Adult Faith Formation
Principles & Practices
13 Ideas for Adult Faith Formation: Send the Faithful Out On Mission to the World
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There’s a church in my area which has a one-way driveway for entry and exit to its property. The posted signs on this driveway say: “Enter to Worship” and “Exit to Serve.” That is our Baptismal call. One of the results of our increased concentration on adult faith formation is, hopefully, the deepening of people’s awareness, desire, abilities and skills to be missioned for their role in the world.
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Adult Faith Formation: A Catholic Vision
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Ed Gordon's essay offers insights and practices for adult faith formation around four major areas: the adult learner, the teacher of adults, the content of adult faith formation, and the methods of adult faith.
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Adult Faith Formation at the Crossroads
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Cathy Minkiewicz reflects on adult faith formation through the lens of the Emmaus Story in the Gospel of Luke and offers insights and wisdom for all church leaders.
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Adult Spiritual Formation: Nurturing Adults in Christ and for Others
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This essay explores the meaning of spirituality for adults, and presents strategies for integrating faith formation programs within the broader context of spiritual formation.
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Aging is Changing - A Congregational Resource for Ministry With and By Older Adults
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This resource is designed to help clergy and lay leaders identify issues of older adults, their families, and caregivers to highlight existing program ideas that others might replicate in program development, and to identify local, state and national resources that might be helpful. The resource is in 5 parts:
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Best Practices in Adult Faith Formation
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This article draws on a number of studies and sources to identify nine practices that contribute to effectiveness in adult faith formation, and how these practices can be used to design and implement adult faith formation in congregations. The article offers practical suggestions for utilizing each practice in adult faith formation.
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Best Practices in Adult Faith Formation Study - Faith Formation Matters
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These monthly newsletters report on the results of an international study on best practices in adult faith formation. (www.janetschaeffler.com)
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The Challenges and Opportunities for Faith Formation with Maturing Adults
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This article present a profile of maturing adults today and five elements for ministry and adult faith formation with mature adults.
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Churches Responding to the Age Way: Top Innovations in Older Adult Ministry
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America is aging and older adult ministry of today is not the same as it was 30 years ago. A one size fits all approach to ministry has been replaced with a variety of fresh ideas that recognize the multiple needs, interests, and abilities of older adults. (Leadership Network)
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Creating New Ways for Adults to Serve
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Across the nation, both secular organizations and faith-based communities are recognizing the invaluable resource resident in older adults. A number of leading churches in older adult ministry are finding creative ways of engaging their people in ministry and encouraging them to use their time and resources for Kingdom expansion. (Leadership Network)
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Developing Faith Formation with the Baby Boom Generation
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This article is organized into two sections. Part 1 offers insights on approaching faith formation with Baby Boomers from experts in the field. Part 2 is a guide to developing congregational faith formation with Baby Boomers.
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Faith Formation for Every Adult in Your Church
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How can we utilize the life of our church community; the variety of excellent print, audio, and visual resources; the variety of learning models; and the new digital and online technologies to develop a faith formation plan that addresses the wide diversity of interests, religious and spiritual needs, and life tasks and situations of today’s adults.
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Faith Formation with Maturing Adults
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Richard Johnson outlines sixteen fundamental tasks which serve as the scaffolding for comprehensive faith formation programs for maturing adults. These tasks not only guide church leaders in constructing fundamental and functional faith formation ministries, they also act as spiritual development handholds for maturing adults as they work toward a greater realization of God’s presence in their lives.
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Generation X: Ministry Lessons from the Television Kids
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Generation X is now parenting the kids in your church. If you’ve noticed changes in the loyalty of parents to your program in the past ten years, that’s because Gen X has arrived and they’ll only be loyal if you prove that you’ve earned their loyalty. Their memory spans from Nixon to the collapse of financial systems in 2008 along with all the governmental and corporate corruption that has been exposed in between, not to mention disastrous church scandals from the Evangelical and Pentecostal branches to the Catholic sex abuse crisis. Institutions are not to be trusted and anything bigger than a family fits the institutional bill. John Mabry said it best in his book, Faithful Generations, “Because of their early betrayals, Xers have a nearly universal allergy towards idealism, and a finely tuned cynicism toward stated agendas (there’s always a hidden one). Generation X was born with a built-in Bullshit Detector, and it is turned up to eleven.” This may be their most defining characteristic.
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Ministry By and For Those Beyond the Age of 55
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"Trends and Challenges for Ministry Among North America's Largest Generation - Gary McIntosh
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Planning for Adult Faith Formation
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If churches are to engage members who are satisfied with life, invite others to participate in their church, serve others, and give more financially to their church, they must consider how they are facilitating the four shifts to a church which values its adults, helps them reflect theologically on their lives, and gives them opportunities to be in conversation with other believers so that they may go into the world and be on the mission of Jesus Christ. Pam Coster's essay provides a vision for adult formation and a guide to planning adult faith formation that seeks the four shifts churches need to make.
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The Seeker Next Door
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Congregational leaders are well aware of the SBNR (the spiritual but not religious) people. These are people who mix and match spiritual beliefs and practices through a wide range of spiritual disciplines and religious beliefs. The author contends that the spiritual but not religious not only stay away from church—but they’re also dabbling in it as well. “SBNRs represent an opportunity for churches to reinvigorate their ability to speak and think theologically.” (The Christian Century, May 30, 2012)
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Spiritual Transformation: The Heart of Adult Faith Formation
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What does a “spiritual transformation model” of adult faith formation look like in the real world? How can we implement the model in a congregation or parish?
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This Just Isn’t Working: When People Don’t Show Up
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LeeAnne Watkins narrates her church’s many attempts at launching mid-week adult faith formation programs. She now sees the value in taking a different approach. The many comments add additional thoughts and practices. (Christian Century, June 4, 2012)
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Toward Effective Adult Faith Formation
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This simple but important resource lists top 10 guidelines and top 10 pitfalls for adult faith formation, practical considerations to help insure success.
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A View from the Community: What Are We Learning about Adult Faith Formation
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This article draws upon Janet Schaeffler’s research, nationally and internationally, on effective practices in adult faith formation by presenting signs of growth (effective practices) and challenges for the future adult faith formation.
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