Adult Faith Formation

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Elzee

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What type of faith formation does your parish have for adults? I’m not talking about bible studies, but rather classes to teach adult Catholics the doctrines of our faith, the meaning of the sacraments, maybe some apologetics thrown in to help adults understand why we do what we do and believe what we believe.

Our parish has no adult education at all and I’d like to gather some ideas before setting up a meeting with our priest.

Thank you!
 
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Elzee:
What type of faith formation does your parish have for adults? I’m not talking about bible studies, but rather classes to teach adult Catholics the doctrines of our faith, the meaning of the sacraments, maybe some apologetics thrown in to help adults understand why we do what we do and believe what we believe.

Our parish has no adult education at all and I’d like to gather some ideas before setting up a meeting with our priest.

Thank you!
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I always suggest that anyone looking into starting an adult Faith Formation program read *Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us *from the USCCB and get the leaders guide. Spend six months to a year following the guidelines and forming a program that meets the needs of the parish not your own idea of what is needed otherwise it will flop within a year.
 
Our parish has two forms of faith formation. We have RCIA of course, and we also have the less formal Catechism class held on Sunday nights. I say “less formal” because the Sunday night catechesis, which is hosted by one of our resident Deacons, is usually a loosely structured, open invitation discussion group that covers whatever topic is announced prior in the parish bulletin.
 
RCIA,* Light of the World* (“Zacchaeus”)retreats and Why Catholic? a/k/a RENEW. Why Catholic? is not by choice. We were doing well with the Light of the World and then getting those people into so many small groups I couldn’t begin to name them for content (all are orthodox and supervised by the pastor). But we had Why Catholic? mandated for all parishes by the bishop, so we have no choice in the matter.
 
Our associate pastor runs a class named “Lunch with Scripture and Tradition”. It meets on Tuesday during lunchtime, and participants brown bag it.

He recently added a second session, on Wednesday nights called “Dessert with Scripture and Tradition” in which we bring a treat to share.

The same material is covered in both sessions, but people will ask different questions, so they won’t be totally identical.

We had an 8 week session in the fall, using Jim Burnham’s “Beginning Apologetics” book.

Another series of classes will start up for Lent and we will be covering the liturgical year.
 
During Lent our parish hold retreats but also something called Fostering Faith with all different kinds of topics over a set period of time… We also have a book club which will be incorporating bible soon.
 
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axolotl:
Our associate pastor runs a class named “Lunch with Scripture and Tradition”. It meets on Tuesday during lunchtime, and participants brown bag it.

He recently added a second session, on Wednesday nights called “Dessert with Scripture and Tradition” in which we bring a treat to share.

The same material is covered in both sessions, but people will ask different questions, so they won’t be totally identical.

We had an 8 week session in the fall, using Jim Burnham’s “Beginning Apologetics” book.

Another series of classes will start up for Lent and we will be covering the liturgical year.
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I find three types of adult programs:

I class them as follows:

Adult Education

How to raise your children Catholic
How to improve communication in Marriage
Spanish as a second language
Livings wills

Adult Bible Study

Reflecting on the Lectionary readings
The Gospel of John
The Old Testament people

Adult Catechesis

Looking into the Catechism of the Catholic Church
Errors of the early Church and early Fathers response
The Sacrament of Baptism in the Church
The teaching of the Councils of the Church
Studying the Encyclical (encyclical name)

Adult Catechesis presents the teaching of the Magisterium.

Adult Bible Study studies the Bible but not necessarly the teachings of the Church. Now it can take on a catechetical form if one is studying the Sacrament of Baptism - using the Scriptures.

Adult Education - can be on just about any topic.
 
Br. Rich SFO:
I find three types of adult programs:

I class them as follows:

Adult Education
Adult Bible Study
Adult Catechesis
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Which reminds me that my parish teams up with neighboring parishes for a program called Adult Catholic Education (ACE).

Our winter spring topics:
  • Sacred Art: Having a Spiritual Vocataion in Contemporary Times
  • Living the “Good Life”: How Do We Foram an Adult Conscience?
  • The Bible:Ever Ancient-Ever New
  • Eco-Spirituality:A “Household” Word
  • The Young and the Restless: Young Adults and the Catholic Church
Some of these look interesting, and some I wouldn’t go near. Last spring, Alex Jones was brought in.
 
We have RCIA which is not a great program in our parish.

But what we do have that is great is a weekly class taught by our Bishop. He has done this for several years now. He taught extensively on the Catechism of the Catholic Churc for over a year.
He has also covered various books and encyclicals. We are so blessed to have him in our community and willing to teach in our parish.
 
We have a once per month adult education class where we go over the Catholic Update for that month.
 
We have RCIA, an annual parish mission, and sometimes we have other speakers give talks throughout the year.
 
We have themed classes opened to everyone and bible study. I don’t think we have regular adult classes on topics such as Church doctrine. I would really love that, my wife as well, since we are in RCIA. RCIA has gotten us in the habit of going to such a class but after it’s over, we’d like to get something more advanced to further develop and nourish our Catholic experience. And since we’re already in the habit of going to church twice a week!
 
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Brian_C:
We have themed classes opened to everyone and bible study. I don’t think we have regular adult classes on topics such as Church doctrine. I would really love that, my wife as well, since we are in RCIA. RCIA has gotten us in the habit of going to such a class but after it’s over, we’d like to get something more advanced to further develop and nourish our Catholic experience. And since we’re already in the habit of going to church twice a week!
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You are correct that the Church every parish, for that matter that has RCIA must have an Adult Catechesis program that just continues the weekly Catechetical lessons without interuption from the end of RCIA/Mystagogy.
 
Ahhh, wonderful!🙂 Just what we were wanting!
Br. Rich SFO:
You are correct that the Church every parish, for that matter that has RCIA must have an Adult Catechesis program that just continues the weekly Catechetical lessons without interuption from the end of RCIA/Mystagogy.
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Actually, the priest is supposed to catechize adults

Canon 768
“1 Those who announce the word of God to Christ’s faithful are first and foremost to set out those things which it is necessary to believe and to practice for the glory of God and the salvation of all.”

The primary place for doing this is during the mass and the sacraments:
  1. “The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the font from which all her power flows.” [13] It is therefore the privileged place for c****atechizing the People of God. “Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men.” [14]
Unfortunately, priests are never taught this, because bishops don’t know this, because theologians don’t know this.

The Popes have been trying to teach this idea over and over, but there has been a misunderstanding over the word “Gospel”.
The primary duty of priests is to proclaim the Gospel.
Theologians and scholars have been misled into thinking the Gospel is only the words and deeds of Jesus in the scriptures, and they have misled everyone else.

The Popes say that to proclaim the Gospel means to teach the whole Catholic faith, to catechize, in other words. They have been teaching this clearly at least since the 1900’s, which is as far as I have gone back so far, in their encyclicals

How do you think the Catholic faith came about? It was the apostles and their who proclaimed the Gospel to the people.

This teaching should be start off with the basics. The Trinity, then the heirarchy of truths, salvation history (which includes scripture) , the creed, the sacramments, the commandments and prayer.
This should be done during the homily. It is rarely done regularly because of this misunderstanding of the word “Gospel”
Usually all we get is commentary on the readings, and thus learn little or nothing.

We all must pray.
 
Our parish has what we call a “Faith Enrichment Series”. Right now, I am going to a series of lectures that goes through the Gospel according to Mark (since we are now in cycle B). We’ve also had a lecture on Spirituality, a Mass in Slow MOtion, and a speaker who is involved with research into the Shroud of Turin.

This series was started after Cardinal Mahony held a Synod, and adult faith formation was one of the priorities that came out of the process.
 
we are unusual in that we have a full time director of adult evangelization, as well as a DRE. She is responsible for pre-baptismal classes, and presents on a rotating cycle Alpha for Catholics, Touching Jesus through the Sacraments, Catholics Listening to God and Drinking from the Well of Christ (two bible studies), and a course on the catechism and one on the commandments. She has the same or parallel programs in Spanish concurrently. She is now in charge of implementing Disciples in Mission, which has been adopted by our diocese for evangelization. She also coordinates prayer groups in the neighborhoods.

through CCD we offer, besides RCIA and the 8-session parent classes for sacramental preparation, all the Catechist formation classes, which are open to the entire parish and publicized as such. We also have our post-Confirmation class which is open to adults, and does attract quite a few college students, Salvation History bible study alternates with Basic Apologetics. We had been offering “CCD for Parents” where parents could attend short-term bible studies and courses on specific CCC topics, but we have dropped them due to lack of interest.

Our pastor used to do courses on the catechism and other topics, which fortunately we have on cassette tapes, but since his new responsibilities with the diocese he is not free for in-parish programs any more. He does make it a point to work with Confirmation classes when he is able. One hour with him is like taking a college course in a topic.

We have done surveys of the parish and of CCD families from time to time and uncovered little or no interest in any more classes or bible studies. Quite sad.
 
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irish1:
Our parish has what we call a “Faith Enrichment Series”. Right now, I am going to a series of lectures that goes through the Gospel according to Mark (since we are now in cycle B). We’ve also had a lecture on Spirituality, a Mass in Slow MOtion, and a speaker who is involved with research into the Shroud of Turin.

This series was started after Cardinal Mahony held a Synod, and adult faith formation was one of the priorities that came out of the process.
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I wonder when or if parishes will get beyond the generic adult education and generic “Bible” study programs and get to providing real Adult Catechesis for the faithful.
 
As a “revert” I am taking RCIA classes. I do wish, however, that there was something “more”. I wouldn’t mind a weekly “This is our Faith” type thing.

~ Kathy ~
 
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