Faith Formation at Home Part 2: It’s Elementary

In a world where faith formation is being dumbed down or lost completely, this three-part series will discuss how we can bring it back to families. This part will dive into some elementary examples of enhancing faith formation in and out of a religious education program. If you missed it, part one can be found here.

Supporting Your Parish

The number one way to assure your children have a solid faith formation within your parish is to support parish faith formation programs. When you’re involving your family in the program and supporting the program with your own time, talent, and treasure, you help build not only your parish community but also your children’s faith formation.

Let’s break that down with real examples of what you could do. Given every family situation and parish is different, these ideas may need to be modified for each family or parish, but the concept is the same.

Time

When we support anything, we offer our time, talent, or treasure. Let’s start with time.

Aside from bringing your children to Church for Mass, holy days, and other parish events, think of how you specifically could invest time into your parish’s faith formation program.

We’re all straight out with school, activities, sports, and our own jobs and responsibilities, but offering your time doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. There are so many volunteer opportunities.

• Office help – Your faith formation office may simply need help making copies or packets or sorting books. Many of these things are done before the school year but they’re also done throughout the year! For as little as an hour of your time, you can pop in and help the staff prep those lessons. They will appreciate it, however much you can do!
• Hall monitors – Religious education class may only be an hour, but it’s still basically a school setting and they need hall monitors for the bathroom or door monitors for pick-up and drop-off.
• Event help – Every event needs extra volunteers. It might be coming early to set up, staying late to clean up, or even helping with something during the event. There’s bound to be something you can do if only once or twice in the year.

Talent

Some people have a knack for things others don’t. Are you particularly good at something or willing to learn? Volunteers are needed all the time and some jobs require a little more know-how. See if these pique your interest.

• Teaching – The parish is always looking for catechists to teach the Catholic faith to our children. You don’t need a teaching degree or to be an expert in theology. The program is already written out. You just need to read the lesson and guide the class through the readings, any activities, and discussions. You might just get as much out of it as the children. Teaching is so rewarding!
• Speaking – It takes a specific talent to get in front of others. Do you have an expertise or a personal story that’s relevant to the program? Speak to your faith formation director and see if you can offer this talent or story as part of the program. Stories of healing, faith journeys, and forgiveness from real people can inspire youth to stay close to the Lord. Be a witness to your faith! (Speaking on a pre-written lesson also counts as talent.)
• Baking/Cooking – Back to those events, can you prepare food? Everything is donated, so if you can bake or cook, you’re talent is wanted. Offer to make something for those faith formation events. They need refreshments or meals after an event and they rely on volunteers to help.
• Driving – Older kids are often required to do service work or go on retreats. If you’re a parent who’s CORI’d in the parish and can drive, please step up. This is a huge ask from parishes and they are so grateful when parents can help.

Treasure

Sometimes our jobs or situations make showing up (or even dropping off baked goods) too difficult. It may be all we can do to get our kids to the class. Maybe the most you can do is offer a donation. Parishes need to buy faith formation books, office and school supplies, and other items to make the program run. Maybe you have actual items like Bibles or office materials to donate. Whatever you can do to support your parish in this program is great. Nothing is too small.

Faith Formation Ideas for Home

Sending your kiddo off to classes is great, but are you supporting their faith education at home? It’s not difficult and you might not realize you already do some of these things. Whether you’re teaching the faith at home with a program or just reinforcing what your parish is teaching through their classes, here are some ideas you can do at home.

Simple Conversation

People underestimate how a simple conversation with a child can affect his or her education. By simply commenting on a color or counting something, we reinforce basic preschool skills. It’s the same with our faith.

• Driving by a church – Whenever you drive by a Catholic church, you are passing the Eucharist. We as Catholics acknowledge His Presence by making the Sign of the Cross. Let your kids see this. Tell them what you’re doing while they’re little. “We’re passing God’s house.”
• Prayers – Reinforce those common prayers taught in first and second grade. Say bedtime prayers with your kids and finish with the prayers they’re learning, like the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary.
• Daily conversation – Let your faith come into daily conversation. Kids ask so many questions! Bring faith into the answer. Be sure to include God’s love and forgiveness too! It’s so important they learn about those things, especially now.

Holiday Focus

Even secular schools talk about holidays with children, so put your faith into the mix. After all, our Catholic faith is the origin of many holidays (holy days). Focus on the reason for Christmas, All Saints Day, and Jesus’s resurrection at Easter. Make talking about your faith around holidays normal.

Activities for at Home

For homeschoolers or those who love to do activities and crafts at home with their kids on days off or around the holidays, here’s a list of fun ideas.

• Talk about the saints! – Do you have a favorite saint? Tell your kids and have a picture or sacramental to show them. Let them know saints are our champions in heaven who can pray for us. Read about the saints together and learn together.
• Crafts – There are some amazing DIY faith crafts out there. Get ready for Christmas or Easter by creating your own decorations, like this Nativity sun catcher or this Easter cross.
• Activities – Play fun games with the kids that center around faith like building a bed for baby Jesus or this fun Easter egg activity!
• Serve – Find time to do service as a family. Whether it’s serving at your parish or finding a soup kitchen or food pantry, serving as a family brings you closer to your faith as a family.
• Music – Listen to age-appropriate Christian music from artists like Slugs & Bugs and VeggieTales to Rend Collective, Matt Maher, and Connor Flanagan. Clean and inspiring lyrics with a beat to, well, beat the bands playing on secular radio, you may not want to go back to the old stuff.
• More Ideas – Loyola Press is always loaded with ideas. You can also sign up to receive more ideas via email from Formation5 from The Religion Teacher. For even more ideas, check out some seasonal crafts from Faith and Fabric.

Get Started

Whether you’re supporting your parish’s faith formation program or doing it all from home, making the effort to build faith in your children means you’re providing more than education. You’re providing a foundation of support and hope in a world so desperately in need.

We may not like the world our kids are growing up in, but we love the children growing up in this world. So, let’s continue to build them up from the inside out and grow their faith with our involvement, learning together through prayer, song, crafts, and activities they will remember for years to come.