For year and years, I kept a hand-written to-do list that looked like this. At any given time, it had maybe 50-100 items on it. That’s crazy. If you make lists like that, stop. Long lists like that are depressing. They never end, and you’re never done. It is impossible to complete a list like […]
How to keep track of everything and not go crazy: a primer for RCIA teams
Human beings are bad at making estimates. How long will it take to shop for groceries? How long will the meeting last? I’ll just check Facebook for a minute or two. We are just plain awful at giving accurate answers about time. So when someone asks us, “How long does RCIA take?” what should we
On April 15, 2016, more than 150 people from all over Montana and beyond had the opportunity to do just that at the “Making Disciples Institute” sponsored by the Diocese of Helena. That night, all of us gathered in the community room at Blessed Trinity Church in Missoula, Montana, to hear Bishop George Leo Thomas
What if you could ask your bishop what he thought was important in the RCIA?
In an earlier blog post, I wrote about how RCIA team members never seem to have enough time. Some of us are doing more than just RCIA, and juggling all the balls is more than a fulltime job. Days are blurs of activity that fly by. For busy people, there is a strong temptation to
Sleep your way to better RCIA ministry
Mary Birmingham and I just finished a TeamRCIA Catechist School. At the event, I asked the participants what their number-one roadblock to their ministry was. Overwhelmingly, they said they didn’t have enough time. Time is the one thing you cannot make more of. You can make more cookies or music or money, but you cannot
Do you have the time for RCIA ministry?
We just launched our online course on mercy, and I want to tell you about a lesson I learned that might help you with your RCIA ministry. Diana and I spent a weekend last September brainstorming about ways we could do a better job of supporting RCIA teams in the coming year. We thought a
Make your RCIA ministry bite size
If I asked you what Pope Francis said in his speech to the U.S. Congress last September, I’ll bet most of you couldn’t tell me. But if I asked what kind of car he drove off in after the speech, most of you will remember it was a tiny black Fiat. The Fiat made more
RCIA as a little black Fiat ministry
“Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.” That’s the first sentence in Pope Francis’s letter announcing the Year of Mercy. If Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy, it is then also true that the church is the face of Jesus’s mercy. As a church, our job, as the Body of Christ,
Is your RCIA team a face of mercy?
The best time to start an RCIA team is now. The best time to start dismissing catechumens from Mass is this Sunday. The best time implement a year-round process is today. The best time to recruit sponsors is right away. The best time to move out of the classroom and into an apprenticeship model is
The first sentence of Pope Francis’s letter announcing the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy is, “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy” (1). As catechists, this sentence is the key to understanding what the church means by “mercy.” For most people in the world, mercy is an optional act of leniency toward an offender.
What Pope Francis wants RCIA teams to teach about mercy
