Materials for 30-45 Minute Lenten Program

[bcdunham]

Our parish is looking to build off a great mission by having a six-week lenten series in between two of our Masses. It would involve donuts, coffee, music, and then maybe a 10 minute video or talk followed by another 10 minutes or so of table discussion. Primary goal is to appeal to wide portion of our parish and, in particular, those who spend little time thinking or talking about their faith beyond attending Mass once a week.

So…we’re not looking for anything heavy or that requires a lot of work, which would scare away a lot of those in our target audience. We also are limited to about 30 minutes or so of material, since we are trying to fit this in between two Masses. Most of the programs I’m aware of are setup for an hour prayer group meeting with reading in preparation of the meeting. We can’t do that here. We’d also like to have topics that are more about Christ’s love and mercy versus the dogma of the church. Idea is to fire up the troops and lay the foundation to hopefully develop more formal, traditional prayer groups / bible studies specific to the Catholic faith.

Any suggestions you might have would be GREATLY appreciated. We’re running out of time and not sure how effective we’d be if we developed something from scratch now. Thank you and God bless!

 

[1ke]

With all due respect, your stated goals are at odds.

You need to decide whether your goal is social time squeezed between masses or a parish evangelization/lenten discussion group which needs the proper time and space allocated to be successful and achieve its goals.

You are not going to “fire up the troops” in 10 minutes.

Decide what you really want to do. Then plan accordingly with a program that meets your real objectives. If that’s coffee, donuts, and a short reflection on one passage of the bible-- then do that. Use one of the Lenten meditation booklets that just has a short bible passage, reflection, and maybe one question. But, that is not going to “fire up the troops”.

If it’s real learning you want… Yes it will be more than 10 minutes of video/reading/reflection/whatever and 10 minutes discussion. It will likely be 1 or 1.5 hours. It may need to be at a different time and day. There are many such programs-- self-led groups, priest or other facilitator led, bible study based, catechism based, small group sharing, etc. Fr. Barron’s Catholicism program would be wonderful.

 

[1ke]

If your parish is participating in Operation Rice Bowl through Catholic Relief Services, that may be an option to put together a short program.

CRS provides a Coordinator’s Guide, an Educator Guides for catechists, and a video to go along with the rice bowls.

I just looked over ours and saw that they have some “whole parish” catechesis options including small groups in their Coordinator’s guide-- focused on Lenten sacrifice and of course tieing in the Rice Bowls. They have a pretty good outline of sessions, and the discussion is short, like 10 minutes, which is what you were looking for.

The coordinator’s guide also has bulletin announcements, prayers of the faithful, etc.

Thought I’d give you that suggestion since I remembered you were looking for something short.

Not too late to order Rice Bowls if your parish doesn’t already participate.

 

[Edward_H]

Have someone prepare and give a good practical talk on “Confessing well, and frequently”.

Perhaps combine it with “maintaining a spirit of penance” during Lent…not just on the formal fast/abstinence days.

Bring in the following topics.

How to do a more meaningful examination…short one every day…longer one before Confession

How to make resolutions.
How to confess like a man or woman…“worst first…no evasion”