Templars is a program for male teenagers. It is not designed to exclude female altar servers: however, it is designed to encourage young men to serve at the altar, as serving at the altar fosters growth and maturation in male teenagers in a way that is more relevant than in the life of a young woman.

If you are a pastor, Templars is designed to enlist lay adult men in your parish to run the program. It will take a few of your hours during the launch stage, but lay adult men in the parish will be the chief contributors.

Brother Templars are 14 to 18 years old, which is to say a Templars chapter is for male high schoolers. It is, however, prudent to recruit eighth graders for the Templars chapter during their second semester, as recruiting them then is often more successful than recruiting them in high school.

This is a good topic to discuss with one of our Chapter Success Coaches. If the majority of the members are below 14 years old, that may not work well.

Many successful chapters have started with five members. It is ideal to have 7 to 10, but in Year #1, five members is enough to get started.

Schedule a discovery call with one of our Chapter Success Coaches. This 20-minute call will help you discern whether or not your parish is a good fit and whether the time is right. When the answer is yes, recruiting lay adult men to serve as mentors for the program is the first step.

A confrère is a lay adult mentor for the Templars chapter. Confrere’s serve to support the pastor in administering the chapter. They serve as chaperones when necessary in accordance with safe environment policies. And most importantly, they serve as worthy men to imitate in walking the Christian life.

Templars operates on a pay it forward model. That means that when a parish successfully launches a chapter, their parishioners help to cover the cost of launching the next parish’s Templars launch.