About Joe Paprocki
Joe Paprocki, DMin, is National Consultant for Faith Formation at Loyola Press, where, in addition to his traveling/speaking responsibilities, he works on the development team for faith formation curriculum resources including Finding God: Our Response to God’s Gifts and God’s Gift: Reconciliation and Eucharist. Joe has more than 35 years of experience in ministry and has presented keynotes, presentations, and workshops in more than 100 dioceses in North America. Joe is a frequent presenter at national conferences including the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, the Mid-Atlantic Congress, and the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership. He is the author of numerous books, including the best seller The Catechist’s Toolbox, A Church on the Move, Under the Influence of Jesus, and Called to Be Catholic—a bilingual, foundational supplemental program that helps young people know their faith and grow in their relationship with God. Joe is also the series editor for the Effective Catechetical Leader and blogs about his experiences in faith formation at www.catechistsjourney.com.

Supporting Parents Beyond Baptismal Prep: The Catholic Parents’ Survival Guide

I’ve written previously about the importance of remaining connected with parents following the Baptism of their children and before the children reach catechetical age. Rather than simply requiring parents to attend a required class for Baptism and then check it off their list, we need to accompany them on their journey as they rise to the challenge of raising a family in today’s complex world. I’d like to suggest one great way that we can […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Holy Days

As Catholics, we are accustomed to the phrase, holy days of obligation. What exactly does it mean to refer to a day (or an hour or a week) as holy? And what do we mean by the word obligation? In this episode of Pop-Up Catechesis, we explore the meaning of holy days as days set apart for God. For more information about holy days of obligation, check out the following links: Helping Young People Understand […]

Children’s Books with Extras

Today people expect the books they purchase to have “extras,” such as online activities and games. We don’t just read books anymore; we interact with them! With that in mind, Loyola Press has two new wonderful books that come with extras. Audacious Ignatius by Paul Mitchell, illustrated by Katie Broussard—First of all, I love this book! I love its playfulness while telling the story of St. Ignatius of Loyola so that children can come to […]

St. Barnabas Family Catechesis: Learning About Catholic Identity

Yesterday, we had our March session of Finding God family catechesis, and our topic was Catholic identity (part of Finding God Unit 3, which focuses on the topic of Church). We had a very good session! Here are some highlights: We welcomed back Patrick McGowan, our catechetical leader, after a medical leave. Patrick remained with me to do the parent session since Deacon Andy was unavailable. One of the catechists stepped in to Patrick’s usual […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Responding to God’s Call

It’s nice to be invited to take the lead on an exciting project or to accept a new job offer that has come our way unexpectedly. It can also be very frightening! Such invitations always come with a fair amount of unknowns that cause us to hesitate and perhaps even doubt ourselves and our capabilities. This often happens when we sense that God is calling us to move in a new direction in our life. […]

Family Catechesis Catechists Teaching Once Per Month: What’s That Like?

In many family catechesis programs, such as the one I’m participating in at St. Barnabas Parish in Chicago, the parish catechists are limited to leading sessions with children once per month while parents complete the remaining sessions of a unit with their children at home. This, of course, is very different from the traditional practice of parish catechists leading sessions on a weekly basis. At the same time, it accomplishes what many catechists have been […]

Pop-Up Catechesis: Practicing Humility

Being humble is definitely not in vogue these days! In fact, quite the opposite is true as celebrities, athletes, and politicians all seem determined to toot their own horns as loudly as possible. Unfortunately, humility too often gets bad press in our contemporary culture, which tends to view it as a belittling of oneself. Humility, however, is “not thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less.” (C.S. Lewis) Humility is simply seeing ourselves as […]

Catechetical Formation Series Now Available in Spanish

I am very excited to announce that our popular online formation and training experience for catechists, the Catechetical Formation Series, is now available in Spanish! Introducing Serie de formación catequética! The Catechetical Formation Series is a program I developed for Loyola Press to provide basic training and formation for catechists in the areas of being, knowing, and doing. As the program grew in popularity, along with that came requests for a Spanish version. To guide […]

St. Barnabas Family Faith Formation: Catholic Identity

For the month of March, our Finding God Family Catechesis gathering at St. Barnabas will focus on the unit on Church, with the theme of “Catholic Identity: Does My Faith Make a Difference?” I particularly love this topic, because we Catholics indeed have unique ways of thinking, speaking, and acting that can and should make us stand out from the crowd! In this session, we will explore five characteristics of Catholic identity as drawn from […]

1 2 3 276