Lord is and what He has done for us, they can do it—especially with their brothers.

Pine Hills Boys Camp

All our summer activities—and almost everything we do as a ministry—builds from the formation and relationships that start at Pine Hills Boys Camp, which has experienced tremendous growth over the past two years. We averaged about one-hundred campers a few years ago and had 182 campers this summer! Camp helps the boys to start operating as sons of God, with the power, strength, humility, and ability to lead and serve others.

Remembering Xavier

This summer, our community suffered a terrible loss through the death of Xavier Randolph, who passed away at eighteen from a drowning accident. Xavier embodied much that Forged aims to do. He loved Jesus with all of his heart and therefore set his sights on lofty goals and got busy pursuing them. He prioritized what mattered most and ordered his life accordingly. He brought life, energy, and passion wherever he went.

Xavier made an especially powerful impact in our summer leadership cohort, which includes both faith formation and workouts. In the workouts, Xavier would often finish first but then return to join someone still working. He would do this until every young man was finished. For Xavier, the point was not to “win” for personal gain. His goal was to grow and to help his brothers do the same.

We are hosting a memorial race in Xavier’s honor on Nov. 1, 2025, that will support Forged. We hope to have this be an annual event on the first weekend in November. Learn more at www.forgedministry.com.

This article originally appeared in Renewal Ministries’ November 2025 newsletter.

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