Dear Pastors and Parish Leaders,

Growing Up Catholic will help you coach the young parents of your
parish to engage them in the formation of their own children as well as in
the life of the parish itself.

Growing Up Catholic is a carefully tested and well-crafted formation
process. It provides the immediate preparation for First Reconciliation,
Confirmation-in-restored-order, and First Communion. But it does far
more than merely prepare a child for these sacraments. It also prepares
children and their parents for a lifelong journey of faith as Catholics. And it
does so in a way that is enjoyable, easy to do, and powerfully effective. To
see more features, click here.

Growing Up Catholic is a resource which comes to you
electronically. You use handouts for the teaching, which are far more
effective than handing parents a book. It costs you far less than the  
conventional "sacrament prep" books with which you're accustomed (about
one quarter what you may now be paying, even taking into account your
printing costs). Click here to see why this loose leaf approach to learning
materials is so important to your success.

Growing Up Catholic has three key elements:
(1) A fully reproducible and beautiful learning guide for the
parents and kids. Parents and children love these materials! Why?
  • They like that it isn't "another book we have to read." Parents
    expressed a lot of frustration with being handed a book by parish
    leaders and told to "go home and do this." They found Growing Up
    Catholic's coaching much more possible.  
  • They liked the coloring and activity pages very much! (They're eight or
    nine years old, for Pete's sake!)
  • They liked the Bible-related activities very much - especially the Bible
    stories told in their own words.
  • They liked how, in each lesson, we gradually explain each of the Rites
    of Reconciliation and Eucharist in their own language.
  • But most of all, they liked how their parents helped them on
    each page.

(2) A web site loaded with parent/guardian information
and background. Growing up Catholic depends on the parents or
guardians of the child. No matter how well we do as a parish, the kids still
learn at home by watching and listening to their parents. Many parents
really aren't deeply enough connected to their own faith to guide a child. So
on this web site, we provide them with a road map:
  • What prayers should a child know by heart?
  • What is the meaning of the symbols, in plain English? What signs of
    faith, sacramentals, and other Catholic things do we need in our
    home?
  • What if one of the parents is not Catholic? How do we bridge
    multiple faiths and cultures?
  • Using plain English, what is the background from the Catechism of the
    Catholic Church on the various things a child should learn?
  • Click here to see the home page for First Reconciliation or
    Confirmation before First Eucharist (restored order) or First Eucharist
    for the parents.

(3) A fantastic package of tools for you as the parish leader!
When you buy Growing Up Catholic for your parish, you pay a fee based on
the number of children in your program. For that single small fee, you get
  • The children's text pages for 6 sessions. These sessions can be
  • Used in parent-with-child learning at the parish or in
    neighborhood clusters
  • Used in parent-with-child learning at home
  • Used in a combination of these two
  • Or even used in traditional classroom settings where the
    teacher or catechist substitutes for the parent most of the time
  • You get the "parent coaching pages" which are just fantastic. It
    actually helps parents learn how to best guide their child item-by-item
    through each session.
  • You get the "parish leader's guide" to help you organize the
    program.
  • And you also get a "catechist's guide" to help your catechist or
    teacher guide the parents to form their own children.
  • You get all of this in full color, gorgeously designed, artfully created
    materials - all for the very low price of $3.14 per student. You have to
    admit, this new approach is not only a sure way to form children for a
    lifetime of faith, but it's also inexpensive. Click here to ORDER.
But that's not all. We also provide FREE and unlimited telephone or
e-mail support and backup by our Team. We will even attend your
staff or committee meetings by conference call. To see more features, click
here.

Thank you for everything you do for your parish! You're the key link for
those parents.

With all good wishes and blessings,
Leisa Anslinger
Director of Growing Up Catholic
What does it take
to help a child
grow up Catholic?

Engaged parents
+
The Right Resource
+
Parish Help
=
Fabulous Results!
To order on line, click here.

To download and use a paper order form, click here.
You may also call us with your order: 8 AM to 5 PM central time,
weekdays:  877-944-5844
The Growing Up Catholic Philosophy

The faith formation of every child is found in the faith of the parents. We
must coach the parents to form their own children in order to have
formation that lasts a lifetime. By forming their own children, the parents
themselves are formed more deeply in their own faith.

We know that almost every active adult Catholic today is active because
his or her parents had faith. Their faith did not come from a textbook, no
matter how excellent it may have been. So we must shift our focus from
placing everything in the hands of trained catechists to a real partnership
between parish and household.

That partnership needs resources. Growing Up Catholic is that resource
and it is truly fantastic.

No matter how well we may do with teachers and catechists (with the
parents absent from the process) if the child goes home to a household that
is lacking in faith, that child will - in the end - be formed by that
household. Why not coach the household into greater faith?