This blog will be used to initiate conversation between members of your cohort group (CAFFE participants with similar sized parish). We will use the blog to post discussion questions about our readings and the content of our sessions. Each cohort has an individual site for discussion.
Please post at least once between sessions. You may post as often as you like! We will monitor the discussion to ensure everyone is participating. We will also use content of discussion to help direct future sessions.
For this month's session, please respond to the following before February 25:
1) What led you to sign up for the CAFFE program?
2) What is your role in your parish's Faith Formation or Youth Ministry program? How long have you been involved?
3) What do you hope to gain from CAFFE? What do you hope will be covered in our sessions?
Thank you!
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ReplyDeleteWelcome to the comment section. It's is our hope that you will be able to dialog with your peers about the CAFFE content in between meetings. To help you do that, we have created this blog. Please take about 30 minutes per week to read other posts and add your own thoughts on the questions we post.
ReplyDeleteWhat led me to the CAFFE program? Good question. I think it has to do with the idea that we are better together than we are alone. I love the idea of getting together and wrestling with the issues that affect our ministry. So, we created CAFFE as a way to facilitate those conversations.
I have been in diocesan ministry for 8 years now, and spent 7 years before that in parish ministry doing Youth Ministry, Religious Education, and Young Adult Ministry.
I am hoping that our sessions will be honest, genuine discussions. I hope that we all grow to our professional potential and eventually turn that professionalism and renewed energy into helping young people grow closer to Jesus and His Church.
Hi everyone! This year, I started a new position as Director of Faith Formation for three parishes of a six parish cluster. Whew! It has been challenging and exciting to see all the great things happening within the parishes and to get to know the young people and their families. We are in the process of developing a Cluster Faith Formation Commission and will be re-evaluating everything in terms of the new Cluster. It seemed like the perfect time to get representatives from all the parishes in the Cluster together to develop a shared vision. I have been involved in parish ministry, religious education, and youth ministry for nearly thirty years. I have seen lots of joys, frustration, and disappointments but I am hopeful that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in the rural areas of our Archdiocese.
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ReplyDeleteHi everyone! This is my 14th year of ministry as Director of Religious Education. Fourteen years for my home parish and seventh year for our cluster of three rural parishes.
ReplyDeleteOur Faith Formation Commission has been working on ideas and ways to reach out to our high school youth for the last three years beginning with forming a Junior/Senior High Youth Group, which wasn't growing the way we had hoped. This year the group is for all high school teens and we still don't seem to be moving forward. We have had great response sending youth to NCYC in 2011 and we have another group going this November. We hope to capture the excitement and enthusiasm from NCYC and bring it back to our cluster. We want to stop loosing our youth after they are confirmed.
We want to hear and learn about what others are doing and would like to hear about youth resources that are out there and what works for other parishes.
I am excited about the opportunity to be a part of this experiences as we build the kingdom of God here on earth!
Hello all-I am in my 7th year as Faith Formation leader of St Pat's in Waukon.
ReplyDeleteSince coming into this position, engaging the high school aged people of our parish has been a priority, but, as been the case when tried here in the past, youth ministry has never really been able to get off the ground. Despite the varied things that have been tried, I am still fighting the Confirmation as graduation way of thinking. Over the past year or two, however, I have started to see a thirst for a little more. It is my hope that CAFFE will give me ideas to tap into that thirst, and empower others in the parish community to help me really start to engage the young people of the parish in their faith.