Do you want to engage every family in your congregation?
Do you want to...
If your answer is yes, you're not alone! Whether you've embraced a family faith formation approach to helping young people grow in their faith for years, or whether you have no idea where to begin to include parents in your program and want to hang on to some semblance of a classroom model - this is the place for you.
- walk with children and their parents on this faith journey as they encounter the person of Jesus in your faith community and in their own lives?
- accompany parents as they live into their callings - as "Mom" or "Dad"?
- help families make connections between the dinner table where they find nourishment for their daily life and the table of the Lord where we gather together be nourished and sent?
If your answer is yes, you're not alone! Whether you've embraced a family faith formation approach to helping young people grow in their faith for years, or whether you have no idea where to begin to include parents in your program and want to hang on to some semblance of a classroom model - this is the place for you.
Families living faith - isn't that our goal?
Everything we do in children's ministry has the end goal of creating disciples. We want children living their faith in the world, families living faith in the community, at home and at work, not just in our church buildings. We want the people we minister to and with, to better know the person of Jesus Christ and to make him visible in the world, through words and actions, service to others, and a humble presence. Families living faith - that is the mission of this ministry!
What are you looking for?
The Directory for Catechesis (2020) says:
The family is a proclamation of faith in that it is the natural place in which faith can be lived in a simple and spontaneous manner...
It “has a unique privilege: transmitting the Gospel by rooting it in the context of profound human values.
On this human base, Christian initiation is more profound: the awakening of the sense of God; the first steps in prayer; education of the moral conscience; formation in the Christian sense of human love, understood as a reflection of the love of God the Father, the Creator.
It is, indeed, a Christian education more witnessed to than taught, more occasional than systematic,
more ongoing and daily than structured into periods.” #227
It “has a unique privilege: transmitting the Gospel by rooting it in the context of profound human values.
On this human base, Christian initiation is more profound: the awakening of the sense of God; the first steps in prayer; education of the moral conscience; formation in the Christian sense of human love, understood as a reflection of the love of God the Father, the Creator.
It is, indeed, a Christian education more witnessed to than taught, more occasional than systematic,
more ongoing and daily than structured into periods.” #227
I love that - the "natural place" and in a "simple and spontaneous manner" - this is the way we learn and live our faith. Let's accompany families on that faith journey in a manner that encourages, empowers, and equips parents.
Why change? Check out the research here and then create an intentional plan to engage every family in your church.
Need help? Check out our services and/or resources!
Why change? Check out the research here and then create an intentional plan to engage every family in your church.
Need help? Check out our services and/or resources!
Engage Every Family: A Parish Guide to Integrated Faith FormationAs we emerge from the pandemic, parishes have an incredible opportunity to connect the domestic church with the wider parish community. How can we honor the experiences families have had over these many months while inviting them back to the parish? In this practical guide, diocesan and parish leader Denise Utter presents an uplifting, fresh, and flexible approach to faith formation based on the experiences of real Catholic families who have been engaging faith in a whole new way. Each section offers church teaching and questions for discussion with a path to reinvigorate faith formation in a way that fits your parish needs.
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