Invite God into Your Home

When our children were little, our son asked us, “Why can’t we see Jesus?” After all, we talked about him so much, why didn’t he ever come over and visit? His Daddy explained to him that he is in our hearts, and we see him in one another.

Research shows that the biggest predictor of adult religious practice is a sense and practice of religion in childhood. How do children develop an early sense of religion? According to the research, the first factor was that parents spoke about God and faith at home, in daily conversation. Being part of a faith community, whether the larger parish or an intentional group of families with similar issues (such as deaf families) helps those important conversations happen.

In the Christian family, we learn together how to treat one another as Christ would, and to act in our world with justice, love, and humility.

Family life ministers are deeply concerned about the decline in Church participation by youth and young adults. We may not identify ourselves as "youth ministers," but the families with whom we minister include the parents of these young people, engaged couples in marriage preparation, volunteers in marriage ministry, and family members for whom this is a grave concern. If you gather grandparents for support groups, the faith practice of their grandchildren is a pressing issue.

Fortunately, our church is ready to respond, and you can make all the difference. At Pope Francis’ request, the church in America is engaging in a dialogue with young Catholics. More than 80 Catholic ministry and education organizations about this issue. The National Dialogue partners are seeking to understand more clearly what the church can do to better engage youth and young adults in missionary discipleship.

The National Dialogue offers questions for conversation with young people, with their parents, and among ministry leaders. Feedback from those conversations is being collected by the ND team. As a result of the conversations the facilitators will identify what they learned and how they as individuals—and we as a church—can change our ministry practices to reverse this trend of dis-engagement and dis-affiliation. Most importantly, we want to identify how we might transform our ministry so that we may accompany all youth and young adults to grow as missionary disciples.

Your diocese, parish, or organization is invited to hold a National Dialogue conversation and submit your insights to the National Dialogue project. The questions for the conversations with the different groups, directions for facilitating, and method of reporting the conversations are all available to you at https://www.nationaldialogue.info/conversation

If you wish to host a National Dialogue conversation, you are welcome to contact me for more information by emailing me at drsprzy@verizon.net.

Homemade Disciples Blog

Invite God into Your Home

National Dialogue on Ministry with Young People: Family Life Ministers Play a Key Role

Family Ministry Resources

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