Nick Wagner is the cofounder and codirector of Team Initiation.
When I was in my junior year in high school, I had an awakening of faith. It wasn’t spectacular or miraculous — unless you’re me. That is to say, it was somewhat private, and there was no dramatic “before” and “after” that anyone around me recognized. But I felt completely different. I was energized and […]
Four ways to help your parishioners live their apostolic vocation
The first time I was “in charge” of a catechumenate ministry, I had three team members — myself and two brand new volunteers with no knowledge of the RCIA. The parish was a large community with over 10,000 parishioners. A lot of my focus in my first year was getting more team members. And that
The biggest mistake I made when trying to recruit an RCIA team
When I first got involved in parish ministry, I was pretty excited. I had lots of ideas, and I would usually rush headlong into some new project without much planning. More importantly, I’d start creating new schemes without much help. I would ask for volunteers from the parish, but usually folks would tell me they
Here’s the number-one rule for building an RCIA team
Most of the pastors I meet are either participants in our live training events, or they are participants on our TeamRCIA website. So they are clearly already deeply involved in the RCIA process in their parishes. However, not every parish is blessed with a pastor who is so deeply connected with the initiation ministry of
Six ways to involve your pastor in your RCIA process
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 Inquirers
Many RCIA teams and catechists are rightly concerned with teaching the dogmas and precepts of the church to their seekers. However, recent research has shown that it is almost impossible to teach complex ideas or make meaningful decisions without engaging people’s emotions. In other words, seekers will only think about and remember ideas that they
Are your RCIA seekers awed by the faith?
A press release is a general announcement that companies and event organizers send to media outlets in the hopes that the newspaper or the radio station will give them some free publicity. When e-mail became ubiquitous, the old-fashioned press release morphed into something else — spam. I got a dozen of these spam messages in
Stop sending out RCIA press releases
As RCIA catechists, we tend to think of ourselves as teachers. While we are pretty clear on that, we tend to be less clear on what we teach. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults says that we are to teach “an appropriate acquaintance with dogmas and precepts” (75). But in the same sentence, the
Share your salvation story with your RCIA group
This is the last in a series of posts on the RCIA’s six keys to making lifelong disciples. If you missed the last post in this series, click here to read it. As a reminder, the six keys are: As you read through these six keys and as you read over what we said about
Six Keys to Catechesis for Baptized Candidates
This post is the fourth in a series on how the conversion process in the RCIA makes lifelong disciples. If you have not yet read the previous post on the third and fourth RCIA keys for turning seekers into disciples, please click here. In that post, you will discover how important it is to reflect
Two keys to RCIA conversion that challenge our existing norms
