Last week, I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Men’s Spirituality group at St. Barnabas parish. This initiative began as a follow up to the parish’s Men’s Christ Renews His Parish (CRHP) and meets once per month under the direction of the Associate Pastor, Fr. John Hetland. From what I’m told, different guys come and go but in general about a dozen gather each month. There was an enthusiastic group of 9 on […]
Join our weeklong celebration of St. Ignatius and his spirituality in honor of his Feast Day on Thursday, July 31! Check out all the fun at Find Your Inner Iggy!
In his book, Growing An Engaged Church (Gallup Press), Albert L. Winseman explains that, without true engagement, volunteers burn out quickly. He identifies 3 ways to make an immediate impact on the level of engagement of church members: clarify the expectations of membership help your members discover what they do best create small groups I think these can (and should) be easily applied to catechists, who, without engagement, do indeed burnout quickly. Those catechists who […]
The comedy Seinfeld was often known for being a show about “nothing.” When you think about it, the episodes rarely had a story line and yet, somehow, the series touched on some of the most recognizable human moments and experiences that occur in ordinary everyday life and caused us to laugh for 9 seasons. While so many TV shows “jump the shark” in search of profound story lines to engage the audience, Seinfeld’s genius was […]
In last night’s Webinar on The 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness (if you missed it, a recording will be available here on my blog within a few days), I began by asking what folks are doing to maintain their spiritual wellness before I added my suggestions. Here’s a sampling of what folks are doing (I love the variety!) What are YOU doing to maintain your spiritual wellness? Daily mass Daily prayer active participation in […]
I enjoyed our catechist meeting last night, especially getting the chance to meet my aide and my fellow 4th-grade catechists. It was also nice to see the 8th grade catechists with whom I teamed these past several years. They needled me about leaving their team and we had a good laugh about it. My aide is a mom who has served in the program for a few years and I believe one of her children […]
Our new catechetical year gets off to a start tonight with our first catechist meeting! This will be an opportunity for me to meet the other 4th grade catechists that I’ll be working with as well as my aide. There’s always a sense of excitement at this meeting, as we all look forward to the challenges and opportunities of the coming year. I’m honored to have been asked by Arlene, our DRE, to speak to […]
Many of you may recall that last summer, I hosted an online retreat for catechists that was very well received. While the retreat was “live,” we interacted with one another, leaving comments galore and engaging in some robust conversations. Since that time, some folks have found the retreat archived here on my blog and have begun participating at their own pace. Luckily, I am notified that they have joined in and can offer a personal […]
This is an activity that I like to do with older participants (especially adults) who have a little more knowledge of the Church’s repertoire of hymns. I call it “If I Were a Church Hymn” and it basically invites participants to think of which Church hymn they would choose as either: their theme song the hymn that best captures the state of their spiritual life at this moment their all time favorite hymn The activity […]
As our online retreat for catechists winds down, I’d like to take this opportunity to send out a great big THANK YOU to all of you who participated and made it such a success! Over these past 7 weeks, we have formed an online community of catechists, dedicated to deepening our spirituality so that we may follow Jesus more closely and invite others to do the same. While it is a “virtual” community, it is […]
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