Intergenerational Faith Gatherings

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For a powerful and effective planning tool for your parish, download the one which this web site provides free of charge! Simply go to this point and add it to your shopping cart. You will not be charged at check out. Hold one Faith Gathering at the beginning of each unit of the children’s text. For ease in pastoral planning, let their text be the springboard and roadmap for your plan. We provide a detailed planning tool to help you. Click here to go there. This means we're gonna start with those parents. Some of them are active in the parish, but others are not. The majority, in fact, are not active in most parishes. We're going to ask them to do something very reasonable: take part in their children's religious education. We will start by asking them to attend one adult gathering per unit of the children's text. This is reasonable and it results in about seven such gatherings per year. (You could also plan an eighth gathering as a closing event scheduled near Pentecost.) Then we'll add a second parish group to this Faith Gathering, which is really aimed at the parents, but the kids are also in the room. The second group is those in the parish who've just made a parish based retreat or other encounter, or simply those who want a deeper faith experience. This will include those baptized at Easter, or anyone who’s had a profound faith experience. You can see right away how the various elements of this pastoral plan work together. You can't hold retreats until you have somewhere for folks to sustain their faith afterward. And in order for the Faith Gatherings to have good energy, you need those people who just made that retreat. A third group to invite might include the youth of the parish, for whom such encounters are often quite common. And of course, as soon as possible, begin inviting other parish groups, such as your parish leaders, or the ones volunteering for liturgical roles, or the catechists. Each of these folks should really make a retreat annually just in order to make sure that we are about the core work of the church - to help people deepen their communion with Christ, and having done that, to worship and live accordingly. What you need for the Faith Gathering includes the following: A large room with round tables Good electronics—a microphone and an LCD projector for PowerPoint Lights turned down a bit lower than most parish halls Good music and a way to provide it—live liturgical music is best Food—the magic key to success Some thoughts about this: If you gather only adults, the kids could be in their regular classroom settings. But if you gather on an intergenerational basis, all ages and all stages of faith development can share one experience. How these gatherings should “feel”: More like liturgy than school—more like Mass than class. Full of good, strong energy—a lot of fun, loose, and engaging. Fun and comfortable. Choose a lead catechist with a sense of humor and good speaking skills. This person can make or break your success at these gatherings. Look for the gift of teaching and the ability to communicate delicate matters with grace and ease. Interesting and informative, so use media well! There should be good food, good hospitality, and interaction, almost like a pot luck supper. Each table should have a designated table leader. These folks do not need a lot of training, but a one- page direction sheet for each gathering or a fifteen minute rehearsal before getting started is enough. This table leader is key to the comfort of the participants. And remember, many of these parents do not attend Mass on Sundays. They’re virtual strangers to us! So the table leader takes on the vital role of being their “first contact.” If they like the experience of the Faith Gathering, they may take the first steps to more active participation. But if they’re embarrassed or made to feel uncomfortable, if we ask too much from them too quickly, then they will continue to edge away from us. The table leader is the key. See our planning tool to help create powerful and effective gatherings! Click here to go there. Here are three quick principles to follow when planning for faith gatherings of this sort: They should be on a regular and predictable schedule so that people can plan accordingly and make them a priority. They should really be fun to be part of. You can’t overdo the fun factor. And by fun I don’t mean “playing games,” but rather being in a setting where your heart is joyful because of what’s happening. They should be substantive in terms of content. Don’t offer people fluff. You’ll get them once, but they’ll never come back. (This is why Growing Faith is such a strong resource for these gatherings: it is the full teaching of the church.) Languages These faith gatherings can be held in bilingual fashion, but it’s really difficult to have more than two languages. If you have a large enough community of folks for each language group, take that route. But it’ s always best to keep the parish together and mainstream everyone, being sensitive to language needs. The schedule and curriculum If you hold one of these faith gatherings at the beginning of each unit of the children’s book, your curriculum is already done for you! How easy! See our planning tool to help you prepare. Growing Faith Project is correlated to whatever textbook you’re using. See the Web site for more on that. Having them occur on a regular basis will help insure success. You can steer into them: Couples preparing for matrimony Couples preparing for the baptism of their child Folks asking for full communion People who are just starting to make their way back to fuller participation in parish life, but who aren’t quite ready for a retreat And all the people listed above.

Here’s how a pastoral plan might unfold which is based on holding Faith Gatherings across all the ages and stages of life.

Pastoral Planning A step-by-step guide: Dreams & Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation A new book which includes a chapter outlining those all-important Planning Team Meetings. Training How to teach your parish about lifelong formation including excellent PowerPoint presentations to download and use, complete with presentation notes. Implementation How to state and sustain faith sharing throughout the parish using the Question of the Week With free prayer sheets. Prayer Services to accompany faith sharing. You can download and use these in 5 minutes! Outlines for adult or intergenerational Faith Gatherings linked to your children's textbook series. Outlines for adult Bible Studies which are in plain English! Download each session and get all you need in one item. Complete plans for Parish Based Retreats in several practical scheduling formats. Background Material All the current books you need to better understand lifelong formation, plus free articles you can download, copy, and use. Vatican II Lots of strong resources to help you teach about the Council. We are approaching the 50th Anniversary of the date on which John XXIII called Vatican II: Jan 25, 1959.

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