Nick Wagner is the cofounder and codirector of Team Initiation.
Do people in your parish talk about Jesus? Do you talk about Jesus? I recently asked a group of Catholic leaders to tell me why they thought evangelization is important. They mentioned faith, the church, the gospel, and the paschal mystery, but no one said a word about Jesus. I know, all of the things […]
RCIA teams: break the “Spiral of Silence” about Jesus
“Every person has the right to hear the gospel.” —St. Paul Ronald D. Witherup makes two points about St. Paul’s bold statement to the Christians in Corinth: If hearing the gospel is a right, we have a responsibility. Not only should governments or institutions not impede evangelization; Christians cannot shirk their responsibility to evangelize. The
In this post, I’m going to describe a simple, easy-peasy way to dramatically increase the number of people you have in your RCIA process. But first, we have to do a little math. You probably know that the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the “nones.” The Pew research group regularly asks
Evangelizing the “nones”—an easy RCIA challenge
Diana Macalintal and I recently spent a couple days away to do extensive planning for TeamRCIA for the coming year. Before we left, we had a conference call with the other two team members that make up TeamRCIA—Rita Ferrone and Rita Burns Senseman. Free download: A step-by-step guide to mystagogy Regional RCIA training institutes On
If you want to effectively prepare inquirers for the Rite of Acceptance, you might need to rethink your precatechumenate process. In a previous post, we talked about why it is important to prepare the inquirers for the Rite of Acceptance. We can think of preparation in two ways. One way to prepare them is through
“Destruct” your precatechumenate to prepare RCIA inquirers
After unbaptized inquirers celebrate the Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens, they are changed. The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults says they are consecrated (see RCIA 41). What do catechumens do? Consecrate comes from the Latin word consecrare, which means to make sacred (com- + sacrare). To make something sacred means to
Does your RCIA process make catechumens’ hearts burn?
Perhaps it is obvious to us why the Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens is important and why careful preparation for its celebration is important. But I’m not sure the “why” is so obvious to everyone else who is involved. If you are struggling because your parish’s experience of the rite has been
Rite of Acceptance…why your role is crucial. And yours. And yours…
Nearly sixty initiation ministers from the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois and the Diocese of Belleville, along with some folks from St. Louis, gathered August 2-3, 2013 for a workshop on children’s RCIA. The workshop, entitled Wading Deeper, is an annual event for RCIA ministers in the two Illinois dioceses and did we ever get
Children’s RCIA a hot topic in Springfield and Belleville
This past weekend, I participated in an exciting two-day intensive in Houston, Texas. Two hundred RCIA leaders—including my mother!—gathered at St. Anne’s Catholic Community to discuss how the catechumenate can be a model for all faith formation. The event flowed flawlessly from beginning to end. That’s thanks to organizational rock star Sandy Higgins, who is
Houston RCIA teams focus on catechumenate as the model
In a previous post, I said that if we want to involve the whole parish in the RCIA process, we have to stop making scholars and start making disciples. This is not easy. Our entire formation system is designed to create scholars. We place a heavy emphasis on “knowing the faith,” by which we usually
Five things every Catholic parish must do—and how RCIA matters
