Generations of Faith

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Our parish is replacing the bulk of its CCD program with a new program called “Generations of Faith” in which parents accompany their children or youths to class or discussion and a meal, and others in the parish also can join. The idea sound ok, but I wonder if anyone has come across this in their diocese yet. I don’t know where the curriculum comes from. I am tempted to sign up but I have been disappointed before by questionable content in programs. I also don’t want to rule out a new idea that may be orthodox. Any experience with this?
 
My parish is a Generations of Faith (GOF) parish and I think the approach has great promise. I think this because it encourages ongoing faith formation of every parish member, young or old. Too often in the CCD model, parents think that all they have to do is make sure their kids go to the classes until they’re confirmed and then they never have to learn another thing about the faith. Wrong! The GOF approach makes the point to all adults that they need to keep growing their understanding of the faith throughout their lives.

A couple of points:
  1. The transistion from CCD to GOF is not easy. We are having difficulty in getting broad participation. Parents with school-age kids readily take to it, but getting other adults to come to events is tough—they just don’t think in terms of doing anything at church beyond Mass.
  2. My understanding is that it is not a set curriculum, but rather an approach to faith formation. So if your current CCD curriculum is very orthodox (and I hope it is) there is no reason your GOF curriculum would not also be very orthodox.
Good Luck and Peace be with you.
 
Our parish has been doing the Generations of Faith program for the past two years. In fairness, let me state the we (my wife, son and I) only went to one session on ‘Sacred Spaces’. I thought it was a waste of time for the following reasons:
  1. It seemed to be a poor substitute for actual catechesis of the faith.
  2. It tended to focus too much on us (the people of God) as a ‘sacred space’ and not enough on the church as a ‘sacred space’.
  3. It was not very well presented in general, which more than likely was not so much the fault of the program as it was the poor planning by the group in charge of presenting the program.
My biggest problem was item #1. We have already suffered through two generations of poor catechesis as evidenced by the majority of Catholics no longer believing in the Real Presence. This is compounded by the apparent switch in celebrating ourselves as Temples of Christ (of course we no longer call it the celebration of the mass, but rather we gather for worship) instead of focusing on the continuing sacrifice of the mass.

Of course this is only my opinion after one brief session :o .
 
😦 You went to ONE event and your parish has been doing GOF for two years? Depending on how your parish is doing it, that means you have missed anywhere from five to fifty events.

I’d say give it a chance. I encourage you to attend another event then offer feedback to the dre or pastor. Then attend the next one and again offer feedback. Not having been there, I can’t speak to the content of the one you attended (though “sacred spaces” seems to be fertile ground for teaching about the faith) but it will only improve if they hear from you.

I agree wholeheartedly with you on suffering with two generations of poorly catechised catholics. I know because I was one of them. Let me ask you this, since the parents (primary teachers of the faith) and catechists that are teaching right now in CCD are poorly catechised themselves, don’t you think we’re already working on the third generation of poorly catechised catholics?!?

That is one reason why I am excited about the GOF approach. A well implemented program will teach the faith to adults and kids. It just needs two things, good planners/teachers (maybe you?) and people willing to come and learn about their faith…

Peace
 
Hi MDM,

Sorry for the long time in replying, we just got back from vacation 🙂 .

I certainly admit that I have not given the program much of a chance by only attending one time. Part of our hesitancy comes from our experience with our former Pastor and DRE with materials used during the faith formation process for our son’s First Penance and First Holy Eucharist. I do not recall the titles of the two books used, but we were very disappointed with the lack of catechetical material in those. Therefore when we went to the GOF session, it reinforced our belief that it was based on ‘soft’ catechesis (God loves us, Christ in us, there is no evil, no hell, etc).

As far as participating, I have chosen a different approach with the consent of our current Pastor. I will be presenting an apologetics series this fall to reeducate those who are interested in what we as Catholic Christians believe and how those beliefs differ from our Protestant brethren.
 
We are starting Generations of Faith in the fall here.

Gen of Faith has a website here: generationsoffaith.org/

I will tell you that I am hopeful. A. Because our new priest seems very well grounded in the faith as is our DRE and B. because if this doesn’t work I am not sure what will so I have to hope.

Our parish like many parishes suffers just trying to get parents to bring their children to CCD. They can’t do it at night it conflicts with family time and sports, no one is home to bring them after school, no one can manage the weekends… baically the faith is not taught at home and parents aren’t bringing the kids to religious ed.

maybe by trying to get the whole family there together we wil have a chance to do something good
 
My brother’s parish started GOF this past year. Admittedly this is second-hand but these are my thoughts.

I looked up the web site when my SIL first told me about it. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. It doesn’t mention the Catholic Church anywhere. The only clue are the names of the sacraments. :confused:

I am sure there are different ways to implement the program but this is what my brother’s parish did. They held an event once a month and mailed home a packet of materials. If you missed an event, the materials were not self explanatory so you just had to go it alone or wait for next month.

The program was billed to be done by family groups. But the activities are divided by age. With my brother’s two children, they had to choose between staying as a family but having one child in the ‘wrong’ age group or splitting off - one parent for each child. If you had only one parent or more than 2 kids you wouldn’t have that second option.

I teach CCE - second grade this past year. We know that maybe half of the kids are in families where they get little faith formation at home. They may not even attend Mass regularly. We hope that a few kernals of what we teach sink in and maybe percolate up later in life. GOF will not attract these families (in my opinion). It will mostly get those families that are already actively teaching the faith at home and are eager for more resources and tools. What about those other kids?

I should note that in my brother’s parish, they have “successfully” seperated sacrament prep from regular CCE for years. They have a mandatory meeting in the Fall and give the parents a workbook to do with their child to prepare for First Confession in Dec. Then, after Christmas there is a second meeting to do the same thing for First Communion. All the teaching and determining if the child is prepared is left up to the parents. It’s on the honor system so if the parents go to the meeting and also show up for rehersal, they are good to go. 😦

But I digress.
 
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kmktexas:
I teach CCE - second grade this past year. We know that maybe half of the kids are in families where they get little faith formation at home. They may not even attend Mass regularly. We hope that a few kernals of what we teach sink in and maybe percolate up later in life. GOF will not attract these families (in my opinion). It will mostly get those families that are already actively teaching the faith at home and are eager for more resources and tools. What about those other kids?
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In my parish those kids aren’t coming to religious ed either. They show up for mass a couple times a year and that is it.

Until we get enough parents who honestly beleive that the faith is important for their children to learn we have to kepe trying.

-D
 
Hello Darcee, my parish offers our CCd classes between 8:30 and 9:45 on Sunday. This way the kids can attend the 10:00 Mass after the class. It works a lot better than trying to have the kids come in on sat. or in the evning during the week
 
We tried that this year and it didn’t work. We have a school and I think the parents who send their children to the school feel that is enough… the other parents…who knows?

-D
 
bill t:
Hello Darcee, my parish offers our CCd classes between 8:30 and 9:45 on Sunday. This way the kids can attend the 10:00 Mass after the class. It works a lot better than trying to have the kids come in on sat. or in the evning during the week
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This is what we do too. We have a 7:45 Mass and a 10:15 one. CCE is at 8:45. The only issue is with the Spanish Mass. That Mass is at noon so many parents make two trips to drop off and pick up their kids for CCE and won’t make a third trip for noon Mass.
We tried that this year and it didn’t work. We have a school and I think the parents who send their children to the school feel that is enough…
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Isn’t it? You would think if the kids go to a Catholic school, CCE would be superfluous. 🙂
 
Isn’t it? You would think if the kids go to a Catholic school, CCE would be superfluous. 🙂
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yeah you would… but then again… can you ever learn too much about the fiath 😉

-D
 
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