Monday, October 29, 2012

Confirmation Parent Meeting

I dislike long, boring, pointless meetings.  I certainly do not want to be accused of running such a meeting.  So my problem is thus:  I have seventy-five minutes worth of time with my Confirmation parents and I want to use it to the best of my advantage.  Why seventy-five - that's how  long Confirmation class is and the meeting is during class time.
The rules and regulations and logistics information takes about thirty minutes, at most, to present.  That leaves forty-five minutes to tell them everything I think they need to know as parents of teenagers preparing for Confirmation.  I now understand why a homily can turn from being about two readings and a Gospel to let me tell you  everything that is in my head right now about this topic no matter how remotely related or not related at all!
Should I present the Salvation History power point or use this one from LifeTeen? Do we review the sacraments?  Should I present the talk on faith I did for the parents on Sunday during Family Faith&Fun?
I did obtain copies of Matthew Kelly's book Rediscover Catholicism for each family, should I highlight some of those topics to get them interested in reading the book?  
The more I think about it the more ideas I get which is clearly not the answer.  What topics should I cover?  The last Confirmation meeting I attended as a parent was nine years ago and all I remember were lots a papers to fill out and many people asking questions on what was just said because they weren't listening.  My advantage is that I have a small group, so they all pay attention (or at least seem to).  And, many of the parents think I am humorous, so that works in my favor.  I'm open to suggestions as to what topic(s) to cover besides the Confirmation information.  What to do?  What to say?  What Truth to wow them?  What do they need the most?




1 comment:

Kathleen Basi said...

My grandmother gave me a copy of Rediscover Catholicism. I thought he was never going to get to the point until he started going through the pillars. So, for what it's worth, I would tell them to START THERE AND SKIP THE REST. The pillars, I thought, were terrific.

(Sorry, that's not what I'm supposed to be commenting on today, but it caught my eye...)