John McGlynn is the Director of Adult Faith Formation and RCIA at Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church in Long Beach, California.
The other day I took my car into the dealer’s service shop for some regular maintenance and they provided me with a loaner car for the day. This loaner was their top-of-the-line mid-sized sedan with all the new technology. The rearview mirror had a digital compass built into the corner, and the sideview mirrors had […]
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Maintaining Focus
Do you ever find yourself getting frustrated with your whole RCIA process? Sometimes I sure do. Dealing with team members with different ideas, catechumens and candidates who don’t show up, or pastors who want things a particular way that might go contrary to the way you would like. There’s any number of frustrations that go
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Do we even need catechetical sessions?
One of the common misconceptions of our role as catechists is that we are “teachers” of the faith. That it is our job to give seekers (often mistakenly referred to as “students”) knowledge about our faith’s doctrine and traditions. But this view, especially for the RCIA catechist, is, if I may say, a little too
Is your RCIA open all year-round? The Pyramid of Acceptance/Belief
I know a lot of catechists who approach their ministry with all the zeal of a foreign missionary, especially when it comes to the RCIA. That was the feeling we all had in our RCIA team when I first joined them 21 years ago. Here was our chance to bring Christ to those who had
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Are we catechizing for knowledge or understanding?
It never fails… whenever I talk with fellow RCIA catechists about our year-round process, I inevitably get the question, “Does that mean you run your sessions all year round?” My answer is always a definitive “no!” Running a year-round process does not mean you have to run catechetical session all year round. Instead, it’s understanding
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Does this mean year-round catechetical sessions?
“When do your classes start?” If you’re an RCIA coordinator you probably hear this question on a regular basis. Most times you hear it from seekers, but I’ve also heard it from our own parish staff. I have two problems with this question. First is the use of the word “classes.” Second is with the
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Watch your language
A while back I was talking with a group of RCIA catechists from another parish (something I highly encourage on a regular basis). I was learning about their process and they were asking me about ours (not an unusual conversation among RCIA catechists). During this dialogue one of the catechists asked me how often we
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Ditching the videos and PowerPoints
Over the course of this series we’ve given you a lot of ideas and advice on moving your RCIA process to a year-round model… but none of those efforts can bear fruit without recognizing that the RCIA, by its very nature, is an individual journey. For this reason we need to focus on forming the
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Making it an individual journey
If you’ve been following this series you know we’ve suggested throwing out your syllabus and letting the liturgy and the liturgical seasons guide your catechesis. To wrap up this portion of moving to a year round process I’d like to offer a few more practical tips that can help you move to liturgically based process…
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Let the liturgical seasons be your guide, Part 3
If you’ve been following this series, you know that we recommend throwing out your syllabus and using the liturgical seasons of the Church as your guide to catechesis. So… what might that actually look like? Here are some practical ideas: Don’t plan your schedule in a bubble A big part of becoming Catholic is becoming
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Let the liturgical seasons be your guide, part 2
