Written by Max T. Engel, Ph.D. and Ronald David Fussell, Ed.D., educators at Creighton University, [email protected], [email protected]
Catholic education is about becoming who God created us to be. Along with family and parish life, there is nothing more transformative for the life of a child than to be a part of a Christ-centered Catholic school community. It is a reality that is consistently reinforced in Vatican documents on Catholic education, and it is the cornerstone of what students have experienced in Catholic schools for decades.
What makes Catholic schools so transformative is how they form students to become the human beings that God intended. This formation occurs in a context that prioritizes the Catholic sacramental worldview. Students are equipped to navigate complex contemporary cultural realities courageously, prioritizing those most in need. By focusing on the formation of students, Christ-centered Catholic schools work to transform society for the better.
Transformative Catholic schools have a Christ-centered focus that inspires the entire culture of the school community. It is the responsibility of everyone in a Catholic school to support the school’s formational and educational Christ-centered mandate. To this end, all Catholic school personnel today need ongoing and explicit Christian spiritual and personal formation.
The second edition of the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS) helps fulfill this responsibility, providing guidance and direction about faith formation in Catholic school. In light of the NSBECS, we propose three areas of consideration:
- First, praying should be like breathing in a Catholic school––it is part of a life-giving relationship that faculty and students build with Jesus Christ.
- Second, faculty and students deepen their relationship with Jesus through structured, ongoing and authentic Christian service.
- Finally, Catholic school leaders need to take an intentional approach to providing opportunities for faith formation.
Reflective Prayer and Personal Encounter
How does prayer unfold in your school? When do students and teachers pray? Are students and teachers comfortable leading prayer? The answers to these questions are important, because prayer is foundational for a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Thoughtful opportunities to pray are inherently formative. Prayer helps students and teachers develop a Catholic worldview, shape how they perceive the world and demonstrate witness of their relationship with God through Jesus. This, in turn, enlivens liturgical life and a shared prayer culture.
Authentic Service
If we seek to inspire Catholic school students to build up the Kingdom of God on Earth, then it requires thoughtful approaches to service to others, especially the poor, marginalized and those on the fringes of society. Moreover, formation through service is an impactful approach to learning that reveals to students how the school’s spiritual values and curricular content are connected in an authentic context. Yet, in some Catholic schools, authentic service might be corrupted by transactional focus that prioritizes the accrual of service hours, plies service as a punishment for misbehavior or is completed with the intent to enhance one’s perceived character, e.g. on a resume. Is service in your school authentic or is it transactional? How can transactional service be made to be more authentic?
Intentional Leadership
Faith formation experiences in Catholic schools require a coordinated approach to planning. In previous generations, the authenticity of faith witness of the women and men religious who led Catholic schools was obvious. Yet today, well-planned formation can be complicated by the reality that lay Catholic school leaders need help knowing how to lead the charge. Perhaps you are reading this blog as a leader—if so, ask yourself, how comfortable are you with your faith leadership responsibilities? Where are your faith leadership blind spots and what do you need to fill the gaps? Or maybe you are a teacher who aspires to be a Catholic school leader. If you are, what formation do you think you need to eventually be an effective faith leader of a Catholic school community?
If these topics and reflection questions prompt meaningful internal dialogue for you, then we invite you to download our recently published monograph, Faith Formation for the Catholic School Community: A Sourcebook for Practitioners, which is currently available for free for NCEA members on the NCEA website.
We also invite you to attend our upcoming webinars on Catholic school prayer (February 11, 2025) and authentic service (March 11, 2025).
Finally, we hope to see you in person at NCEA 2025 Convention, April 22-24, where we can discuss these concepts during our presentation, A Lamp on the Lampstand: Empowering Faith Leadership in Catholic Schools.
