I am not sure where to post it so I did it here. I just became a member of our Adult Formation council in my parish and we wanted to increase the number of attendence for 25 to 40 years age group. We had many people over the age of 50 in the adult classes we offer but nothing with people who have families or are single.
Does anyone have suggestions on how to promote our classes to this age group?
I was thinking that apologetics or defending the faith seemed to be popular, but also parenting too?
I would suggest to begin with don’t confuse Adult Catechesis (Faith formation) with Adult Education. Parenting, conflict resolution, gardening are NOT Catechesis. They are adult education, which is just fine as long as it does not distract from the Adult Catechesis objective.
With young adults, you need to have several different days and times, as well as locations. At the church (week night, week day, Sunday evening), in small groups in homes, the school during Children’s FF. When at the parish there needs to be child care available.
It must be promoted by announcements in newsletters from the parish, the school. It MUST be announced by the pastor after masses. Use fliers, inserts, posters, at least 4 weeks before each session or topic.
Having the sessions begin with a meal (pizza, spaghetti, subs, burgers & hotdogs, pot luck) at say 6PM and the Catechesis begin at 7PM sometimes works. Because they do not have to go home and eat first.
Apologetics is find but be specific each week: Apologetics on Mary, Apologetics on the Eucharist, Apologetics on the Primacy of Peter, etc.
Make sure that you Catechists know their topic inside-out and up-side-down. You will blow up any credibility if a question is asked and answered WRONG. It would be better to not answer and look it up. Adult Catechesis is not about what you think the Church teaches, what you would like the Church to teach, or think the Church should teach. It’s totally about what the Church actually teaches!!
