Summer provides us with the perfect time to forge ahead with plans for more robust adult faith formation in the year ahead. At Christ the King Parish, my home parish, we are taking advantage of the summer to lay the foundations for our best year ever in adult faith formation. Building on the success of our small faith groups during Lent, we are now inviting a number of parishioners to consider/discern serving on an adult […]
In most parishes the process of finding catechists is pretty simple: we ask, even beg, for people to fill empty slots and some come forward. If that fails, we may tap former catechists or aides, or ask parents of children in the program to fill the needs. Failing that, we may even resort to guilt: “If no one volunteers, our children will have no one to teach them the faith.” Too often it seems we […]
What is it that all DREs know about the majority of Catholic families today? They are overwhelmed by an overbooked schedule of events and work, and growing our faith is often deferred to those once-in-a-while moments when things are quiet; that is not necessarily weekend Mass. So how do we find future catechists? I propose we INVITE people to consider the call to be a catechist. I = INITIATE a conversation. Regular parent gatherings or […]
Being invited to participate changed my life. I was 17, a senior in high school, and I opened a letter from my pastor inviting me to participate in the Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI), sponsored by the Diocese of Baton Rouge. Until that moment, my faith lived within the boundaries of Sunday Mass and in the spiritual activities my Catholic high school offered. Reading that letter opened up a desire within me to engage further with […]
Here are a couple of nice reflections about the call to serve as a catechist: Are You Being Called? My Wife Replies to “Are You Being Called?” Both were featured on Patheos.
I received this email from a self-described “newbie-DRE” who is looking for some advice. Let’s help her out! Does anyone have practical suggestions for saying “no” to a potential catechist who responds to your “call”? My assistant and I feel that he wouldn’t be able to control a classroom, and he has no filter when speaking so he tends to over-share about his personal life. Something about his personality is just giving us a bad […]
I came across this very nice post – The Calling of a Catechist – by Lorrie Lane Dyer in which she reflects on her call to serve as a catechist. This might be helpful for recruiting new catechists (along with a number of other resources I’ve compiled in my Becoming a Catechist feature that can always be found on my home page, right column, scroll down near the bottom).
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