Thanks to all the folks who spent the day with me today at the St. Charles Borromeo Pastoral Center in the Diocese of Joliet, IL, for a Being, Knowing, and Doing workshop. We had a wonderful day looking at how we can provide formation for catechists that includes these 3 dimensions. Special thanks to Tom Quinlan, the Director of the Religious Education Office, and Joyce Donahue, Catechetical Associate. I was also honored to have in attendance 2 representatives from the Catechetical Office of the Diocese of Springfield, IL, Jonathan Sullivan, Director, and Chris Malmevik, Associate Director. A great big THANK YOU to all of the catechetical leaders who came out today to talk about ways of caring for our catechists! Best wishes to you all!
Books
Check Out a New Online Course on Bible Basics!
I was honored to write a new course for the University of Dayton Virtual Learning Community for Faith Formation (VLCFF). It is called Bible Basics and the required text for the course is my book, The Bible Blueprint: A Catholic’s Guide to Understanding and Embracing God’s Word. Thanks to Richard Drabick, the Assistant Director of the Institute for Pastoral Initiatives for inviting me to write the course and to Sr. Angela Ann Zukowski, MHSH, the Director […]
Assessments
End of the Year Assessment
This coming Monday, I will do a formal assessment to see to what extent my 6th graders have grasped the BIG ideas I attempted to teach them this year in religious education! First, we will do a Jeopardy-like review using a Powerpoint version of the game that I found online a couple of years ago. You can manipulate this according to your own needs, changing categories, questions, and answers and hyperlinking from the “game board” […]
Approaches/Techniques
Stories, Not Labels
I work in the Office of New Evangelization for my diocese, and I remember a phone call from an 86-year-old woman named Gladys. She wanted to find out more about the “coming home” programs the diocese was offering for Catholics who had been away from the Church for a while. After a period of active listening and some gentle questioning, it became clear that Gladys herself wanted to return to the Catholic Church, but she […]
Thank YOU, Joe! It was great. Lots of good comments after.
Joyce, you and Tom are doing great work in Joliet…keep it up!