Jefferson's festival of faith inspires while educating about saints

By RENEE WEBB, Globe editor
November 13, 2003

JEFFERSON - St. Joseph's Church recently held the first of its three festivals of faith planned this year. Like the Webster County team parishes, this intergenerational ministry event focused on the saints.

According to Sheilah Pound, pastoral minister at St. Joseph Church, this celebration of the saints allowed parishioners of all ages to learn more about the history and church teachings about All Saints Day. Over 150 parishioners consisting of all age groups attended.

"We ate a meal together first and then we had an opening time together for all generations. We played a game, Name that Saint," she said.

Next, the group broke into four specific groups - elementary students, middle school students, high school students and adults. This session consisted of age-appropriate activities, prayer and discussions. For instance, the elementary students researched various saints and the adults discussed such things as the beatitudes and the communion of saints.

While young children were part of the big group sessions, during the break-out sessions child care was provided so the parents could fully participate.

"We came back together for sharing time and then at the end we had a processional and closing prayer," Pound said.

This event set the tone for the All Saints/All Souls liturgy held on the feast day about a week later.

Pound pointed out that there was a core group of about six or seven individuals from the parish - the curriculum team - that have attended Generations of Faith training sessions sponsored by the Office of Faith Formation for the diocese. This team of individuals planned the recent festival.

Generations of Faith centers on an intergenerational approach to faith formation.

She mentioned that the parish has developed a four-year curriculum plan for intergenerational celebrations.

In this first year Pound said the faith festivals center on seasons of the church. For instance a festival titled Celebrate Holy Thursday is planned for March 31 and another, Celebrate Pentecost, is slated for May 19. Numerous other options were a possibility such as Advent or Lent.

"Next year our theme will be community prayer," explained Pound. "Our third year will be sacraments and our fourth year will be morality and justice. Then we will start over again with seasons of the church."

While these faith festivals are currently offered to parishioners of the parish specifically, she noted that eventually they would like to expand the offerings to the cluster.

Pound explained that when St. Joseph Church first considered committing to the Generations of Faith training and ministry, they sought the input of parishioners.

"The parish council gathered the parish community and we had a big meeting. We talked about what the different age groups needed and what they would like to have," she said. "We started looking at how we could start to cross age barriers."

Like others who have embraced this ministry, Pound believes that the generations can learn from one another.

"I see this as the coming faith formation within religious education programming," she said."It's whole-community catechesis."

Pound would encourage other parishes to investigate this form of faith formation.

"You are listening. You are communicating. You are building parish community," she said.

And as more people become involved in the planning, she envisions that the number of faith festivals presented each year will increase from three to four or five.

"We had some wonderful comments. It was great to bring together people so they could get to know each other on a different level - spiritually as well as socially," said Pound.