As a youth minister before entering the seminary, Father Tim Donovan of Orange, California, noticed the Church’s investment in youth rarely produced fruit beyond the teens’ involvement in that particular program. After ordination in 2017, he witnessed a similar phenomenon among children whose parents dropped them off for religious formation without embracing the Catholic faith themselves.
“How can we do this differently?” Father Donovan wondered. “How can we really engage families?”
In 2019, Father Donovan created his first resource to help Catholic parishes invite parents into their child’s faith formation.
The following year, he founded Faith and Family Life Catholic Ministries (FFLCM), a public association of the Christian faithful in the Diocese of Orange and a nonprofit 501(c)(3).
What started as attractive boxed kits for first Communion and first reconciliation developed into the “Pathways Formation Suite.” FFLCM now offers more than a dozen resources for sacraments, such as confirmation and baptism, along with others featuring the Creed, prayer and works of mercy.
“It’s kind of like peeling back an onion,” Father Donovan said. “We kept finding new needs.”
Most of FFLCM’s resources include a combination of at-church sessions for parents and children conducted in age-based small groups, in addition to at-home family meetings. Each all-inclusive kit provides high-quality printed materials with simple instructions for catechists and parents.
Father Donovan said the hallmarks of these boxes are the “very tactile, experiential elements” nestled inside.
The “Nourish” box, for example, includes wooden tokens printed with loaves and fishes to assist in preparation for first Communion. The “Mend” box for first reconciliation provides a ball of twine to make a web. The web demonstrates that sin not only drives a wedge between man and God but also between members of Christ’s body, the Church.
“The teaching methodology is heavily experiential because we’re trying to rebuild sacramental imaginations,” Father Donovan said. “We can help parents take an image and draw meaning out of that image, so when they go to experience a sacrament, which also uses the symbolism, the jump between something physical communicating spiritual is not a huge gap.”
Father Donovan said the boxes have been described as a cross between Montessori (hands-on learning) and Pottery Barn (high-quality home décor).
“We value beauty very highly,” he said of the collaboration between FFLCM creative director Pam Hurwitz, several writers and LaylaRose Designs. “We think surrounding the mystery with beauty really helps the truth to be communicated.”
Simplicity is also key, Father Donovan said.
Each lesson is designed to be completed in 20-40 minutes, he said, with all necessary materials included.
“We want to remove obstacles for families so they can really execute [the lesson] in the context of a busy evening,” he said.
Father Donovan also emphasized the importance of laying a foundation for parents at the parish before adding the home-based component.
“We don’t just want to send boxes home,” Father Donovan said. “We want to give parents a support and formation which makes faith conversations at home sustainable, meaningful.”
The “Seek” box, for example, consists of four at-church sessions that focus on the kerygma (Greek for “initial proclamation”). The next box, “Root,” dives into the Creed and adds an “at-home miniseries” with short 15-minute modules.
The key, according to Father Donovan, is to provide faith formation tailored to the entire family, instead of centering it on the child.
“We’re helping parishes transition from a church-centric, family-supported model to a family-centric, church-supported model,” he said.
In the family-centric model, families come to church so parents can be supported by other parents and children/teens can be supported by other youth, he said; however, the centrality of the teaching and faith sharing happens at home.
Father Donovan noted that current research confirms the need for this shift. He cited “Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation,” a collection of studies published by Christian Smith and Amy Adamczyk in 2021.
The studies demonstrate that families whose children retain their faith for five to 10 years beyond high school hold two practices in common, Father Donovan explained. Not only do these parents take their children to church, he said, but they also engage in child-centric conversations about faith within the home.
“The integration of faith with daily experience is a really important piece,” he said. “Without the conversations, those two never get integrated.”
FFLCM’s combination of at-home resources and “very robust formation” at the parish sets up parents for success, Father Donovan said.
“We give [parents] a toolbox to be able to take those conversations not just about whatever is happening in the box, but now it becomes a habitual way in which faith is shared in the home,” he said.
Father Donovan said the mission of FFLCM dovetails with the new Directory for Catechesis published by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization in 2020. In fact, he recognized the word “pathway” over a dozen times in the document, which was made available in English just six months after FFLCM named its collection the “Pathways Formation Suite.”
Jacob Doran, director of youth evangelization and catechesis at St. Brendan the Navigator Catholic Church in Hilliard, Ohio, has partnered with FFLCM for three years.
“We speak the same language about evangelization and catechesis,” Doran said. “We’re looking at: Where is this family on their journey of faith, and how can we best assist them to move forward?”
Doran said his first step has been to meet with as many families individually as possible.
“The most important question for me is, ‘How well do you feel the church is supporting you?’” he said.
Meredith Smith, director of faith formation at the Catholic Parishes of Arlington, Massachusetts, Sts. Camillus and Agnes, shared a similar experience.
“[FFLCM] really encourages us to sit down with every family and get to know them,” Smith said. “Once you create that relationship of trust with them, they’re more willing to work with you. It’s one of the highlights of my year.”
In just two years of partnering with FFLCM, Smith said she has noticed an increase in retention of families and Sunday Mass attendance. Smith also noticed that many juniors and seniors in high school said they enjoyed their parents’ involvement in the confirmation process.
Doran has received positive feedback in his parish, as well.
St. Brendan parishioner Louie Guagenti admitted he initially felt inadequate to teach his son the faith at home based on his own upbringing. However, he said the simplicity of the FFLCM kits, coupled with other resources, helped prepare him to answer his son’s questions and to grow in his own faith.
“It forced me, for the sake of my son, to dive into [the faith] deeper and understand it better,” Guagenti said.
He also appreciated the flexibility of the take-home kits. Due to a heavy travel schedule for his son’s hockey team, Guagenti said his family took the kits along and completed many of the activities in the car.
“I’m glad we did [the family meetings] because it got my wife and I involved more [in our son’s formation],” he said. “For my son to see me in action, he will try to mimic that.”
Father Donovan desires that every family would experience this shift.
“When a kid asks in the car, ‘Why do we have to go to church?’ I want to help parents transform their response from ‘Because we have to’ to ‘Because we love Jesus,’” Father Donovan said. “I want to change our church from a church that has to [go] to a church that wants to.”