Using these two questions as the basis for all that followed, parish leaders would begin a systematic and intentional process of partnering with parents to make their wishes (and ours, as faith formators) come true.
Strong Catholic Families has its roots in the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), conducted between 2001 and 2005 by lead researcher Dr. Christian Smith, whose extensive research identified parents as the single most important influence on the religious and spiritual lives of teens. In fact, the study found parents were a very accurate mirror to the faith lives of their children, for better or worse.
Based on Smith’s groundbreaking research, NFCYM assembled a team of diocesan leaders in 2005 to begin getting this and other important messages out to parish and diocesan leaders through an in-service entitled Will Our Faith Have Children? We soon realized, however, that while the information and strategies presented were good and helpful, NFCYM was limited by its focus on parish or diocesan leaders. If we were going to connect directly with parents at the parish and school levels, we needed to widen our reach as well as our process.
Over the next five years, the planning team worked intentionally to partner with other national organizations, including the National Community of Catechetical Leaders (NCCL), the National
Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), and the National Association of Catholic Family Life Ministers (NACFLM), to develop a process so that together we could model to parishes and schools the type of all-hands-on-deck approach that was needed to partner with parents to bring home the faith. By 2010, the Strong Catholic Families: Strong Catholic Youth training process and accompanying resources were rolled out nationally. During the next decade, the multi-organizational training team conducted multi-day sessions in both English and Spanish (Fortaleciendo Familias en la Fe) in over 100 dioceses in the U.S. and Canada, spoke at dozens of diocesan and national conferences, and created a plethora of print, video, and web-based resources to assist leaders and parents in bringing home the faith.
This 20-year evolution demonstrated NFCYM’s all-in commitment to partner with parents in building up the domestic church, celebrating the family as sacred and holy, and recognizing it as a critical evangelizing presence within every community. In fact, the domestic church videos featured on YouTube and created with grant money 10 years ago now have nearly 150,000 views between the English and Spanish versions.
In 2022, NFCYM was awarded a generous grant to fund its efforts to support the domestic church. This allowed the Strong Catholic Families team to dream bigger and adapt their efforts for a post pandemic church. Through this reimagining, NFCYM launched SacredTable, in both English and Spanish, continuing the best of what Strong Catholic Families had to offer while unlocking the potential to multiply its impact. Building on NFCYM’s previous efforts, SacredTable is expanding its reach to include parents, ministry leaders, bishops, and family-serving ministry organizations as partners in this effort to raise children as missionary disciples.
All those dedicated to helping form the faith of young people to be missionary disciples in the world today understand what a critical and life altering mission it is. But getting from here to there has always been the challenge. Over the past 20 years one of the most profound truths we’ve learned is that there is something both sacred and empowering in starting where the person is, rather than where we would like or expect them to be. Through the Strong Catholic Families evolution, we’ve learned that the partnership with each family, the ability to take the time to listen to, understand, and respect each parent’s wish and prayer for their child, is the transformational element in taking that first step. Knowing that one is not alone on this lifelong journey of faith is both comforting and conversional, and that is Good News for us all.
