What are your thoughts on allowing a husbands or wives to serve as sponsors for their spouses? I’m uncomfortable with it, but it seems as though it happens in a lot of parishes. If you allow spouse-sponsors in your parish, what has been your experience? Do you make a distinction between sponsors and godparents? That […]
Spouses as sponsors in the RCIA process
The North American Forum on the Catechumenate is providing an excellent training opportunity for you and your RCIA team this fall. Their fifth international convocation, titled “Handing On What We Have Received from the Lord,” will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 6-8, 2008. The conference planners promise that participants will: rediscover the church’s
An essential skill for sponsors, and any catechumenate team member, is the ability to actively listen. Active listening is different than hearing. An active listener succeeds in hearing not only the words another person is saying but also understanding the meaning of the words from the speaker’s point of view. Active listening is not a
Listening skills for RCIA sponsors
Here is a pop quiz. Catechumen A is traveling at 90 mph on a train from St. Louis to Chicago. Meanwhile, Catechumen B is traveling by bicycle from Seattle to Miami. Supposing each catechumen participates in the liturgy of the word every Sunday for the duration of their respective trips, which catechumen will reach conversion
Is a complete catechumenate possible with a small team?
Thanks to all of you who commented on the cover proposal for my forthcoming book on starting and sustaining an RCIA process in a parish. The marketing folks at Twenty-Third Publications were happy that so many of you responded positively to it. They also considered the suggestions you offered for improvement. In the end, however,
What The Way of Faith looks like
Sister Kate O’Neil, IHM, sent me an e-mail recently, telling me about her parish’s plan to begin catechizing the baptized candidates and the catechumens separately. As you know, in most parishes, that would take a whole bunch more person-power. Well, Sister Kate has what it takes. She told me she’s recruited seven new team members.
The secret to recruiting RCIA team members
One of the reasons often given for doing only a partial RCIA process is a lack of volunteers. So let’s look closely at how you can redeploy your current volunteers more efficiently. I’m going to imagine you have a team of three people, plus sponsors or godparents as needed. You may have fewer than that,
Expanding yourself for a continuous RCIA process
Whenever we lead an RCIA institute, we tend to ask how many of the teams present are using a year-round process for the catechumenate in their parishes. Typically, about a fourth to a third of the hands go up. That seems like an awfully low percentage to me. Now in all the time I’ve been
The team you need for a year-round RCIA
We don’t often think of the acolyte or server as a team member, but this minster’s role can be important in the smooth flow of the rites. Perhaps because most parishes have someone who schedules and trains servers, we don’t think it is our place as catechumenate leaders to step in. Every parish has its
5 characteristics of a key RCIA team member—the acolyte
The ideal sponsor is someone fully immersed in their Catholic faith, and it’s wonderful when you have sponsors like this. In my experience, however, sponsors are sometimes not much more catechized than the catechumens. When that is the case, the sponsor coordinator is really a sponsor to the sponsors. If you find yourself working with
How do you train sponsors for the RCIA?
