Handbook For Success In Whole Community Catechesis

Are you looking for a fresh approach to a life-changing catechesis that involves all the members of your parish family? Have you heard of whole community catechesis but don't know how to implement it in your parish? In part one of this essential resource, Bill Huebsch provides both the principles and the nuts and bolts for making whole community catechesis a reality in your parish. He explores seven principles for catechesis and then suggests nine ways to make adult catechesis the norm in your community. Many of the pages throughout this user-friendly book are reproducible to use for presentation, teaching, and discussion. Here you have truly a "handbook for success"! Book jacket.

The author, a national leader of the WCC movement and a popular speaker, encourages pastors to embrace whole community catechesis as a way to involve their parishioners more fully in adult faith formation and active participation in the liturgy. Also shows the solid basis for this approach in Church documents and recent movements within the Church.

Popular author Bill Huebsch gives an overview of whole community catechesis and what it means. He then offers concrete suggestions for a step-by-step process (the nuts-and-bolts) for implementing this catechetical model. The appendices provide sample hand-outs, outlines for prayer and meetings, and organizational tools.

Contains creative prayers services for each week of Year B. Designed with the WCC approach in mind. Includes original music.

Whole church, for the sake of the world. A church informs about its faith through all that it is, says and does. This threefold way of telling determines what the recipient hears. Therefore, if a church wants to be true to its mission it must constantly ask itself two questions: What is the church's calling, and what is the message it sends? How do our churches deal with this challenge? The Church is not for its own sake, but for the world, one of the analyzed documents says. It is called to be an instrument for our loving God ́s plan to heal a broken world. The basic pattern is found in the Holy Scriptures, but in every time and every cultural context the Church must seek relevant ways and forms. And why not do this in conversation and with open ears to the experiences of others, and with the courage to change, if necessary? The first part of the book is the result of such a listening. Perhaps it surprises someone that I turned to three American Catholics to listen to their experiences. Inspired by the radical message of the Second Vatican Council, they challenge their own church to a radical paradigm shift on the way of being a trustworthy church. Using the model they developed as a base, I turned to my own church, the Uniting Church in Sweden, by asking the same question battery, and the same to an ecumenical document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision. And the result? Yet another reminder that every church that wants to be part of God's mission for the sake of the world must constantly test itself in the face of the critical questions of how it faithfully can pass on its message of joys and hope to the world.

Heritage of Faith is a small book about a big idea: whole community catechesis. This intergenerational approach offers the best opportunity yet for drawing together all ages and stages of a parish community into a faith journey of ongoing learning and conversion. Jo Rotunno briefly explains the meaning and importance of whole community catechesis. She then provides Questions of the Week (one set for every week of the three-year lectionary cycle). These lectionary -based questions (one for adults and one for children) invite reflection on the message of Jesus Christ and lead into daily life. The questions can be introduced in the Sunday homily and in the parish bulletins with an invitation to explore them in the home, in religion classes, and at all parish gatherings during the week. Jo also offers a structured scope and sequence of content that can be incorporated into programs for parish members of all ages. She provides seven sample doctrinal themes for Year A that are connected to the readings of the liturgical seasons but not bound to the lectionary.She outlines an approach to the themes that allows you to bring the parish together for experiences of learning and reflection where all those involved share the riches of our heritage of faith.

"Whole Community Catechesis offers a vision of church that is both exciting and challenging. The vision is this: that one day the church, all the people of God, will fully, consciously, and actively participate, not only in the celebration of the liturgy, but in all aspects of parish life, and this life will draw them into a deeper relationship with Christ who sends them forth to love and serve others. ..... [from back cover]

Here Bill Huebsch offers a blueprint for how to bring the dreams and visions for a GREAT parish to fruition. He shows parish leaders and ministers how to move in the direction of lifelong faith formation by offering adults in the parish powerful conversion experiences (particularly through parish-based retreats and intergenerational Faith Gatherings). He also offers a clear and consistent plan for step-by-step growth, with special emphasis on excellent liturgies, strong and effective catechist and teacher formation, and developing households of faith. In this definitive guide, he not only shows parishes how to get started but also how to keep going until lifelong faith formation is a reality.