Generations of Faith

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My parish is starting its second year using the Generations of Faith program instead of a traditional CCD program. For those of you unfamiliar with the program GOF has activities for the entire family including adults. In order to discourage drop offs (parents who drop off their kids at CCD without attending mass) parents of grade school children attend class with their children. The entire congregation meets together after mass for a meal. After an opening session we break into groups (babysitting; pre-k; family which includes grades K-5; middle school; high school; and adult). After a learning session (about 1.5 hrs) we reconvene in the large group for sharing and closing prayers. On the good side we spend more time learning and do more activities which the kids really enjoy. On the down side we meet only once a month.

I was wondering if any on this post is using Generations of Faith and what your experinces/opinions are.

Sorry for the length of the post

Pippin
 
in theory it’s a great idea, I have attended the presentation, and I use some of the suggested lessons for family days we have thru the year. If I continue to have a problem attracting catechists, we may have to go to this format

problem 1, that covers intact families who are already coming to Mass and introducing their children to the faith. It does not meet the needs of the “drop-offs” who are put in CCD by parents, grandparents or other relatives who want them to receive the sacraments and learn the faith, but cannot or will not participate due to invalid marriage, age, language difference, work schedule, or a myriad of other reasons. So these children are not catechized in the parish. This is an offense against justice, as the Vatican has just reminded us.

problem 2, like any catechetical program, it depends on the catechists whether or not the full and complete deposit of the faith is transmitted. To be done properly, GOF must be attended for 6 years by all family members to cover to topics in the curriculum, and the curriculum is very general. The specifics of how to present each topic are left largely to the catechists. The program materials are full of activities, but weak on content.

problem 3, you still need a separate program to prepare children to receive the sacraments at the appropriate time
 
I haven’t used Generations of Faith, however when I lived in Kingston, Ontario there was a very strong group of families (some involved in Opus Dei) who decided to run their own catechism classes, discouraged by the lack of spiritual education in the separate school board and even at their churches. We met twice a month, all children had classes and the adults had a class as well, then we reconvened for sports and then prayers. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday.

The program your parish is starting sounds wonderful!! If it wasn’t a sin I’d be jealous! Enjoy it!

God bless 🙂
 
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asquared:
in theory it’s a great idea, I have attended the presentation, and I use some of the suggested lessons for family days we have thru the year. If I continue to have a problem attracting catechists, we may have to go to this format

problem 1, that covers intact families who are already coming to Mass and introducing their children to the faith. It does not meet the needs of the “drop-offs” who are put in CCD by parents, grandparents or other relatives who want them to receive the sacraments and learn the faith, but cannot or will not participate due to invalid marriage, age, language difference, work schedule, or a myriad of other reasons. So these children are not catechized in the parish. This is an offense against justice, as the Vatican has just reminded us.

problem 2, like any catechetical program, it depends on the catechists whether or not the full and complete deposit of the faith is transmitted. To be done properly, GOF must be attended for 6 years by all family members to cover to topics in the curriculum, and the curriculum is very general. The specifics of how to present each topic are left largely to the catechists. The program materials are full of activities, but weak on content.

problem 3, you still need a separate program to prepare children to receive the sacraments at the appropriate time
This is currently being explored in our Cluster of Parishes…I have some of the same concerns that you do… My main conercern is what do we do with those poor little kids whose parents or guardians won’t participate or can’t? I have children from broken homes and they feel bad enough… In Christ, Annunciata
 
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asquared:
problem 3, you still need a separate program to prepare children to receive the sacraments at the appropriate time
I should mention that our diocese requires a separate program to prepare for the sacraments. Parents are required to attend with their children. This is true even for those parishes with a traditional CCD program.
 
My brother’s parish is using this program. I had occasion to meet the DRE from that chuch at a Catechist training. I posed some of the same questions that Asquared did and did not get many clear answers.

Some of my concerns (taking into account that I get most of my info second hand from my brother):

Because it meets once a month, for 8 months a year, there seems to be few opportunities to reinforce information learned in a timely manner. I teach CCE to grade schoolers and I know that if they miss a week, you have to start almost at the beginning. I would say that most of the generation of Catholics that are currently parents received a weak Faith Formation themselves. I know mine was. I know that many parents would not be confident in filling in the gaps in the month in between.

My brother works an odd schedule and they don’t make all the meetings. This makes the time in between sessions even longer.

The idea of breaking up by age but studying as a family are contradictory if you have more than one child. In my brother’s case with a 4th grader and a 6th grader they had to either go to a group where one of the children would be “out of synch” or split up - mom with one, dad with the other. If they had a bigger family or larger age spread, they would have had an even bigger dilema.

Many families in our part of the state send their kids to CCE but do not have time for church committments outside of Mass. The kids of these families are left out of Religious Ed altogether, at a GOF parish, except for the Sacrament prep. At my brother’s parish, Sacrament prep was a meeting in the Fall with a workbook to do at home for First Confession and another meeting (with workbook) after Christmas for First Communion. That’s it.

When I researched it myself, I wasn’t sure that I had the right name of the program. The main page of the web site doesn’t mention anywhere that it is a Catholic program. It does refer to the sacraments but I wonder why they don’t say they are Catholic. :confused:

The only parishes to implement the program in our diocese have been parishes with very liberal positions on doctrine and liturgy. Judging the whole program based on liberal implementation is probably not fair of me. I would be interested in seeing if a more faithful/orthodox parish implements it in a way that overcomes some of these concerns.
 
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