Welcome to the 2025-2026. Family Faith Formation year. In 2020 Our parish changed the method of the catechism program. The teaching faith formation has moved away from a parent dropping off children and has been changed to include parents and children inside the classroom together in small groups with a leader guiding the classroom.
Purpose: Parents are the educators of their children. They will use the tools presented in class to teach the Family Faith Formation (FFF) material to their children.
1.) Parents attend the Faith Formation program class with their children. At least one parent will need to attend the weekly classroom meetings. Families are grouped into the classes of the oldest child, all younger children attend the class. It will have a one room schoolhouse feel.
2.) The lessons are taught in a 4-week cycle: 2 weeks of parent/child whole group meetings, one week is a lesson for sacramental children, and one week is a parent continuing education class. For the sacramental week only the children participating in a sacramental year must attend class with a parent. For the parent continuing education class the children will remain in the classroom with the leaders while the parents attend the lecture.
3.) Sacrament students will have additional expectations to fulfill as arranged by the parish. These families have been contacted and will be made aware of those additional events. Sacrament students have a workbook and will be completing workbook pages that will need to be submitted by the end of the month for grading.
4.) Using ideas from the classroom small group leaders and additional materials the parents will reinforce the weekly lessons when it is best for the family.
5.) All other children will complete a take home assignment during the sacrament week. Non-sacramental children remain at home that week.
We will be participating in the process as parents, not leaders. If we are so moved to write a post outlining our experience we will post the lessons and themes covered in our children’s FFF class. Our goal is to share our journey and perhaps it will offer options for you to use as you navigate the faith formation in your homes.
The Small Pencil Catechist 