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Elizabeth
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Real Learning
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| Posted: Jan 12 2007 at 9:01am | IP Logged
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Lindsey is wondering aloud this morning about the role of the church in the spiritual education of children. If you have a chance, please go by and visit her blog. Then, maybe we can come back here and share with her the unique role of the family as a Domestic Church.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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stefoodie
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| Posted: Jan 12 2007 at 9:09am | IP Logged
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Ooooh, perfect timing! I was just going to post a question at Fireside Chat. I'm giving a talk in February about "The Christian Family" and the home/family as Domestic Church. I'm speaking to a small group, possibly including young couples just starting out, one with a couple of kids, and an older couple with teen kids who are a bit "lukewarm" towards the Church and its practices. Would love to hear everyone's ideas, hopefully no one minds if I incorporate some of them into my talk...
books and quotes and jokes welcome too! I am rereading Familiaris Consortio right now and looks like I'll be quoting heavily from that as well.
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stef
mom to five
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enjoythejourney
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| Posted: Jan 12 2007 at 9:53am | IP Logged
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Thanks :) I'm really struggling with this right now. I'm on such a massive journey right now and each day it seems to get deeper and wider! God is tugging at my heart like never before.
Keep me in your prayers please.
And hey, if anyone wants to jump over at my blog and talk more about the whole domestic church thing, I'd love to hear about it!
Lindsey @ enjoythejourney
http://justenjoythejourney.blogspot.com
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Alice R
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Just thinking aloud~~~
Sometimes I feel the churches try to take too much responsibility from the parent-almost like the public school does.
Church activities are to be a supplement to what we do at home NOT in place of what we do at home.
I know I'm on a homeschooling board here so I feel free to say this-I feel like the church follows the public school design. Age segregated classes, separation from the parents/family during worship etc.
My own opinion, I think families take the first responsiblity on spiritual education and the chuch is the place where we meet and worship together, offer support when needed and (of course!) offer Christian instruction. A lot of these classes and stuff is just making parents less involved with their child. I think the church should (to borrow a very trendy term) EMPOWER the family to have a better Christian life not constantly take the "power" away from the family and their God given ability to train and educate their child in their faith.
I'm starting to think that the average Christian really thinks that the "religious group/class" is a better place to learn about God rather than from their own parents. How tragic is that? Parents feel inadequate to even teach their own child about God? Or maybe the parents really are inadequate (to be quite honest)and that is a poor reflection on the parents own religious upbringing. Are we that so poorly equipted as a group of Christians? That makes me soooo sad. 
I was just discussing this with my husband (while the poor man was trying to take a shower with me loudly talking over the running water) 
My husband and I are deeply relgious and very devout in our faith but lately, I'm kind of disgusted with many things going on in many churches.
Good topic Elizabeth and Lindsey! 
Blessings,
Alice R
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Mom to Nathaniel (10), Noah (8) Alise (6) Rebekah (3)and expecting another blessing Faith, Grace and Family
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saintanneshs
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Oh, poor Lindsey! I read her blog and I do think that what she's experiencing is pretty common in most churches, including the Catholic church. As a former CCD teacher, I saw it first-hand too. I'll be praying for her and for all who generously, selflessly give of themselves to help bring the little ones to Christ.
As far as the role of the family as a Domestic Church goes...Do you think it's oversimplifying things to say that HOMESCHOOLERS can maybe see Lindsey's issue in a whole other light than say, non-homeschoolers can? I mean, the very nature of homeschooling demands that we be 100% present in our children's lives in every aspect, including their spiritual upbringing, because for us, it's just one more area we WANT and accept reponsibility.
That said, the idea of a "Domestic Church" doesn't seem foreign for most of my Christian, non-Catholic homeschooling friends. For them it's just a new name for what they've been doing all along...family prayer/devotions, reading the bible together, practicing faith in the real world through ministry, extra participation within a "Church Family" and so on.
What I think is common between us (all of us building a "Domestic Church" whether Catholic or not) is that we can see where some others who share our faith in name, but not our homeschooling hearts, really begin to differ in our APPROACHES to building a domestic church.
I have plenty of non-homeschooling Catholic girlfriends who are building a domestic church within their homes and I am humbled by what they know and share with their children. They inspire me to do a better job! But where we're different is that they don't have any of the advantages of homeschooling that really come in handy when trying to build a domestic church. For example, we have Catholic homeschool support groups that work together to foster a community outside of church, making pilgrimmages, celebrating feast days together, meeting for Stations of the Cross and First Friday masses & picnics... the list is endless. Catholic homeschool resources help center our daily living, as well as school lessons, around Jesus. At daily mass we have The Holy Eucharist and as homeschoolers we have the great priviledge of making time in our schedule for daily mass, as a family! And what about these boards?! All these things, and I'm sure many more that I've left out, are what I use to build my domestic church. I'm not saying these things aren't accessible to non-homeschoolers, but they do require some searching and they're not obvious to non-homeschoolers. I mean, how many times have we pulled faith-related stuff out around our non-homeschooling friends just to hear them say, "Where'd you get THAT?!!"
So I guess what I'm saying is that my choice to homeschool has made ALL the difference for me in my own faith formation, as well as what I am building, with God's grace, within my family. It must be so hard to not have any of the support mentioned above (or the support these CCM boards have given me  ) and to still find ways to build your faith as a family, outside of Church. I feel so blessed to not have to rely on the Church alone to teach my children their faith, but instead to be able to work with the Church on this task. Homeschooling resources, for me, have made this not only possible, but a dream come true. It's really funny how giddy I get when new Catholic h'sing catalogs come in the mail ...the ideas just come flying at me!
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ALmom
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Ditto what Alice said. I also think that sometimes the local churches forget that their role is to preach the gospel in season and out of season - and they work too hard at entertaining that you are lucky if the message gets preached. Unfortunately, we have experienced our domestic church being undermined by what is done in and around our parish, or said from the pulpit, at times.
My children and I do feel like outsiders a lot at our parish - and it is partially our fault in the sense that I just cannot volunteer right now on any regular basis and I know we are doing what we can. However, I do attend anything with my dc, and assist where I can. I have substituted for missing aids, am always helping clean up, etc. My children are not particularly interested in anything at the parish because it is more about feel good (and games that my more reserved children are uncomfortable with) and very little about the spiritual life. The closest we felt to belonging was when one of the homeschooling kids asked the associate pastor if the homeschoolers could have Benediction and Adoration on a particular night once per month. This priest was escatic and really gave of himself - not only did he lead Benediction, but he offered to get there an hour early for Confession for anyone that wanted it - and if time ran out before, he'd hear confessions afterwards. He also told these kids that he'd get the parish hall so they could have pizza afterwards - after all this is what all the other groups did (and provided the pizza on the last night), asked my mom to help chaperone and began inviting other teens he felt would be interested. He probably doesn't know how much it meant to the kids that he said - "just like all the other groups", for the first time we were included as part of parish life. We were happy that other kids were coming - it didn't have to be only homeschoolers, it's just that whenever you ask or suggest something traditional like this for teens in the parish we are told - "Oh that isn't what they want"
Well evidently someone hasn't really figured out what teens want or isn't asking the right teens cause this grew rapidly in the 3 times it was held. There were lots of teens attending - but also the teens families came for Benediction when they could (moms of 3 and 4 yo have to play this kind of thing by ear)but we let the teens have a bit of social time amongst themselves after Benediction over pizza. The priorities were right - the pizza was a short time not The Event. Benediction and Confession was why they came.
Then like everything else positive that starts (or so it has seemed) , this priest was transferred and we haven't been able to do this since.
Excuse my mini rant.
I also wanted to add that I don't think this is limited to non-homeschoolers. While we do tend to take seriously our primary responsibility to teach our children, we do not always know how to volunteer when there is a cooperative effort. Many times the desire is for someone else to organize something to help meet the needs of my children or hitting a brick wall when you try to get something going because no one can volunteer to help. Sometimes people don't volunteer because they don't feel capapble of what is asked. I cannot teach in a classroom setting - I just cannot work with numbers of children very well in a formal way beyond one on one. But if I express my desire to contribute there is usually something that I can do. Or if the organizers break things into small chunks in asking for volunteers, then it helps people see what they really can contribute. Still we have specified that co op is not for dropping off children. Some of the moms teaching have very young children and we need those participating to provide something to assure that these other very generous mom's children are attended to and have something interesting while mom is teaching. Otherwise, the mom simply has to back down and the co-op collapses. Our current co-op has really wonderful participation - but it is also mandated and is a very small group of people - almost all of whom have toddlers. It took us a while to figure out how to get this to work - and helping match people so that they were using talents where they were needed is one of the clues. I feel my contribution is very minimal and am able to volunteer while still meeting the needs of my own toddler. One thing we did discover is a need to protect some of the moms by really trying to make sure moms of little children are not teaching more than one segment - even if we have to rearrange what is offered and having some floaters to step in and teach for a mom with a new baby. We also got a grandma to come in and help with 2 younger children whose moms teach a class and whose children need a smaller group than the huge 4 - 6 yo crowds. Assuming the best in people - a desire to help, etc. and being willing to all charitably discuss what is and is not working does help keep things going. It takes some creativity and good communication skills when you are working with all volunteer moms of little children - because there is that balance that must be struck. No one can be seriously neglecting their own in order to volunteer but if we all don't pitch in and do something, then the whole thing falls apart.
Any kind of volunteer function has the problem that Lindsey is speaking of. It is often the same few families that are active and contributing.
Janet
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: sometimes we take it all for granted
