Family Faith Formation (Religious Education)

At St. Mary’s, we are committed to helping families connect with God and each other through a unique, family-based education program. Our goal is to help parents, like you, respond to the Church’s call to be “the first and foremost educators of their children.”

We do this by giving you the education and resources you need to feel confident about understanding the Catholic Faith so you can teach it to your children and live it out as a family.

Click for the Family Formation Tailgate Menu 2018-19!

(Click Here to download the Online Registration Cheat Sheet)

Having trouble registering? Try these 3 troubleshooting tips:

Have you been trying to create a new user account from your phone or tablet, only to receive an error message? For some reason, ParishSoft is not allowing new users to register from their mobile devices. Instead, try creating your account from a laptop or desktop computer.
Once you register and log in, are you missing the “My Education” tab? ParishSoft tells me this is a glitch within their own system that may take some time to fix. For now, try clearing your cache and cookies. Some users have had success doing this! Click this link to find out how. If that doesn’t work, proceed to step 3…
Still no luck? It’s not your fault! Click to download the Family Faith Formation Alternate Registration Form. Return completed form to me, either in my Parish Office mailbox, in person, or by e-mail (you can simply send me the information in an e-mail if that’s easier). I will enter your information into ParishSoft myself.

Google Calendar

Parents, Click the +Google Calendar button on the bottom of this calendar to subscribe to all Family Faith Formation events at St. Mary’s.

This will add the Family Faith Formation calendar events to your Google account and the events will be automatically updated if they are changed.

Here’s how Family Faith Formation works:

Once-A-Month Gatherings for the whole family. Enjoy a free family meal starting at 5:30pm followed by an engaging speaker for parents, hands-on classes for kids K-8 and childcare for the little ones! First Wednesday of the month during the school year from 6:15-7:30pm.
Home Lesson Activity Pack to take home after each monthly gathering. Every month open up a new packet of Bible stories, activities, crafts, games and conversation starters on a variety of faith-based topics! Lessons include adaptation suggestions for younger saints (K-3) and older saints (4-8). Lessons are flexible and can easily work into your family’s schedule as a weekly date adventure. Spanish speaking parents attend a special Spanish parent session, and receive home lessons in Spanish.
In between monthly gatherings, attend Mass each week at the parish of your choice. Each time you do, fill out a Mass card and bring them to our monthly gatherings to be entered into a Gift Card drawing!
There’s even a special track for second graders preparing for First Reconciliation and First Communion.
The entire family learns about the same topic, each month, at their own level.

That’s all there is to it! We know today’s families are already busy with a million things to do and places to be. We don’t want to add more to your plate. With Family Faith Formation, there’s no overwhelming requirements, no weekly religious education classes and no way you won’t love the chance to actually spend time as a family again.

Just the chance to finally stop. Take a breath. And connect together as a family–with God and each other!

2017-2018 Audio Recordings

Did you miss a monthly gathering? Want to listen to this year’s guest speakers? Click on any of the audio links below to hear the 2017-2018 recordings from each monthly guest speaker.

The Mass: Where Heaven and Earth Meet
Father Derek Sakowski
1o/04/2017