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You said yes to coordinating the OCIA in your parish. You knew it was going to be a big commitment and require a lot of your time. But it turned out to be much bigger and more complex than you ever imagined. The more you learned about those asking to become Catholic, the more you realized that “the way we’ve always done it” just isn’t going to work anymore if you want to form lifelong disciples. Something has to change.Leisa Anslinger, a veteran of OCIA leadership and parish planning, knows how to help communities develop a vision, navigate change, and bring out the best in their leaders and parishioners. In A Vision for Conversion: Eight Steps to Radically Change Your RCIA Process, Leisa walks you through the eight most effective ways to move your parish OCIA process from maintenance-mode into a true conversion journey that inspires seekers to lifelong discipleship. Whether you’re an OCIA veteran or just getting started, this book will be your companion and guide as you plan for the change your parish needs to initiate seekers into Christ.

We all agree that the community needs to be involved in the OCIA. So we make bulletin and Mass announcements explaining the rites and the OCIA process, hoping the parishioners will “get” their responsibility to initiate these seekers. Then, although catechumens, candidates, sponsors, and team members form a tight-knit community, parishioners still wonder who these people are with their rituals that make the Mass long and most of the newly initiated still disappear from the parish after Easter. Taking to heart what the United States bishops said in their document on adult faith formation—“While the parish may have an adult faith formation program, it is no less true that the parish is an adult faith formation program”—Diana Macalintal argues that we have to stop trying to get the parish involved in the OCIA and start getting the catechumens and candidates involved in the parish. In this book, readers will discover:1. why doing the OCIA in the midst of the community not only forms seekers into disciples but renews the conversion of the entire parish; 2. what parishioners can do to take responsibility for the initiation of adults, without adding another meeting to their lives; 3. how to use the four key areas of parish life and the liturgical year to introduce seekers to Christ and train them in the Christian way of life; 4. the three levels of catechesis and how to use mystagogical reflection on parish life to provide a systematic and complete catechesis appropriate for each level. When you make your parish the OCIA curriculum, you will be shaping not just a group of people but an entire community into lifelong disciples.

If, as Pope Francis says, the church is a field hospital, then what does it mean to care for the wounded and heal the wounds? What would we do first? Indeed, God sends all of us—especially catechists and teachers—to heal the world. And the first thing we have to do is this: proclaim that Jesus Christ saves us. This first proclamation heals the wounds of unbelievers, seekers, and believers alike. Field Hospital Catechesis: The Core Content for RCIA Formation explores the nine core teachings of the church that make up this first proclamation. Readers will become catechists and evangelists equipped to bring healing to those around them by learning: how to shift from making name-only-Catholics to making Catholic-disciples; the first thing we have to say to seekers; a thoroughly Catholic understanding of evangelization; how what we teach and the way we teach heals the suffering of the world and the wounds of the seekers; Pope Francis’s solution to what he sees as an urgent crisis in the world; the true vocation of a catechist and how to live it out; why only nine core teachings of the church should be the consistent focus of our catechesis; how the nine core teachings of the church tell the great story of our salvation. This book will radically change the way you think about OCIA formation and the task of evangelization.

We all know that a one-size-fits-all approach to OCIA catechumenate formation doesn’t work. But until now, many of us were stumped trying to find a viable alternative. Seek the Living God: Five RCIA Inquiry Questions for Making Disciples is the answer to your prayers. After just a few meetings with your seekers, you will be able to easily create a customized faith formation plan that is tailored to the unique needs of each person. The best part is that the seekers do most of the work in developing their own plan. Your role shifts from being the Catholic “expert” to being a mentor and coach. Once you understand how the five-question process works, you can easily train others to use it. New team members don’t have to worry about “knowing enough” to be on the team. Start using these questions with your very next OCIA seeker. You will be amazed at the powerful conversion that will happen with your inquirers—and with you.

OCIA teams often struggle with getting catechumens and candidates to participate regularly in the church’s liturgy. Those who do often feel bored or confused, or they see it as a nice tradition or an inconvenient obligation rather than the heart of our Catholic faith. So we fill the gap with more catechesis that explains the liturgy to seekers, and we pray they will have a better personal experience on Sunday. Yet neither causes them to love the liturgy as we do. In Divine Blessing: Liturgical Formation in the RCIA, Timothy P. O’Malley shows us how we can break out of a classroom model about liturgy and instead invite seekers to be formed by the Risen Christ through the liturgy. This book will give you a process for preparing your catechumens and candidates to learn the liturgy’s symbolic language of self-giving love that will sustain them with divine blessing and train them to be Christ’s disciples in the world.

2021 Catholic Media Association Award first place award in faith formation2021 Catholic Media Association Award second place award in pastoral ministry - catecheticalThe catechumenate is animated by trust. Seekers have to trust in new, barely-rooted faith. Seekers also need to have trust in parish ministers, who will to guide them on the way. Parish ministers need to have trust in their Spirit-given gifts. Most importantly, all involved in the OCIA process needs to have trust in the church’s normative formation practice—scripture and tradition mediated through the gradual encounter with Christ in the celebration of the liturgical year.Eliot Kapitan makes it easier for each to trust. With gentle wisdom, he presents an ordered method for preparing the Period of the Catechumenate Sunday-by-Sunday, season-by-season, liturgical year-by-liturgical year. If you have ever lacked confidence in your ability to lead the seekers on the way of faith, this book will help you trust that you already have all the skills and resources you need.

What does conversion look like for children and youth? How do we teach them that conversion is a way of life that requires daily commitment? These questions are even more pressing today than they were in 1988 when the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (with adaptations for children) was issued.In Children and Youth in the Catechumenate, Anne Koester shows catechumenate ministers how to immerse young seekers into an apprenticeship in Christian life. By using the liturgy of the church and the liturgy of life, she demonstrates the four integral dimensions of Christian discipleship that form young believers for mission.