Click here for online registration!

If you want to change the world, go home and love your family." 
-St. Teresa of Calcutta

In Fall 2019, St. Lawrence adopted a Family Faith Formation program to empower parents/guardian to pass on the faith.

Our program for this school year (24-25), parents meet once a month, Sunday from 11:00 am-12:15pm with some fellowship and helpful talks that empower you to live the faith and pass it on to your family!
The program's flexibility is only one of many benefits - the primary ones being the "catechetical culture" we hope to bring back to the home and empower the parents/guardians where it is most fitting. Another benefit is that after the program's four-year cycle (following the four "pillars' of the Catechism), the program repeats. This allows the faith to be reinforced for repeat students as they learn this important material at a higher level. 
Our curriculum is a Family of Faith program from Sophia Institute Press. 
 

2024-2025 Family Faith Program Dates

Sunday meetings are held in-person in the Parish Hall. Families are asked to prioritize the Sunday meetings for the whole family!  All meetings will be held on Sundays from 11:00am -12:15pm in the St. Lawrence Annex building on 19th Street. 

September 8th: Welcome and Overview of the Year
September 22nd: Parent Small Group Introductions
October 27 Topic: What Is a Sacrament?
November 10th Topic: Created in God’s Image
November 24th: Parent Small Group
December 8th Topic: Confirmation 
December 15th: Parent Small Groups

2025
January 12th Topic: The Eucharist, The Mass
January 19th: Parent Small Group
February 2nd Topic: Sacraments of Healing
February 23rd: Parent Small Group
March 2nd Topic: Anointing Of the Sick
April 6th Topic: Holy Orders & Holy Matrimony
April 27th: Parent Small Group-Divine Mercy @ Church
May 18th End of Year Family Faith Formation Celebration!

Click here for online registration!

If you would like more information or have questions, please contact the parish office at  765-742-2107.  

Why Family Faith Formation?

According to various studies, the Church is losing a large amount of members annually. One report stated that 3,000 people leave the Church every month.  What is perhaps more shocking than the total is the timeline. About 80% are walking away from their faith by the time they reach college age. The median age, however, is 13 years old. That alone should make us pause, especially when we realize that if the fruit of apostasy is ripening in the tween years, its seed started growing in childhood.

Catholics often blame this on shortcomings in the Church's programs. Here's a reality check: Regular Mass attendance plus the typical weekly catechism class equals barely 1% of a person's life. That means that even during the school season, 99% of a child's experience is outside of parish catechesis.

No matter how good a program is, classroom catechesis only effective in the context of a faithful community (family, parish, etc.). If that one percent is all the time a child has to receive the teaching of the Church, it will be a very difficult for him to overcome the other ninety-nine. When faith formation is limited to just the classroom, its impact on the child's faith life will likely be small.  Sadly, catechesis sometimes becomes just another hoop to jump through to get those sacraments checked off.  It can produces a "faith" that is easily dismissed once all the boxes have been checked.

Of course this is never the goal of families participating in parish religious education - We want to have a program that empowers and supports the parents/guardians.  We want, with your help, to build communities of families. Too often the parish ends up supplanting the parents/guardians. It becomes solely the parish's – not the parents' - job to catechize the children. 

• "Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. . . . Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God." [Catechism of the Catholic Church 2223, 2226]
• "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential... irreplaceable and incapable of being entirely delegated to others." [Familiaris Consortio, 36]
• "Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators.” [Gravissimum Educationis, 3]
• "The family's catechetical activity has a special character, which is in a sense irreplaceable."  [Catechesi Tradendae, 68]
• "The right of parents to beget and educate their children in the bosom of the family must be safeguarded." [Gaudium et Spes, 52]

The Church’s expectation is that parents act as mentors and catechists to their children. This might sound frightening but it really is a simple reflection of everyday reality. Parents teach their children how to walk, talk, think, and behave - it's just what happens in parenting. Most often these lessons are "caught" more than they are "taught", because children learn from their parents simply by being around them.

The same is true of living the faith. For example, if parents skip Mass anytime it is inconvenient, that is the lesson their children will learn about the importance of Mass. If parents pray before meals, that is the life of prayer the children will learn. If parents spend time in reading Scripture, say a rosary, or some other catholic devotion that is what the faith will look like to their children.
 
Family Faith Formation (FFF) is a new model based on an old idea (parents as primary catechists and mentors to their children). This represents a noticeable role reversal in typical Catholic religious education, but it’s really just an application of the Church’s mandate to form adults so that families can catechize their young. When this occurs, children are taught the faith as a way of life and not just as a weekly class.
 
Family Faith Formation is basically the principle of subsidiarity applied to children's catechesis. The parish’s role is one of equipping – not replacing. The focus is on giving parents tools to help them succeed at being the religious educators that they already are. High-level theological training is not as important as living as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and Family Faith Formation can help with both.

We are aware that no single parish program can meet the particular needs of all families. No matter how perfectly planned a parish school model(RE) is, there will always be those for whom it will not work. Schedule conflicts with school, work, sports, and other extracurricular activities are sometimes impossible to fully mitigate. Family Faith Formation makes for a program flexible enough to accommodate a wider range of schedules, learning styles, and abilities.

The fact is that "Primary Mentor and Catechist" is an unavoidable and irreplaceable role for parents. It is one that parents have by nature - not one that is awarded by experts. This may be a challenge, but the biggest blessings come from overcoming challenges.  The Church has made it an important task of the parish's role to support parents—not supplant them, and St. Lawrence's department of evangelization is committed to doing so!