"Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone
who asks you for
a reason for your hope."
1 Peter 3:15
At our Baptism, we are called a “child of God,” for indeed we are. As a child of God and a member of the Catholic community of faith, we have the responsibility to constantly grow in our faith in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We accomplish this through a lifetime of intellectual and spiritual formation, information, conformation, reformation, and transformation.
Formation: We observe and learn from people of faith, including our parents, family, friends, and others who demonstrate their faith by loving God and loving their neighbor as themselves.
Information: Each of us is called to learn the revealed Word of God in sacred Scripture (the Bible) and the teachings of the Catholic Church so that we may constantly grow in the knowledge and understanding of God’s love for us and of all the talents, abilities, and gifts He has given to us to use and enjoy for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.
Conformation: Questions and doubts about our faith will occur. If we do not occasionally question our faith, we may not have a faith worth questioning. As a person of faith, each of us has the responsibility to seek the assistance of men and women of faith, including priests, deacons, family, friends, and others who express their faith through word and example, in order to conform ourselves to the will of God and to become all that He has created us to be.
Reformation: As we increase our knowledge, understanding, and love of God, we are continually reformed from a child of God to a mature disciple eager to discern the movement of the Spirit in our lives.
Transformation: Formed, informed, conformed, and reformed in our faith in our Triune God, we are transformed into true imitators of Jesus.
We cannot grow in our faith if we remain abstract and uninvolved. We must engage with the communitym of believers in our parish, a community which itself is a sign of transformation, a sign of newness of life, the Church, the visible sacrament of salvation.
Faith Formation helps us make a conscious and firm decision to live the gift of faith through membership in the Christian community with fellow parishoners of St. Christopher. As mature Catholics, we are called to contribute to the life and mission of the Church through generous stewardship of our gifts, and we share in and accept the responsibility for the Church’s mission in the world to spread the message of Christ and to transform the social and temporal order. This call to evangelization and justice is integral to the identity of the lay faithful.
Faith Formation seeks to help each believer become more willing and able to be a disciple of Jesus in the world. As salt of the earth and light for the world (Matt. 5:13-16), God’s disciples give witness to His love so that, through and with the power of the Spirit, they may renew the face of the earth.
St. Christopher Parish’s Faith Formation ministry engages the interests of all parishioners by presenting the core elements of Catholic faith and practice – a complete initiation into a Catholic way of life – in ways that relate to their life experiences, helping them to form a Christian conscience and to live their lives in the world as faithful disciples of Jesus.
The goal is to integrate actual life experience, diverse learning needs, the study of Scripture, and the teaching of the Church's tradition through: