For this evening’s class, I plan to focus on the Ten Commandments. One of the things that the Confirmation assessment revealed is that many of the young people in my group do not know the Commandments well at all. Here’s my plan: Two Sides to Every Coin – I’ll begin by flipping a coin several times, asking different young people to call out “heads” or “tails.” I’ll use this to illustrate that, just as every coin […]
Some people have been asking me about resources for the Pope’s upcoming U.S. visit (April 15-18). Kids may have questions and this could be a good teaching moment. The U.S. bishops have an official Web site for the papal visit at http://www.uspapalvisit.org/ In particular, there is a link there for teaching resources.
Here’s an exchange I recently had with a catechist working in RCIA for children: Dear Joe, I am a catechist teaching RCIA for children. This is my first time teaching RCIA. If you could recommend some approaches to answering questions to children grades 3rd through 5th RCIA, I would really appreciate your help. Here are some of their questions: Why do we decorate the church with a barren looking tree during Lent? Who made God and […]
On Monday evening, one of the young people asked, “Would it have been better if Jesus didn’t die? Like, if I went into a time machine, went back in time and prevented him from being killed, would that have been better?” What a wonderful question! I responded by explaining that Jesus came to save us, not to be saved and that, by dying, he showed us the greatest love that anyone can have – selfless […]
Showing a segment of the DVD Jesus of Nazareth worked out beautifully last night. As I mentioned yesterday, I showed the segment beginning with the Way of the Cross, leading up to the end of the film as the Risen Christ assures his apostles (and us) that he will be with us always. This is about 40 minutes. I paused the video frequently, pointing out information and asking questions and inviting the young people to ask […]
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