Articles by Joe Paprocki

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 40 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.

Thinking Advent: Webinar Tonight!

Joe Paprocki

Advent is only 10 days away! With that in mind, I’m pleased to be hosting an Advent Webinar TONIGHT! Hope you can join us live…if not, a recording of the webinar will be made available right here on my blog within a week. Come, Lord Jesus! (I’m practicing!) Facilitator: Joe Paprocki, DMin Brought to you by Loyola Press, A Jesuit Ministry Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:15 – 8:15 pm (CST) Advent begins on Sunday, November […]

Learning from Our Past

Joe Paprocki

Tonight, we begin our unit on Church History. We kick off this unit by bringing all five eighth grade classes together for a PowerPoint presentation on Church history to give them a sweeping overview of major events in Church history over the past 2,000 years. Each of the five catechists “narrates” a period of Church history and the kids take notes on a fill-in-the-blank note-taking sheet we provide. It’s an engaging way to introduce a […]

Heading to Philly!

Joe Paprocki

I’m off to Philadelphia for a few days! Friday, I’ll be with the DREs and CREs of the IHM parishes in Philly and on Saturday, I’ll be delivering the keynote at the Philadelphia Catholic Life Congress! Pray that God puts the words in my mouth that people need to hear! I’ll be back in time to teach my class on Monday night and I’ll blog about my lesson plan earlier in the day on Monday. […]

November: Month of All Souls

Joe Paprocki

November is, of course, the month of all souls, a special time of the year for us to remember those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith. To mark this special month, as part of our opening prayer last night, instead of having the kids offer prayers of thanksgiving or petitions for needs, I asked them each to share the name(s) of loved ones who have passed away so that we […]

Jesus, I Want to Get to Know You

Joe Paprocki

Tonight, we will complete our unit on Jesus. I have completed the PowerPoint presentation that the young people began work on in class last week which covers the various aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry: the world of Jesus, the people of Jesus, the words and actions of Jesus, and the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. I’m happy to share the PDF of the presentation: Who is Jesus – complete presentation PDF As we view the PowerPoint, […]

Advent Webinar Coming Soon!

Joe Paprocki

It’s hard to believe that we have only 3 Sundays left in the current Church year! Advent begins on November 29! With that in mind, don’t miss my (free) Advent Webinar on Wednesday, November 18. And if you do miss it, it will be recorded and made available the week following right here on my blog. Have a great weekend! Facilitator: Joe Paprocki, DMin Brought to you by Loyola Press, A Jesuit Ministry Wednesday, November […]

And a Child Shall Lead Them…

Joe Paprocki

This phrase, of course, is from Isaiah 11:6, and is used from time to time in catechesis with regards to children taking leadership roles. I experimented with this concept on Monday evening by having one of my students lead the guided reflection! This was a big risk for me and I have to admit that I have a very hard time of letting go of things like this because I know how it should be […]

Update on Yesterday’s Class: Mixed Success

Joe Paprocki

So things went fairly well last night with my experiment in having the kids make PowerPoint slides to describe who Jesus is. I say fairly well because I was surprised at how poorly some of them are at keyboarding and that slowed the whole process down (they know how to use Powerpoint, but they type slowly!). They behaved well and seemed to like the idea of working on computers in religious education class, but they […]

Teaching About Jesus Using PowerPoint

Joe Paprocki

At the recent plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the use of new technologies of the digital age to spread the word of God. With that in mind, for the first time in my life as a catechist, this evening I will be having my students create Powerpoint presentations rather than posters! For the last few years, during the Jesus unit, I have had my classes work at […]

Positive Doodling

Joe Paprocki

On Monday evening, we presented a segment of the video Jesus of Nazareth, focusing on the death and Resurrection of Jesus (about a 40-minute segment leading up to the end of the film). As part of the viewing exercise, the young people have a viewing guide that they fill in as they watch (we pause the video at each scene that has a question connected with it). At the end of the evening, one of […]