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Rise and Walk: Looking Ahead to Next Year’s Program

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This past week we completed our family faith formation sessions for the year, and this weekend our LIFT first communicants will receive the Blessed Sacrament for the first time. The past year has flown by, and I suspect the summer planning season will pass even faster. We have lots of great for next year, but one of more significant changes has to do with the age of Confirmation. After extensive discussion in recent years, including our priests, committee members, catechists, and staff members at St. Michael and St. Albert parishes, we have decided to gradually shift the age of Confirmation to 8th grade for all our students.

This decision was made for several reasons, but for me, the two most compelling are these:
  • Middle-schoolers are more open to evangelization and catechesis. They are more likely to follow the lead of their parents and parish volunteers, more excited about activities and retreats, and significantly less busy. High-schoolers have other priorities, including sports, exams, driver’s ed, jobs, and social lives—and unless their faith is already a top personal priority, it is difficult to make them care.
  • We already have great success in reaching and converting middle-schoolers. We have tremendous youth ministry programs that change kids’ lives (as almost anyone who has sent their kids to Extreme Faith Camp can attest). We don’t capture the heart of every middle-schooler, but of the high-schoolers we have who stay committed to their faith through graduation and beyond, nearly all of them were hooked in middle school. Each year we have a large “bubble” of students who show up for Confirmation classes—why not move the bubble to the age at which we have proven success in reaching kids and helping to keep them Catholic

What does this mean for you? If your children attend the parish school, they will continue to be confirmed in 8th grade. If your children attend LIFT and our parish Confirmation program, the plan looks like this:

  • Next year: Tenth-grade students will see no change; they will complete the second year of the Chosen program and be confirmed in Spring 2017 as planned. Ninth-grade students will complete a more intensive, one-year Chosen program and will also be confirmed in Spring 2017.
  • 2017-18:Ninth-grade students will complete a more intensive, one-year Chosen program and will be confirmed in Spring 2018. Eighth-grade students will complete either a one-year program (either based on Chosen or the YDisciple model) and will also be confirmed in Spring 2018.
  • 2018-19:Eighth-grade students will complete a one-year program using the YDisciple model from this point forward.

The YDisciple model involves forming small groups of around eight students each, beginning in middle school, with a trained adult leader who walks with those students from middle-school until they graduate. In each discipleship group (or D-group), students continue to learn about their Catholic faith, grow in prayer and discipleship, support each other, and hold each other accountable.


This is a volunteer-intensive effort. We will need people who feel called to work with teens and share their faith, who are willing to be trained and to commit to a group of young people, and who are able to share their own lives as examples of faithful discipleship. It is a daunting task to find and train so many volunteers, but we believe this is where God is calling us, and He will make our efforts fruitful.

In fact, our need for dedicated disciples who are ready to work in the vineyard is not limited to Confirmation. We have such great needs in this parish, and so few workers. It is time for those of us who have been asleep to rise and walk, with our spouses and children, our friends and neighbors, and all those in our lives who need Christ—in short, with everyone!

Slaves No More

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I can’t possibly afford to be here.

Two years ago, I was working in communications at the University of Minnesota. I had spent six years as the president’s speechwriter and enjoyed a solid salary, stellar benefits, and the respect and friendship of several wonderful colleagues.

Nevertheless I felt adrift. The U hired a new president, and I changed jobs three times in two years—with each one less and less to my liking. I knew I needed to make a change. I thought about working for the Church, but communications positions were few and far between; most other positions required a theology or professional degree I didn’t have, and the pay and benefits couldn’t compete with a large public university.

Plus, like too many couples, Jodi and I were not smart with our money in our younger days. We never had a budget and ran up debt almost without thinking. So when the faith formation job opened up here in our home parish, my first thought was: We can’t afford it.

Unbeknownst to me, wiser minds and more faithful hearts than mine were at work. Friends and family were praying for me. And providentially, Jodi and I had attended Financial Peace University the year before. Jodi’s brother Jason followed Dave Ramsey’s program, and it changed his life—so when new parishioners Jason and Robyn Jones brought Financial Peace University here, we saw it as a sign and joined their first course. It changed our lives, too.

I won’t walk you through the entire program—instead, I’ll share one example. Ramsey insists that a zero-base budget is essential to managing your money. Every dollar you bring in is assigned a specific role. Bills. Groceries. Giving. Savings. Even monthly “blow money,” so you can treat yourself to whatever you want, no questions asked. Each month, you tell every dollar where it goes.

“At the end of the first couple months,” we were told, “you’ll feel like you got a raise.” Why? Because when you don’t assign every dollar to a specific priority, you waste money, without even knowing it.

After living paycheck to paycheck for years, we were skeptical—but sure enough, when we started the zero-base budget, we realized we were blowing an extra $500 to $1,000 a month on…nothing. We had barely covered our bills, and we had no money left and nothing to show for it except a few greasy pizza boxes and empty beverage containers. We started budgeting this way each month and realized we had been living and giving below our potential!

So when opportunity knocked here at St. Michael, we ran the numbers and discovered I could answer the call. The incredible thing is that we have the same bills as before (gas and parking went down; healthcare went up), yet everything is covered, even with less coming in.

When we speak about it, it makes no sense—where does the money come from?—but on paper it’s clear: when we track every dollar, we can see the money was there all along. When we couldn’t see it, we didn’t realize it was missing.

We aren’t debt free yet, but we’re on our way—and just getting on that path gave us the freedom to change, not just jobs, but our whole family dynamic and outlook. We make less money, and yet we are giving more to the church and other charities, enjoying ourselves more, paying off more debt more quickly—and worrying less. Although we still owe, we are no longer slaves to money. And that is a great feeling.

A Baby Catholic’s First Steps

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Fr. Bill, from an article on Confession
in the Diocese of Grand Rapids magazine Faith.

I have mercy on the brain this month. At LIFT we talked about the sacrament of Confession, and several parishioners shared powerful stories of how God’s mercy had strengthened their faith. Then, in recognition of the Pope’s Year of Mercy, our parish retreat focused on God’s message of Divine Mercy. Fr. Alar’s presentations were both consoling and challenging—showing me clearly the great ocean of mercy that stretches before us and how slow we are to tap into it for ourselves, much less for others.

I made my first Communion around age 10, during a brief period in which my mom returned to the church with my sister and me. As a young husband, I attended Mass with Jodi, out of respect for tradition and curiosity more than anything else. When I became a father, I began to open up to the possibility of becoming a practicing Catholic, but I had many questions and was deeply enmeshed in many of the typical sins of young men. I hid those sins under a thick blanket of pride, convinced that I knew better about right and wrong—but Jodi’s solid, peaceful faith played on my curiosity. So one evening, I sat down in the rectory to talk with our priest.

I told Fr. Bill I wasn’t sure it was possible to know if God exists. I told him I disagreed with the Church’s teaching on birth control. I told him I didn’t understand the Church’s teachings on the real presence of Jesus in the consecrated bread and wine at Mass. I told him I couldn’t believe that a merciful God could condemn good men to Hell for not believing in Him.

Fr. Bill addressed my issues calmly and thoughtfully. He told me I had a good head on my shoulders, and God gave it to me to use. He told me not to be afraid of my doubts or questions—that even priests struggle with the same and need faith to follow God.

“But you’re not going to find the answers to these questions by holding your faith at arm’s length,” he said. “My advice is to go to Confession and begin receiving Communion again, and ask your questions from inside the Church.”

I thanked him, and he said, “I could hear your confession now, if you want.” I protested that it had been many years and I didn’t remember how, and he said, “Don’t worry—I will help you.”

So right there, in the living room of the rectory, I made the first Confession of the rest of my life—my first face-to-face Confession—with the priest who first showed me the depths of God’s mercy. I began receiving Holy Communion again the following Sunday, was Confirmed in the Church a few years later, and began a lifelong march to Calvary and Christ, because Fr. Bill saw my dignity as a son of God under layers of pride and years of sin.

Here’s the kicker: I know now that my Confession that evening wasn’t technically valid. The sins I was struggling with come in buckets; I confessed most of them that night, but not all, because some I didn’t agree were sins and had no intention of changing. But I made the best Confession I could in my ignorance and was sincerely contrite—as sorry as I could be in that moment of faltering pride and budding faith. Fr. Bill started me on a road I may not have taken otherwise. Had I waited a week, that spark may have gone out, and had he said, “Good effort…but come back when you’re ready to confess everything else I suspect you’re doing,” I may never have come back.

I need to remember that my first steps on the path to an adult faith were baby steps, small and unsteady, and that Fr. Bill saw enough in me to invite me back to communion with God. We need to see each other as he saw me—as Jesus sees every sinner—and encourage those first faltering steps.

Same Guy, Different Year

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I don’t know about you, but 2016 caught me off guard. The new year leapt from behind our Christmas tree in the early morning darkness to find me unprepared and unresolved, the same shuffling sinner as last year, stumbling to the kitchen, rubbing my eyes and searching for coffee.

And now I notice Lent and Easter creeping up. Ash Wednesday, February 10, is less than three weeks away. In past years I would have broken multiple resolutions by this point and would be tempted to use Lent to get back on the horse—fasting, for example, in order to lose weight rather than gain perspective.

Since I’ve made no resolutions, however, I’m headed toward Lent with no agenda other than the humbling realization that this year’s Jim is much the same as last year’s. And in recent weeks I’ve noticed two sins within myself that, in the past, I have failed to confront and that need to be uprooted.

The first, I learned just last weekend, is a form of vanity. I worry, overmuch, about what people think of me. Not simply in terms of appearance, though if I’m honest, that’s a part of it. I worry that I’m making a bad impression, that I’m being misunderstood, that I’m coming off as a judgmental know-it-all or a sentimental fool. As a result, I want to do good work, but not always for God’s sake or even for your sake. I want to do it for my sake, so I can feel good about me.

This is hard to admit, as it’s not a particularly manly sin. All of us have the need for affirmation—but I get affirmation from so many of you and from God in prayer. Worrying about every misstep and stewing over every sideways glance or offhand comment to the point that I forget the Father smiling down on me is an evil that must be uprooted.

The second, I fear, is more humbling than the first. Between my work life and our home life, I am as busy as I have ever been, and yet I feel God pulling me toward other things He wants me to do. And I’m resisting, because Lord, I don’t have time—something’s got to give!

Then it occurs to me: perhaps I’m that something. Perhaps God wants more of me.

And then the panicky flutter starts up in my chest, like a moth realizing too late that he’s inside the shade and that beautiful Light burns. I can’t do this, I think. I’ve got to get out of here!

Yes, you can, says God. Stay with me.

I realize one of two things must be true: either I don’t truly believe God can help me, or I don’t believe He will. The first I recognize as rubbish immediately: He’s God; He can do whatever He sets His mind to.

The second is equally rubbish: He is Love and always wills the good of His people. I know this. I do.

But do I trust Him?

I’ve got a long Lent ahead of me. May your sacrifices be fruitful, drawing you nearer to Christ!

The Seed Is…Me?

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments
I’ve had a handful of conversations lately about our faith formation programs at St. Michael: what we’ve done differently this year, what’s working and what’s not, and what more I wish we’d done. I am tempted to sudden actions and grand gestures at times, and midway through the faith formation year is no exception: I am tempted to blow up what we’re doing in our parish and start over. So many people need to know that God is real, that Christ is present in the church…and I’m stewing over videos, Powerpoints, and the Catechism.
Then a good friend shares this with me, from something he is reading these days. He knows where my head has been lately, and thinks this might be helpful. He’s right.

“Commenting on the Church’s evangelizing efforts, Pope Benedict XVI warned that Catholics today must resist what he calls ‘the temptation of impatience,’ that is, the temptation to insist on ‘immediately finding great success’ and ‘large numbers.’  He says that immediate, massive growth is not God’s way.  ‘For the Kingdom of  God as well as for evangelization, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed, is always valid.’  He goes on to say the new phase of the Church’s evangelizing mission to the secular world will not be ‘immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and more refined methods.’  Rather, it will mean ‘to dare, once again and with the humility of the small grain, to leave up to God the when and how it will grow.’”

The quotes from Pope Benedict are from “The New Evangelization:  Building a Civilization of Love,” his address to catechists and religion teachers, Jubilee of Catechists, December 12, 2000.
We talk often of planting seeds in others, not knowing where, when, or whether they will germinate. But Pope Benedict calls me to the humility of the small grain. 
What does that mean?

A seed perseveres through inclement conditions. It bides its time, then when the time and place are right, it germinates: puts roots down and sends visible growth up.
So far so good, I think.
As conditions are favorable, it continues to grow, and God willing, to put forth fruit. The plant itself has little impact on how much fruit results year to year or what becomes of the fruit once it ripens and drops. But it continues to produce, year after year, as long as it is able. 
The seed is me? That’s a thought I hadn’t thought before…