Faith bingo offered as summer resource

By RENEE WEBB
Content and Design Coordinator

The Office of Faith Formation of the Diocese of Sioux City provides resources to catechetical leaders on a regular basis and their efforts have continued even during the summer.

Last month the director of the office, Karmen Bower, shared a Summer Faith Bingo card that parishes could provide to their students. While the bingo card is offered in a format that allows for adapting, it contains a variety of activities for youth that center on the faith such as reading a story about Jesus, learning about a new saint, sending a thank you card to a priest or going to a weekday Mass.

“I had the idea after my children participated in various summer activities at the library,” said Bower. “They always seemed to enjoy these activities and looked forward to going and picking out the prizes. I thought this might be neat to replicate through the parish while also providing faith-based prizes that could enrich the children’s faith experience at home.”

Prior to accepting the director of faith formation position at the diocese, Bower had worked at All Saints Parish in Le Mars. She offered the Summer Faith Bingo card there in the past to anyone who was interested. In the end, a mix of students from both the religious education program and Gehlen Catholic School who were between preschoolers to fifth grade participated.

The Office of Faith Formation sends out a monthly email to parish leaders and includes a resource each time. The bingo card was a resource presented in June’s email.
One catechetical leader that took advantage of the resource was Sandra Hildreth of Our Lady of the Plains Parish of Lake City. She commended Bower and her staff for the work they have done to gather DREs for their own faith formation and offer ways to pass that on to the students.

“One piece of their work has been creating a space of shared information; all those working in faith formation offices have access to resources that others have created,” said Hildreth, who noted this helps to lighten the loads of the catechetical leaders. “I love that I no longer feel like a silo in rural Iowa trying to create everything on my own.”

Because they do not have regular programming in the summer for their religious education students, she believes the Summer Faith Bingo cards was a nice option to offer the students.

“Our parish has three churches and a child can pick up a card at any of the locations,” said Hildreth. “We are offering the kids to choose from a collection of trinkets, coloring books or build your own rosary items for a regular bingo line and a certificate for ice cream in the town they live in when they complete the card (for a card blackout).”

Thus far, the cards have been distributed and students have started on as they try to achieve a bingo by participating in a variety of faith activities.

“The items on the bingo card offer quick learning moments and opportunities to recenter ourselves,” said the DRE at Our Lady of the Plains, who noted it was helpful the document could be adjusted without having to recreate the whole card. “It allowed me to add my info at the bottom and change a few of the items. It was a quick and easy way to add value to a family activity while not requiring a huge time commitment from anyone.”

Bower mentioned the resource was presented in the newsletter and parishes could adapt it however they wanted.

“I think parents desire to live out the faith in their homes and parish support through different activities and programs can greatly assist them with this,” said the diocesan director of faith formation. “I think it is always great when we can think outside of the box and look at parts of the year where we can try new things.”

If you have a question about the Summer Faith Bingo card, contact Bower at [email protected].