Parent Involvement/Family Catechesis

1. Parent Involvement/Family Catechesis What are you already doing? What would you like to do but have not done yet? What challenges have you come up against?

2. Church as Learning Organization • “[T]he basic meaning of a ‘learning organization’ [is] an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future…One never arrives at being a learning organization, just as one never arrives at being a lifelong learner or an evangelizing community.” • Jane Regan, Towards an Adult Church, 117 - 118

3. Church as a Learning Organization • “Faith is living and active, sharing many of the qualities of living things: it grows and develops over time; it learns from experience; it adapts to changing conditions while maintaining its essential identity…” • U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, No. 50.

4. Share an example of a way your community has adapted to meet the changing needs of your community.

5. General Faith Formation Program at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels • Once a month on a Sunday (Oct. – June) • All families attend, regardless of age of children • 8:00am mass with Children’s Liturgy of the Word Dismissal • 9:00am Hospitality • 9:30am – 11:00am Session, we trade off months staying together and having separate speakers for the adults and children. • Light follow-up homework to reinforce the session theme at home.

6. Sacrament Preparation at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels • Two year program involving monthly weekday sessions with the child and at least one parent. These families also attend the Sunday sessions. • Extensive homework to be done at home during the remaining weeks of the month. • Communication with the Director of Faith Formation by email weekly.

7. Home Rituals Homework includes intergenerational rituals and activities and faith sharing exercises meant to extending our monthly sessions into the home. • Goals: • 1. affirm parents as the primary educators of their children • 2. develop households of faith • 3. build a partnership between the household and the parish • 4. Help people to identify the presence of the divine in their own lives.

8. A Community of Disciples • “The Christian laity have been successfully educated to be religious consumers…A parish is a place where we bring a baby to be baptized, an adolescent to receive moral instruction, a young adult to be married, a loved one to be buried…Experiences like this do not bode well for an adult community of faith, a koinonia of mutual responsibility and shared mission.” • Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and James D. Whitehead, Community of Faith (Mystic: Twenty Third Street Publications, 1992), 1, 7-8.

9. Parent Coaching: A Gardner Tilling the Soil • In Great Expectations: A Pastoral Guide for Partnering with Parents, Bill Huebsch and Leisa Anslinger guide pastoral ministers to see themselves as coaches…“You’re their coach. The Holy Spirit actually does the work in the interior life of each person - and within you as well, but you are the one called to lead them gently to see the Spirit at work.”

10. 23rd Publications • The Pastoral Center - Parent Coaching Materials: http://thepastoralcenter.com/copatofothow.html • Learning Centers for Parents: • http://store.pastoralplanning.com/lceforpaseou.html • Whole Family Catechesis Session Outlines: • http://store.pastoralplanning.com/pawipafr1sts.html

11. Conversion before Catechesis • Faith formation is less about memorizing the Lord’s Prayer and more about learning how to live it. “It is not a matter of learning the catechism…it’s a matter of meeting Christ, turning one’s heart to Christ, living in Christ’s love, and telling others about that.” All catechesis happens in the context of relationship and it starts with the most central relationship, the one between the individual and Christ. • Bill Huebsch, Whole Community Catechesis in Plain English (Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 2003), 55.

12. My role as the Coach • It is my job to “step into the life story of the family,” to know its needs, struggles, history and where its members are in their faith journey. “All ministry happens in the context of a human relationship.” Knowing each family allows me to meet them where they are on their faith journey and address their individual needs. • Huebsch and Anslinger, Great Expectations, 37.

13. Evauations and Surveys • Evaluation Form every session • Mid-year and end of the year surveys with detailed questions such as… • What new practices/prayers have you incorporated into your family life from our sessions/homework? • How can we improve the homework we give you? • Rate the faith sharing time you share with your children during our sessions whether doing a craft or discussing a faith sharing question. • How can your faith sharing time with your children during our sessions be improved? • What do you think your children have learned over the course of this year? • What is the most important thing you think they are getting out of our program? • What is the most important thing you as a family are getting out of our program? • What areas of faith would you like us to cover next year? • What are some other ways we can support your family in your faith?

14. Leisa Anslinger’s Spiritual Needs Survey: • www.surveymonkey.com/s/spiritualneeds • To sign your parish up so you receive the results… • www.catholiclifeandfaith.net/spiritual-needs-survey • There is a link on the side bar that says Parish Survey Registration Join the Survey Now

15. Share one way in which you learn about the needs of your community.

16.   “I personally like the intergenerational program because I ,as well, am on a faith formation journey.  The fact that for at least half the classes we are together as a family discussing Christ is very important. The classes where the parents are separated are valuable for our continued relationship with God.  For the Reconciliation evening classes I appreciate knowing the curriculum. The fact that one of us is present so we can reinforce things at home as we are doing the homework.  Homework makes this an active learning class, parental involvement allows us to continue the conversation during the week. We pick a weekend afternoon and snuggle up and do the homework and it is a rich time.”   ~ Parent 

17. “The experience has been great. It's a chance to learn more about my faith and gives me the appropriate language to use with my daughter. The benefit is that my daughter and I are learning at the same time. I want the material to be relevant to her in a way that builds her relationship with God without the stress and anxiety. The program has done great job of helping me accomplish this goal.”  ~ Parent

18. “All aspects of this program make it unique, wonderful and successful.  From the variety of speakers to the parents and children. The integration of parent-child-teacher-priest is one of a kind and we would definitely recommend it as a formula for other programs to follow. When we arrived, we were received with great joy and to this day we feel welcomed –part of a family- (a church family to be exact). Working at home with the kids is the best part of it all because we get to refresh ourselves of the topics that we don't have time to brush up on.” ~ Parent

19. Share one new idea you will take back to your parish from today’s session.