I haven’t had much Internet access for a couple of days, but I wanted to say hi and let you all know that I am having a fantastic time at the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership in Vegas. I’ll have pics and some thoughts by Thursday when I get home.
Also, I’m happy to share that my brother Tom has been named the Bishop of Springfield, Il, which is about 3 hours from Chicago!
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=36235
We are proud of him and it will be nice to still have him close to home! Congrats, Tom, and may God be with you!
How exciting! You should seize every opportunity to say, “My brother the bishop…”
He looks young for a bishop.
Christian, he’s always had that baby-face! Fact is, he’s 7 years older than me!
Joe – how exciting for your family to have your brother named Bishop of Springfield. It was pretty broadly reported here in the Chicago area. Congratulations to him.
As for you……and Vegas….I’m sure you are blocking out all of those sin city surroundings and prepping all of your materials for your webinar next week 😉
Travel Safe!!!
Greg, thanks. When it comes to Vegas, I enjoy all the hubbub for a few days. After that, the excess wears on you!
What a wonderful blessing! God bless you both and congratulations.
Thanks, Kathleen!
Joe,
We are excited about your brother becoming our bishop. My prayers for you in your work serving our Lord and to your brother in his working serving our Lord.
Looking forward to tomorrow night’s session.
God bless, Connie
Thanks, Connie. We’re looking forward to the festivities in Springfield on June 22!
i was soooo happy when i heard of the wonderful blessing your brother tom
recieved
i will finally get to meet him at the chicago prayer breakfast on april 30th
Thanks, Carol!
Joe,
Congrats on your brother’s appointment. What a rare treat for a family!
I enjoyed the webinar tonight. Look forward to more in the future. Do you have plans on doing one on ‘finding good resources’/lesson-planning? It seems that Catholic religion textbooks (we use one designed for schools) are painfully bad…to the point of being almost unusable. I think I’d do much better if they just gave me a religious-themed coloring book!
Any websites you recommend for ideas/content (games, songs, prayers, activities, printable sheets, etc.)??
God bless you!
Michael
Michael, thanks for the kind words about my brother’s appointment to Springfield. It is a wonderful treat for our family. Thanks also for the suggestion for future webinars on finding good resources. Have you visited the Activity Finder at the Finding God Website (Loyola Press)? Good place to start looking for variety.
Thanks, Joe. I teach 3rd/4th graders and the textbook is just too texty-yet-nebulous for a once-a-week class. I’m all about giving them concrete activities/lessons on concrete concepts.
Thanks, Michael. I love your “too-texty-yet-nebulous” phrase!
Lol…it seems we’re somewhat of a mind on most resources out there.
I defer to your much greater experience (and efforts!), but having taught middle school and high school freshman Religion in Catholic schools…and now teaching 3rd-5th grade catechism, I humbly find the texts unusable. Especially for weekly catechism among uncatechized (and usu. non-churchgoing) kids, most with immigrant parents with limited English…I need simple, clear concepts and activities that simplify the message and communicate it in fun and colorful and memorable and engaging ways. Surely with ~100,000 Catholic catechists in the United States, there are tons of resources for such things!!???
I’m not 8 or 14 anymore, but when I look at the kids and at these books all I can think is: no wonder kids drift from the Church and either go ‘agnostic’ or find more engaging Protestant denominations. We have such Good News, such a riveting story, and so rich a tradition – why aren’t we making it more accessible to kids (and their parents!)?!
Michael, check out these websites for more ideas and activities:
http://www.silk.net/RelEd/
http://www.catholicmom.com/