Last fall I attended a faith formation conference with Allen Hunt from Dynamic Catholic. He gave us the book The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic and talked about the four signs, including developing a daily habit of prayer. I know what a difference my daily habit of prayer has made in my life, and so as a pastoral minister involved in faith formation, I was very excited to read the book and see how we could engage our cluster parishes by using these four signs.
We used The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic as the basis for our next leadership day retreat. It inspired the development of our “Four-Year Strategic Plan” to get more engaged as a cluster in each of the four signs: prayer, study, generosity, and evangelization. We began at Christmas with our priest giving the book as his gift to our entire cluster. We then presented our plan to the cluster at each of our weekend Masses.
For 2015 we developed four initiatives on the first sign, prayer:
1. Inform, promote, and educate our cluster on being a more prayerful people.
2. Conduct our “Pray a Million Minutes” campaign. (Have a weekly tally card for people to record the time they spend in meaningful prayer, which will be collected, counted, and recorded on our “Goal Crosses” made by the Confirmation class.)
3. Hand out “The Prayer Process” cards (Spanish and English) at Mass. (Religious education teachers learned about “The Prayer Process” and were given posters to use in their classes each week.)
4. Educate people about and provide more opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration. (We plan to offer Adoration during religious education classes for parents and others while the children are attending classes. We will provide other opportunities for Adoration throughout the year.)
This is just the beginning. As we get more involved in prayer as a cluster we will be providing even more learning opportunities. In each subsequent year, we will focus on the other three signs: study, generosity, and evangelization.
A lot of amazing things have already come from reading this book, and we hope to make a big difference not only in our cluster, but also our community and ultimately the world.
I am so excited about the things this book inspired our cluster to do, and I just had to share it with you. Every Catholic needs to read this book!
Want to share your story? Write us at yourstory@dynamiccatholic.com