News from the Front
Stories I heard this weekend:
1) Parishes where hundreds of second grade kids are prepared for First Communion every year. The overwhelming majority of these children then completely vanish for the next SEVEN YEARS until its time for Confirmation prep. They don't attend Mass. Their parents don't attend Mass. Talk about sacramental filling station . . .How soul destroying.
2) The diocesan sponsored catechist training where participants were told that conversion works differently for Catholics. Catholics, according to this scenario don't and shouldn't expect to experience any faith-based discernable change or transformation in their lives for a long, long time. None of that discernable, conscious, Peter "dropping-his-nets-and-following-Christ" stuff. Catholics just wake up one day. and find that they are just different.
Help me out here. I'm confused. Would a fair analogy be "Why bother going to the trouble of attending med school and living through the long purgatory of internship and residency because one day I'll just wake up to discover that I've became a brain surgeon in my sleep?"
I always knew those MCAT prep courses were a scam.
As St. Augustine observed: God created us without us but he won't save us without us.
posted by Sherry W @ 8:02 AM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
The First Eucharist story is sadly true and more common than not, in my experience. The whole-community catechesis movement is desgined to combat this situation, but progress is and will be slow- paradigm change, ya know. Somehow, so many DRE's and CCD programs prepare kids tirelessly for their First Communion but never mention their Second... third... 10000th...
Disappearing first communicants AND confirmation candidates is problem in my home parish.
As a teacher in our parish faith formation program, maybe 25% of students in my past classes are from families that attend mass regularly. The rest are from families that attend occasionally or rarely.
This is an issue in American Catholicism in general. Our pastor sees the problem and is asking for advise on how to correct it.
I have been searching for discussions and accounts of what has worked to improve things elsewhere but haven't found much.
I did run across this last week: http://disputations.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html#8471419851283867776. The phrase "God loves us, and His Son is here in the tabernacle." in this story gives me hope.
Catholics need to know why they should be Catholic. It seems that building understanding of the Eucharist as the Presence of God and communion as an intimate encounter with our risen Lord would be a good place to start catechising not just our children but their families too.
I would really appreciate a discussion on just this topic. I am eager to hear abount what has worked in other parishes and dioceses.
Tim:
My question to the two parish DRE's who were telling me these stories was: Does your parish undertake any explicit evangelization process?
Their answer: a very low key, general retreat is required of parents of kids in sacramental prep but they have never seen any life-changing impact on the parents who go through.
Other than that, nothing.
Our problem: lack of intentional discipleship on the part of parents.
In parishes that take evangelization seriously, everything changes - including the commitment of parents to pass their faith onto their children.
That's why the US Bishops have declared the evangelization and formation of adults to be the "preferential option" in catechesis.
Because without lived adult discipleship as the model and norm about them, most kids will pass through religious ed untouched.
Sherry,
So true this: "Because without lived adult discipleship as the model and norm about them, most kids will pass through religious ed untouched." Too often the only "lived adult discipleship" our young people see is against the norm.
Those two DRE's pretty much described what happens at my parish, except that what is required is one or two very low key, general meetings.
Outside of this blog, which I will search later when I have time, could you point me to some discussions, articles, books or other resources that show what "parishes that take evangelization seriously" look like and do? What is being done (that is working) to implement "intentional discipleship on the part of parents"?
Thanks so much for your reply,
Tim
Tim:
Take a look at the parish links we have collected at our website here
http://www.siena.org/Links.asp?id=17
Most of these parishes are serious about discipleship. Some like the pastor of St. Patrick's Parish in Spokane, have a remarkably comprehesive approach to the whole thing (http://parishesonline.com/scripts/HostedSites/Org.asp?ID=14610)
Some like Sacred Heart in Boise have been doing evangelization of their whole adult population for the past 10 years and seen remarkable things happen. (http://www.sacredheartboise.org/parishsite/ad_retreats.htm)
I could go on and on. In fact, I will be going on and on at this summer's Making Disciples which is 4 days of training focused on exactly this issue: helping Cathoic adults become intentional disciples.
For more info, (http://www.siena.org/CalendarDetail.asp?id=510)
(To begin with please forgive my bad spelling and grammar.)
There is alot of dynamics that come into play with sacramental preparation and the systems and guidelines set up within a parish and diocese with regards to religious education. As a DRE at a parish with over 1600 children and teens in our program I must say that it is not primarily the responsiblity of the DRE to evangelize and catechize the families and children and teens of the parish programs! There are no easy answers. Some of the dynamics that come into play in my own experience in this field for ever 10 years are:
1. pastor's and pastoral staff's support and collaboration
In trying to establish a process of evangelization within the parish one of the areas that come into play is getting the pastor and pastoral staff to not only support the initiative of evangelization, but for them to understand that it is not primarly the resonsiblity of a given person (DRE) or group or committee within the parish, but is in fact mission and purpose of the Church herself. This is especially difficult when the leadership of the parish is overwhelmed with "maintaining" the structors of the parish that has over 20,000 members. When they hear the ideas of implementing a process they hear "another program." and "more work." Another challenge is dealing with a pastoral staff who are under catechized or who have never had a personal encounter with the risen Christ (or who have had one and have worked for many years in a parish and have allowed the parish systems "needs" and polictics to become their primary concern)
2. diocesian support & cosumer catholicism (parish shopping)
This dynamic is very interesting. Most dioceses have guidelines that a parish is required to implement when preparing a child or teen for a sacrament. If a parish wants to add their own requirement it would need the pastors support. Even if you had the pastors support it would not end the dynamic of parents play parish shopping. Most parents call parishes that surround them and see where they can get the best deal. The least amount of time, committment, energy, fees, and participation a parish has for the preparation of any sacrament is the parish they choose to place their child in.
3. starting a process of evangelization. Who will lead it?
Is another issue. Most parish staff (as most of you may know =0) ) work a position that really should be a position that 3 to 4 full time employees would have a hard time doing! Does that sound like and exaggartion? Nope, I wish it were! Did I mention that there are 1600 children and teens in our parish program. In addition we have over 250 volunteers and 150 catechists we need to manage form and help discern their gifts! Sad to say most parishes are "needs" based and so administration of the systems and structors are presumed to be the first and most crtical responsilbity of staff. It is clearly a challenge to convince the pastor and pastoral staff that your primary mission at the parish isn't to be an administor but is to evangelize and catechize and to form others in their mission to be apostles to the world!
4. requiring a evangelization retreat or experience for parents in our religious education programs
This idea would sound great and I am sure it could have some little effect, but we have tried this route and what we have experienced is most parents hostile to the requirement. If they do show up they are not open at all to the experince and some feel the church has "betrayed" their trust of not "pushing" the Catholic faith on them. Of course trust and openess are important stages of any evangelization process. Many parents feel betrayed because some of them come iwth the idea that the Church is there to meet their needs and if we don't they feel the church is not welcoming, placing hoops for them to jump through and making it hard for them to be "Catholic"
5. forming a team of intentional disciples for the retreat experience or to evangelize the parish and the need for discernment of charisms.
Asking those who are intentional disciples in our parish to take on being a team member is hard. Most of the intentional disciples of our parish are over extended in fulfilling the "needs" of the parish. So there is a REAL need for them to begin to discern their charisms!
Anyone with the charism of wisdom out there with some insights?
Parish DRE
Dear Parish DRE:
I have thought a lot about this and here's my quick and dirty version (nothing you said surprises me - what you describe is pretty much universal)
1) Bite the bullet and hire a Director/Coordinator of Evangelization and Lay Formation. The US Bishops have said that the best of our resources need to go into adult formation because that is the foundation of everything else: attendance at Mass, the formation of our children, giving, service, stewardship, vocations - you name it.
So we are being penny wise and pound foolish. We can't add more to our massively overburdened current DRE's. We need a new kind of leader whose entire focus is laying the foundation: making disciples and equipping apostles.
(See this post on the most amazing job advertisement I've ever seen - this is the kind of leadership we need to raise up - http://blog.siena.org/2007/02/most-amazing-parish-job-advertisement-i.html)
2)If I were hired to do so, I'd start with a Called & Gifted process (either in a weekend or small group format) which was marketed to the entire parish and beyond - not just to the staff and current leaders. (The C & G draws large numbers of people who are not already involved but are seeking, has an evangelizing effect on people, and draws people from the periphery to the center).
I would also plan my re-inforcing cycle of evangelization events (gearing them to the unique personality and needs of that community) and I'd begin offering them in the first year. (We cover this in considerable detail in Making Disciples - I can't go into detail here)
In our experience, parishes that have a regular round of evangelizing opportunities that are designed to reach out through personal relationships start to see powerful culmulative fruit within a couple years. Attendance at Mass goes up, the offering goes up, parishioners fill every class in the diocese. Priories change radically.
In Boise, they have so many volunteers eager to put on evangelization retreats that they can't find places for them all. Up to 50 parishioners will hire a bus and spend the entire weekend at their own expense, traveling to another part of the state or another city to put on evangelization retreats for small parishes. 17 people traveled to San Francisco last weekend to offer the retreat for the first time at St. Dominic's.
Why? Because the retreat faciliated a life-changing encounter with Christ and now they are fully awake and on fire - and everything is possible.
This is new wineskin territory - but it can be done and it is being done right now in parishes around the country.
By the way - great questions and discussion so far. This is the stuff that urgently needs to be addressed.
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