I attended this workshop at the REC 2010, presented by Bill Heubsch.
Conversation: What will attract adults to on-going education? What principles do we follow?
Audience Answers:
- What is relevant to their lives? Maybe Go is speaking in their daily life
- There has to be a starting and an ending. “Life-long faith formation” program is not too appealing to them.
- Active engagement in teaching and learning
- Reasonable amount of time, set into the schedule that works for the adult realistic life
- Relating something with child-care, a topic of especially interest of (especially single) parents
- Youth commonly-understood English should be used commonly in the course
- Limit pre- and post- assignments to minimal, keep the course self-contained
- Hospitality
Principles for adult formation:
- It should be fun. Elements that make things fun:
o Food & wine
o Laughter (usually in story telling)
o The right setting: enough warm light, nicely decorated
o When time flies! (fun things make time flies)
o Should include games, ice-breakers sometimes, music, take advantage of media (video clips, movie clips, …), fieldtrips, sharing time at the beginning of class (be careful not to term it faith sharing, but rather check in), quiet time or meditative time at the beginning for reflection/pray, we can alternate high and low energy …
- There is a beginning and a clear end:
o There should be a clear beginning
o There is an end in sigh. People do not commit easily to open-ended programs
o When you creating a binder or a program booklet, it gives the attendants the overall picture of the course, and creates a sense of beginning and end.
- The resource we choose: we have to be carefully chosen,
o successful resources, inexpensive materials
o user-friendly: plain language (not too theologically technical), bite size (1500-1800 words), bullet statements
o attractive presentation
o variety of materials: reading, audio, …
o don’t assume the literacy level of the adults: the conversation is very important
o faithful to the teaching of the Church: rooted in the Catechism, the true teachings and all aspects that are taught by the Church, not pick and choose
- The process we follow, must respect adults:
o Participatory
o Not sitting in class, being lectured
o Leading to spirituality
- The leader of the process must be well prepared and fun
o The right leader can make or break adult information
o The sense of “donating” oneself for the ministry rather than skills, being liked,
The goals:
*Adult Catholics of mature faith. Mature faith is:
- to know Christ
- to love the church community
- signs: as supple sense of oneself: self-learning and growing, self-forgiving for mistakes, on a lifelong journey of faith. The ability to forgive others: dying to oneself in Christ, letting go of grudges and hatred. Donating oneself in love to others: your spouse and family, the poor and rejected, even your “enemies.” Generosity. See through the lens of faith: creation, all community ….
- Community life: parish participation, liturgical life of the parish
- An open heart for people who struggle: as Christ had for us all, Pope John XXIII (open for life in the Church): “open wide your arms like Christ”
The Mini-course
- short, defined areas of study
- combined with faith sharing:
o purpose: help folks experience
o and encounter with Christ
o in the context of this learning moment
- purpose: to integrate faith into daily life
- usually 6-10 sessions per mini-course
When do we use them?
- parent gatherings while kids are in class
- the morning mass crowd – going a bit deeper
- RCIA
- Youth ministry and Confirmation
- Adult formation offerings
- Parish based retreat follow-ups
How do you construct one?
- Take a limited topic, but not too limited
- Break it into bite sized pieces: 6-10 min
- Break open the text you choose
- Employ “learn and teach”
- Add some kind of prayer
Sample of a session:
- break open the text
o read the text together, short, bite-size chunks
o pause, ask people what the text means to them: what phrase lingers in your ears, what caught your eyes, what touched your heart,
o share your insights
o move from that into deeper study with Learn and teach
- learn and teach
o break the material into small chunks and assign each to a small group
o each small group draws out the major points
· creates a one-page flip chart sheet on them: which will be presented to all
· and prepares one of the points for dialogue, in diads in the larger group
o learn by teaching
- prayer
o pause to ask “how would you talk to God about this point of faith?” For example, about Catholic teaching on our responsibility for the poor
o using writing and notes, talks
Process
- gather
- check in with each other on what’s new
- focus on the topic
o break open the text
o learn and teach
o take it to prayer (the Ignatian prayer from)
The “text”
- it’s important to have something in their hands which will go home
- should feel valuable
- build your mini-coursed
What there are in the market today:
- Catholic Update
- Lectionary-connected resources are many
o Such as Exploring the Sunday
o RENEW
o Scripture form Scratch
o Threshold Bible Study (Liturgical Press)
o Growing Faith
o Organized into Mini-Courses: with excellent Study Guides and Marketing kigs
Some topics of suggestion:
From the website there are outlines of these topics
- The nature of God and Faith
- Growing our faith
- The person of Jesus Christ (I wouldn’t start from here, but from one’s yearning_
- The nature of the Church
- Liturgy and Sacraments
- Catholic Social and Moral Teaching
- Living the Commandments
- Christian Prayer
- A Thorough Survey of Catholic Life and Practice
- The Bible – in plain English
- Just Living (take Catholic Social Teaching into your daily living) free service
