One of the challenges of being quarantined is how to draw more seekers to our parish and our initiation process. Strategies for “marketing” ourselves are not different in principle during a pandemic than they are when life is normal. However, some of what we might have done in the past becomes even more critical when […]
The key to RCIA marketing is storytelling
Let’s be honest—many of our parishes do a poor job of connecting with and communicating with their communities. Not just with regular their parishioners, but especially with those whom we want to attract and bring into our communities—our seekers, our catechumens, and our candidates. One of the inadvertent gifts of COVID-19 was bring this challenge
Q: We have the people, support, space, everything needed to make a continuous initiation process happen. But exactly how do we proceed with the actual logistics of having people at different places, and how you speak to them individually but also as a group? How do you integrate new people without repeating yourself over and
Q&A: Multiple seekers on the journey of faith—how to start a year-round RCIA
If you’re an RCIA director or team member, you know that one of our biggest issues is having to address marriage questions with our seekers. Seekers come from a variety of backgrounds, and it is inevitable that we will have to address these issues. Yet far too many of us are ill-prepared to address them
Is your RCIA open all year-round? Serving on the front lines of marriage and annulment issues
In a previous post, I talked about how all of the baptized have a vocation to accomplish the mission of the church. Our number-one job as RCIA team members is to form our seekers to be able to accomplish that mission. The first step in the process of formation is to develop in the seekers
Do your RCIA seekers have a spiritual formation plan?
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
Recently, I met with about 120 RCIA leaders from the dioceses of Belleville, IL, Springfield, IL, Springfield-Cape Girardeau, MO, and the archdiocese of St. Louis. Our agenda was to discuss the vision of the restored catechumenate and how that vision unfolds all year round; it cannot be confined to a few months of the liturgical
How to Rekindle Your “Desire for the Infinite” in Ministry
My grandmother loved to watch chickadees flitting about her front yard. To attract them, she would hang a cage of suet off the corner of her front porch. I’ve never seen suet used by anyone else, and I always thought it was something unique to my grandmother. Suet is animal fat that is used in
8 Powerful Steps to Attract RCIA Inquirers
If someone asks you about becoming Catholic this summer, don’t tell them to come back in September. You can start catechizing them right away, even if you don’t have a year-round process. Here are 20 ideas to get you started. 20 ways to catechize this summer — even if you don’t have a year-round catechumenate.
20 ways to catechize this summer — even if you don’t have a year-round catechumenate
In a previous article, I talked about the fear that some seekers have when they find us and how we sometimes mistake that fear for sullenness. Our inability to recognize the fear in the hearts of the seekers inhibits our mission to accompany them on their journey of faith. Why is so hard for us
How fear builds walls in the RCIA process
