By Alexander Rivero, Staff Writer


Few things usher in a sense of gratitude and duty better than an encounter with people in far less fortunate positions than ours. This is exactly what happened to Brian David Young, teacher of Confirmation classes at Ss. Peter and Paul Church in Great Meadows, when he was a young man. 

“It was Christmastime and I was in a youth group at that age and we took a trip into the city to see these mentally ill teenagers that were living in the Bowery,” he recalls. “The place was right next to a New York City chapter of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang, and the Bowery was filthy, nothing like today. We had brought them bars of soap wrapped in cloth, one for each of the kids there. I was so embarrassed to be giving them what I saw as a meager gift.” 

What happened next is something that Young has never forgotten. 

“I was so embarrassed to be giving these poor kids such meager gifts, but when they received the soaps, each of them beamed with such joy,” he recalls. “I was now even more embarrassed than I was before, but embarrassed for having thought that this was a meager gift, and that they might reject it.” 

From that day on, it became quite clear for Young that he had to get involved and give back somehow. It is a promise he has kept, entering his tenth straight year as Confirmation teacher at Ss. Peter and Paul Church, and writing a book: 8 Streets to Christ: The Evidence for God and the Street Map to Heaven, published in October, 2021. Every penny of the proceeds this book makes will go to the poor. 

The process of writing the book began with a question Young had been asking himself for years: Why aren’t all Christians one, as opposed to separated by different denominations? 

“I initially thought that the Catholic faith must have some weaknesses people stay away from. So I sought them out.”

He sure did. Young jumped head first into the question, spending 3,000 hours of study, a process that took him a full decade. He listened to 72 different Lighthouse Catholic Media CDs, five times each, an unorthodox process made necessary only because he had to drive while studying, and so note-taking was an impossibility. 

“I blew out three car stereos in the process, but it was worth the effort,” says Young, who was transformed by the experience and convinced that he had to set his new insights down on paper.

What emerged in 8 Streets to Christ is a detailed exploration of God’s existence, a methodical discussion of several case studies of great human achievements in both the sciences and the arts in which brilliant minds have been dumbstruck by the other-worldly implications of their discoveries. 

Young considers his work, both at the church and in the writing of this book, as feats of atonement for his coming up short in guiding his own children into the faith. The process of writing and researching took about five years, and he did it all, every step of the way, he says, for the benefit of all Christians, not only Roman Catholics. 

Young, having just finished a full decade as a Confirmation teacher, is looking to begin his own youth ministry in the fall of this year. He is already planning what he will be presenting, which for the time being consists of the lessons he wrote about in 8 Streets to Christ converted into PowerPoint slides for his students. 

Deconstructing the book, in a nutshell, Young explains: 

“The book explains the faith using images, maps, and diagrams, and it answers life’s three most important questions: Does God exist? Why am I here on earth? How do I get to Heaven?”

Young identifies his ideal reader as a young person, someone in their teens or early twenties, young people that are still moldable, still have room to receive the message he is presenting. Expanding from that, however, he assures us that the ideal reader is really anybody who wishes to take a good, long look at their faith and take it more seriously. 

In the meantime, Young will continue teaching his Confirmation classes and readying up for his youth ministry come fall. He looks forward to connecting with the young people he teaches, and with his readers.

Copies of 8 Streets to Christ: Evidence for God and the Street Map to Heaven are available via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and also on Young’s own website: brianyoung.charity.