What You Ll Find Here

Introduction to Nuts & Bolts

Fortunately we have many resources today to help us implement, strengthen and resource adult faith formation – in all its forms -- in our parishes, parish clusters and groups of parishes working together.

“Nuts & Bolts” is a unique tool – created just for you - with practical and visionary suggestions for initiatives which you as parish leaders can launch in your communities to increase participation in Adult Faith Formation little-by-little.

What you’ll find here There is really so much that you will find in “Nuts & Bolts”:

 Actual “best practices” in adult faith formation – real initiatives, programs and processes that are happening in parishes just like yours – what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, why it’s working for them … which hopefully will spark ideas of how you can tweak them to respond to needs in your parish

 Topics that are pertinent to adult faith formation ~ some of the most-often explored questions regarding on-going learning for adults and adult faith formation in today’s parish, such as

. Motivation for adult learning . Publicity and marketing for adult faith formation . Pastoral planning for adult faith formation . The role of technology in today’s process of adult faith formation

 On-going research; advice from experts and practitioners; and countless, practical resources concerning the topics (as well as the best practices) that are explored

How can I use Nuts & Bolts? The purposes are only limited by your imagination, ingenuity and time! They are yours  to spark new ideas the first time you read them  to file in specific places so that when you need research, new suggestions, etc. they will be at your fingertips With your purchase, you now have the rights to publish excerpts in your Sunday bulletin or other parish newsletters to help educate/form your parishioners about the vitality and importance of adult faith formation.

Most importantly, they can be resources for your ministerial groups: Adult Faith Formation Committee, Education Commission, Parish Pastoral Council, parish pastoral staff/team, etc.

 With your purchase, you also have the rights to make copies. Make copies for all the members of your group.

 Invite them to read the given “tool” before your meeting.

 As the formation/study piece of your meeting, engage in a conversation:

. Did this “Nuts & Bolts” help you to think of something in a new way? . Did you discover something you’ve never realized before? . How does this information / this suggestion relate to us at our parish? . Is there something we want to / need to differently because of what we’ve read? . Are there others in the parish that we need to invite into conversation with us about this? . What other research do we need to do? . What other steps will we need to take? . Who will be responsible for which steps?

A Suggested Opening Prayer for an Adult Faith Formation Committee Ever-present God, we’re aware that You call us to deeper unity with You and with one another in Your family.

This unity calls us to build Your Kingdom, to reach out with care, respect, and service to bring your peace and compassion to all we meet.

May what we do here today help bring hope to your world, Empowering all to know You more intimately, Supporting all to belong to each other more tenderly, Enabling all to serve each and every one more selflessly.

This Nuts & Bolts Tool doesn’t look at a specific idea for programming or some background theories and suggestions for adult faith formation visioning and planning. Rather, let’s look at a reality that undergirds everything; in reality, goes far beyond programming. One definition that might come to mind when one hears the term “adult faith formation” is: “intentional learning experiences that deepen, expand, and make explicit the learning in faith that is, hopefully, already part of the life of the believing community.” Yet, adult faith formation goes well beyond that! Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs, much more than intentionally planned learning experiences. Even the intentionally planned learning experiences can (should) happen in a myriad of ways; but it’s also obvious there are other ways that faith grows and deepens within the parish setting.

To name just a few:  celebrating weekly liturgy  participating in the Giving Tree and other parish outreach activities, especially if there is an opportunity to reflect with others upon their completion on how they personally effected the “givers”  joining with others to sign a petition for a justice issue  celebrating the sacramental life of our Church  helping build a house with Habitat for Humanity  being a part of a prayer group  participating in spiritual direction that is available at the parish

For twenty centuries the Church has lived the mission of Jesus, by helping each person to participate and contribute, to be always more fully a faithful, prayerful, serving and learning member of the Body of Christ through:  koinonia (community)  leiturgia (prayer and worship)  didache (teaching)  kerygma (proclamation)  diakonia (outreach) All of these ways of being and living Church are formational! Each of these ways teaches, help a person grow in faith. Truly, each is adult faith formation. Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs: The Parish is the Curriculum.

Nuts & Bolts © 2010 Janet Schaeffler, OP + www.janetschaeffler.com + e-mail: [email protected]. All rights reserved. Each of the previous ways is unquestionably formational. Everything forms the curriculum, the “course of study,” for our faith growth.

Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us boldly reminds us:

“The Parish is the Curriculum….the success of such efforts (intentional programs) rests very much on the  quality of the liturgies,  the extent of shared decision making,  the priorities in the parish budget,  the degree of commitment to social justice…(#118).”

The Gospel message is always being communicated (or contradicted) in everything parishes do.

 Budget decisions  the way a secretary answers the phone  the prayerful atmosphere of all gatherings  the living of the social justice teachings of the Church  the emphasis placed on following Scripture, etc. …all communicate and form the faith of everyone in the parish.

Wondering Nut and Bolt: Does the Parish Pastoral Council annually ask themselves the question: In everything that we are living, doing, and the ways that we are functioning as a parish, what are we teaching people?  about God  faith and life  about prayer  about being Church  about justice and peace  about living and bringing about the Reign of God?

Adult faith formation is not just about planning six week programs; it is about the way a parish lives moment by moment. Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it’s about being a learning community. In Toward an Adult Church, Jane Regan says: “…being a community that fosters adult faith is not primarily specific programs, but… lifelong learning… What needs to be formed is a parish that is a learning community.” In her chapter, “The Aim of Catechesis” in the book Horizons and Hopes: The Future of Religious Education, Jane names four of the many significant implications she sees flowing from this:  Adult faith formation within the parish as a learning community is an integral part of parish life at all levels.

Nuts & Bolts © 2010 Janet Schaeffler, OP + www.janetschaeffler.com + e-mail: [email protected]. All rights reserved.  Structures are created within the parish which provide space for genuine conversation among adults.

 The wisdom of all members of the parish community is consistently recognized and affirmed.

 The overarching goal of adult faith formation is to foster a sense of mission rather than simply to enhance membership.

Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it is permanent catechesis. The General Catechetical Directory introduced the phrase “permanent catechesis” (#51). Because the goal of formation is not just knowledge, but to nurture a relationship with Jesus as his disciples (cf #53), it has a great variety of forms:  systematic and occasional  individual and communal  organized and spontaneous (#51).

In its visionary way, the GDC (#71) gives some examples of the “great variety of forms” of permanent catechesis. In reading through the listing, it is obvious – and exciting – that all parish activities have the potential to be formative events in the lives of people. Formal programs, workshops, and talks are only one opportunity. A Brass Tacks Suggestion: As we plan for “permanent catechesis” for adult faith formation, our main question does not have to be: how many more programs, workshops, talks, etc. do we have to add in this year; but: let’s look at our existing parish activities, services, and programs.  How are they fostering growth in faith, in discipleship for the adults already participating?  Does everyone feel welcome?  How can we invite others in?  Are our existing activities, services and programs hospitable to all ages? all cultures?

Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it can (and does) happen anywhere. Most adults live their faith at church 3% of their time; the rest of their time they are living it at home, in their neighborhoods, in their workplaces, etc. They live it and deepen it by things such as:  answering a question from a co-worker about what they believe  making Lenten resolutions  praying with their spouse/family  struggling with a decision and talking it over with other people of faith  forgiving at home, forgiving in their neighborhood, forgiving in their community  responding with care, compassion, and kindness – often on the spur of the moment Frequently busy lives today won’t allow the time for people to show up for “six-week programs” at the parish.

Wondering Nut & Bolt: What new models can we imagine and develop to infuse adult faith formation into everyday lives at home, in the neighborhood, at work – in the everyday spaces and places of people’s lives?

Nuts & Bolts © 2010 Janet Schaeffler, OP + www.janetschaeffler.com + e-mail: [email protected]. All rights reserved. Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; discipleship happens during the living of life. As crucial as it is to have designed, scheduled opportunities for ongoing faith formation in parishes/vicariates,  consider your own life,  think about your family’s life,  When were the life-changing moments?

Probably most of them happened outside of “preplanned” self or family improvement sessions. Upon reflection, most people realize that usually their life-changing moments, their deepest faith growth, occurred during the unpredictable situations – and even crises – of normal, everyday life.

A Nut & Bolt Reminder:  How then do we adequately pass along Christ’s identity?  How do we call each other to discipleship?

We always have to keep before us the reality that adult faith formation happens in everything we do. It happens in myriads of ways, especially in the living of life.

This will underlie our adult faith formation ministry, especially if we remember and take seriously Marshall McLuhan’s overwhelming teaching that “the medium is the message.”

Rex Miller in The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church. (Jossey-Bass, 2004) says:

“Discipleship is not a small group or classroom topic. It is a lab project, a choreographed dance, an art taught under the eye of a master. It is apprehended first through demonstration, not intellectually.”

Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it occurs in myriad ways, throughout all life.

Discovering our gifts and deepening our relationship with God and one another happens in myriad ways, throughout all life.

One of the myths, concerning our faith journey that is still alive, is that we do our learning when we are young.

 Did we give that idea – years ago – when we told people that if they completed twelve years of Catholic schooling or religious education, they would “have it all?”

Nuts & Bolts © 2010 Janet Schaeffler, OP + www.janetschaeffler.com + e-mail: [email protected]. All rights reserved.  If, in a parish today, most of the emphasis – time, budget, space, resources – is placed on children/youth, with little resources for adults, what message does that give? Might it be saying that our religion is child-centered; that the faith journey is a child-like relationship? We know, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The “good news” many adults need to experience is that there is so much more for them to experience in their relationship with God, so much more potential, many more gifts for them to receive – and for them to give.

Helping adults realize this may enhance motivation today for participation in ongoing adult faith formation. Emphasizing this opportunity, Lawrence Richards (A Theology of Christian Education, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan) says, “It becomes very important, then, not to think of a renewed emphasis on ‘adult education’ as just the planning of a new set or series of formal classes for adults.

Instead, what must be involved is to build into all experiences of the adult in the community of faith those elements of educational process which facilitate and are necessary for transformation to take place.”

Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it’s about who we are. The search for God, the call to discipleship is rooted in all we are, all we do. It is the very essence of everything we do. Diana Butler Bass (Process, Not Program: Creating Congregations of Learning and Practice. Herdon, VA: Alban Institute) says: churches “are communities of transformation - places where people come to encounter God and know God more deeply.” The goal of catechesis - to help bring people into intimacy with Jesus Christ (GDC #80) - is at the heart of everything that happens at the parish. Adult faith formation pervades everything; it is happening all the time.

Diana Butler Bass goes on to say, “Adult faith formation is the gathering and strengthening place for learning to be a Christian, for mentoring others in faith, and for practicing faith corporately. It is the heartbeat of churchgoing in the twenty-first century.”

In the same vein, noted Catholic author Kathy Coffey remarked once that we don’t go to an art museum to see art on the wall there. “We go to an art museum to be sensitized to beauty everywhere. It is much the same with church. We go to church to be sensitized to the holiness that is everywhere.”

Wondering Nut & Bolt: Our very being the Church teaches. What are we “teaching” this week?  each week?  all the time?

Adult Faith Formation is much more than programs; it’s not just what you teach, but how you teach. Parker Palmer, the renowned author (The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life; To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey; Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation) and speaker, emphasizes the power that is contained in the “hidden curriculum,” it isn’t just what we teach, but also how we teach.

Often, in explaining this in his talks, Palmer uses a three point description:  Words trigger images.  Images engage the memory.  Memory engages the heart.

Nuts & Bolts © 2010 Janet Schaeffler, OP + www.janetschaeffler.com + e-mail: [email protected]. All rights reserved. Together, these three create authentic learning. Without the heart, learning is incomplete. Palmer juxtaposes the memorization of facts vs. becoming a disciple and living what we have learned. Without the heart, it is virtually impossible to fall intimately in love with Jesus Christ. One may learn in their mind about the message of Jesus, but not embrace the person of Jesus.

Wondering Nut & Bolt:  How do you “teach?’ What does that “say?”

 How does the “teaching” at your parish engage the mind, touch the heart?

Janet Schaeffler, OP is a Dominican Sister of Adrian MI who provides days of reflection, retreats, workshops catechist formation events & adult faith formation opportunities or consultation to parishes, schools, and communities in the United States and around the world