Written by Father Tom Simonds, SJ, Ed.D., director of school engagement, NCEA, Tom@ncea.org
When I speak with school leaders, one area of concern they frequently express to me is that students and families are not practicing their Catholic faith. This is a serious concern, since the Declaration on Christian Education of Vatican Council II defines the goals of the Catholic school to be preparation of children and youth for their adult roles in the community and growth in living their Catholic faith. In this new faith formation series of blog posts, we will explore if there might be a new model of student faith formation that will better meet the goals of P-12 Catholic schools.
The Call for a New Model of Faith Formation
This is the challenge before us: to become more and to grow to be more like Christ as teachers, students and leaders in Catholic schools (Philippians 3:12-21). Some will discourage our seeking to do more for student faith formation. I have certainly heard words of discouragement during my ministry.
Be not discouraged! If we shoot for the highest point we can see, we are sure to land among the stars in the heavens!
Saint Paul certainly encourages us to reach for higher things, the more audacious goals. In his Letter to the Ephesians (4:11-16), Saint Paul encourages teachers and leaders to grow in their own discipleship and to also invite others to walk the way of discipleship. When we grow as disciples of Jesus, it is only natural for us to want to share what we have experienced with others.
Discipling: A Mentorship Approach to Evangelization
I believe our new P-12 student faith formation model will be most effective if it mirrors the way Jesus taught his disciples. Jesus called people to consider following him as disciples, and those who remained with him learned enough to go out and tell others of the ways of discipleship. This is the same model Saint Paul used. He spoke of Christ to anyone who would listen, and then those who understood and became his disciples he mentored in the way of life that Jesus had lived and taught. The leaders of the local churches that Saint Paul chose became master disciples or bishops of their local communities. These master disciples invited others to learn the ways of following Jesus as his disciple. I think this model is most clearly presented in Saint Paul’s Letter to Timothy.
At this point, I want to introduce a new word to help us apply Jesus’ method to making disciples in our schools. The new word is “discipling,” which is a verb that means to mentor someone who desires to become a disciple of Jesus. True to the mentor model, this is a relationship built on freedom and growing trust. Evangelization or sharing the Good News of Jesus is not about forcing people to believe or do something, rather, evangelization is about inviting people to learn and experience more.
To create a discipling model of student formation, each school needs to have at least one master disciple like the leaders of the city churches of Saint Paul’s day. The master disciple is someone who has been walking as a disciple of Jesus for some time and has been called to leadership by the community in some way. The master disciple engages in discipling of other educators at the school. The teachers who are disciples or who are being mentored as disciples integrate a discipling model of formation into their teaching, inviting children and young people to become junior disciples.
The challenge of implementing and integrating a discipling form of student formation can be aptly communicated in a school motto. For example, at Jesuit high schools, a common motto is “Jesuit boys become men for others.” Within this one tiny line the concepts of growth to adulthood and becoming more like Jesus, the penultimate “man for others,” is contained in a way that is both inspiring and meaningful. I learned about a second motto that is very similar when I was living and teaching in Omaha, NE. The Sisters of Mercy high school in Omaha used the motto “Mercy girls become women of mercy.” This motto, too, communicates growth to adulthood that has Jesus, the source of all mercy, included within one short line.
Starting Small, Trusting Big
Can you embrace the challenge of starting a discipling form of student formation at your school? Are you concerned that this may be too high of a mountain to climb or too hard of a race to run? If so, I invite you to pray with the Gospel of Saint Mark. We hear about the feeding of the multitude in Mark 6:30–44. The key line comes when Jesus says to his disciples, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”
We may feel like we have a multitude to feed with very little food, but Jesus only asks us for a few loaves and some fish, and he does the rest of the work.
Stay tuned for the next post in this new Faith Formation blog series when I will take a deeper dive into the specifics of discipling children and youth.
