Faith formation plan centers on how faith is lived daily

By RENEE WEBB, Globe editor
July 21, 2005

LE MARS - When the cluster faith formation committee set out to develop a plan, the chairperson of this group said they wanted to focus on how people live their faith on a daily basis rather than once a week.

Joan Driscoll, chairperson of the faith formation committee, said the faith formation committee hosted a brainstorming session that encouraged people to write down things that were important to their faith. They identified several areas - faith through music, intergenerational faith sharing opportunities, prayer based activities, youth, sacraments, faith outreach and ministry support.

"We presented them all and then we categorized them," she said.

Lisa Niebuhr, cluster consultant of the Le Mars area parishes, pointed out that the brainstorming session included a good mix of people, both men and women of various ages from all six of the parishes. They also sought input from the cluster director of religious education and Catholic school administrator.

"The process that the faith formation committee is working on now is putting a timeline to the plan. Stewardship's plan is through 2006 with some ideas for 2007 but because this plan is a little bigger, we will be working on this through 2009," she said.

Father James Tigges, pastor at St. James in Le Mars, said the plan has provided a good assessment tool to identify what they already have and what they may want to do in the future so that they cover formation "from birth to death and that we have opportunities and programs for all ages."

Along those same lines, Father Kevin Richter, pastor at St. Joseph Church in Le Mars, said it is important to remind adults that faith formation does not stop once a person has completed high school or they are confirmed.

"Faith formation is a lifelong process," he stressed. With that in mind, that is one of the reasons they are exploring intergenerational ministry and activities.

The cluster faith formation committee specifically worked to make the plan one that encompassed programs and projects to involve people of various ages, interests and gifts.

In the fall the committee will develop leadership to support the faith opportunities and they will identify the best resources to make the programs/projects happen. About 12 people serve on the faith formation committee and they presently meet monthly.

Some of the things on the plan are already being done in the parishes, some of the faith opportunities are done in some but not all of the parishes and still other aspects have yet to be introduced.

What are some of the things in the plan?

Included in the prayer based activities are things such as Eucharistic adoration expanding to 24 hours, mini retreats for couples, more traditional devotion opportunities and more. Under the youth category are such things as local summer Bible camp, expansion of children's Liturgy of the Word and inter-school activities between public, home-schooled and Catholic school students on a monthly basis.

In addition to assessing and identifying pertinent faith formation opportunities, through the brainstorming session people asked pertinent questions.

"We have a lot of Eucharistic ministers, but how do we hope to expand that as we have fewer priests? How can we make sure that as Eucharistic ministers go out that they have all of the information they need?" questioned Niebuhr. "Over Lent, the priests had offered some great Saturday morning Bible study. How can we continue that because it was so well received?"

Driscoll acknowledged that as the number of priests ministering in the cluster declines and as they eventually move to a one-parish format, this formation plan will evolve.

"We are looking at many things in the stage of transition," noted Denny Bixenman, a member of the cluster stewardship committee. "We know that we will be one parish at some point so some of the things we do will be at the parish level until we are formally merged and some things will be at the cluster level from this point forward."

For the things that are already working well at the parish level, he noted there is no reason for it to move to a cluster-wide level unless it makes sense to do so.

"We will maintain the current prayer chains and maintain the current lending libraries, there is no sense to merge them today. But it does make good sense for certain pieces like the multi-cultural outreach to pool all of the experts together from the six parishes to look at how to make it happen," said Niebuhr.

The need for lay involvement in the faith formation programs will continue. Lay volunteers already head up the bulk of the programs and projects offered as part of the faith formation ministries.

Given that one of the main goals of the faith formation committee is to educate the people about the faith, Driscoll mentioned that one part of the plan involves expanding the resource libraries at each parish.

"We think that by doing this we will develop a strength in every area of our faith from the youngest to the oldest," she said. "It makes us look at everything. Sometimes when you do certain things, you are stuck there and you work with what has always worked well. When you sit down with something like this, you look at the whole broad vision."

Like the stewardship plan, the faith formation plan will go to the cluster pastoral and finance councils for finalization and approval this fall.