Family nights build community, faith

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
As we prepare to celebrate Catechetical Sunday on Sept. 21, we celebrate the programs and catechesis in our parishes. This is one of a series of articles published leading up to Catechetical Sunday.
 
After COVID-19 kept religious education classes from meeting in person for several months, the parents in the Granville, Alton and Hospers parishes “were longing for face-to-face interaction in the community,” according to Diane Rainbolt, director of religious education (DRE) for the three parishes.
 
“I had not been a DRE before, but as I prayed about what our families needed, I saw my role as DRE not what to do but somebody who gets to walk with these families,” she said.
 
In addition to offering religious education classes, which are held in Granville, the DRE realized busy families might need a little help juggling their schedules.
 
“It’s not easy for parents to get off work at 5 p.m., get kids from after school, daycare or babysitting, get supper on the table and get to religious ed by 6 or 6:30 p.m.,” she said. “It says to me these parents are committed to getting their children here. I wanted to acknowledge that commitment.”
 
The concept of family nights grew from Rainbolt’s prayer to discern what the parents needed. To support the families, the parish provides a monthly family meal on the night of classes.
 “It’s not free babysitting; it’s not drop off your kids. It’s a family meal. We come and we eat as a family,” Rainbolt explained. “To be honest, I was told no one would come.”

 Families did come. Of the 28 religious education families with students in grades K through 5, 25 families consistently attend family nights.
 
Rainbolt said in the first years, the family nights were held in the fall as a big celebration with games, crafts and activities with Catholic themes such as Our Lady of Fatima, Divine Mercy or the Eucharist.
 
“Families were coming and having fun with their faith and making memories,” she said, noting that was the format for about three years. “Then we did family game show nights with Family Feud, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Wheel of Fortune and of course Bingo. We had a good time but I felt like the Lord was nudging me to something else, but I really didn’t know what that was.”
 
Parental influence
Again, the DRE turned to prayer for inspiration. She came across statistics showing the impact of religious education courses has zero effect on whether or not children practice their faith as adults.

 “The good news is the best indicator of kids going to continue living their faith is the parents. I have great parents who show up on Wednesdays because it is important to them. It may be for a variety of reasons but they’re coming,” Rainbolt said. “I felt like the Lord was saying to me, ‘You need to give parents the tools to talk to their kids about the faith.’”
 
Not that the parents don’t want to talk about faith with their children, but “they don’t know how.” Some students may attend Sunday Mass, attend religious education or Catholic school and no more.
 
“That’s not enough today. Our culture is not supportive of any Christian faith, whether it’s Catholic, Protestant or whatever. It used to be that it was,” she pointed out, adding that the church encounters more and more people who “just don’t know their faith.”
 
The family nights provided an avenue to provide parents with those tools to help talk about the faith with their children. Last year, Rainbolt tried something new.
 
“We started the first night and every family chose a patron saint for the year … every table had icons of different saints. They read the stories, then chose one to be theirs. They cut out the icon – there was a frame for it – and a blessed candle to take home. We talked about ways they could use the patron saint icon and light the candle,” the DRE explained.
 
In order to give parents the confidence to talk about the saint at home, Rainbolt sent questions the parents could ask their children, as well as the answers to generate discussions as a family.
 
Another night, Rainbolt had supplied different eucharistic miracles compiled by St. Carlo Acutis and left them on the dinner tables. Each table had a different set of miracles.
 
“The parents were to read these to the kids and there were some questions at the end to talk about and they had to choose their favorite. Then they had to find another family and tell why it was their favorite,” the DRE said. “So, it was a chance to evangelize – a chance to say we like the story and this is why.”
 Cultivating community
In addition to providing a meal and tools for parents to share their faith, the family nights help cultivate a greater sense of community with parents from the three communities. Rainbolt said the parishioners already come together for ministries and religious education, “so it just feels like we’re one family, anyway.”
 
Families take turns serving the meal and cleaning up on family nights and even moving the tables and chairs. Rainbolt recalled one night she was feeling pulled different directions at the end of the meal when the kitchen needed to be cleaned up and she was also needed elsewhere as classes began.
 
“One of the moms said, ‘No, we are a family, we take care of each other. We’ve got this,’” the DRE said. “That’s how she felt. We have each other’s back. I see that’s not me. That’s God working. That’s the Holy Spirit.”
 
The religious education families have shared that they are finding a stronger sense of community as they gather with other families. They shared with the DRE that they were cleaning together with another parent they didn’t know very well and became acquainted.
 
“It’s a small community and we all know each other, but that doesn’t mean we are migrating in the same circles,” Rainbolt said. “Some of the families that are more in the periphery are becoming more involved and this gives them a community – I have seen that.”

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