When Silver Burdett Ginn Religion invited me to write a series of articles about its new core mission statement, I enthusiastically accepted. The company’s mission statement captures well both the content and spirit of a remarkable vision of catechesis taking hold in today’s Church.

The SBG Religion core mission is deceptively simple: "Fostering Discipleship in the Catholic Community." The theological and pastoral realities reflected in that statement, however, are anything but simple. Indeed, the mission statement is radical in the deepest sense of that word––it speaks to our very roots as a community of faith and, more particularly, to our identity as catechetical ministers.

All those involved in catechesis—DREs and volunteer catechists, Catholic school teachers and administrators, coordinators of youth ministry and youth group leaders, liturgical ministers, and, in a special way, parents concerned about the faith formation of their children—are called to embrace the challenges and opportunities of the new vision. But just what is that vision? What’s so new about it? (A clue—it’s so old it just looks new!) And why should we care?

A little background. I’m a 57-year-old lifelong Catholic, one whose own formation was profoundly affected by the exhilarating and sometimes tumultuous changes of the Second Vatican Council. Many adult Catholics, including many catechetical leaders and other ministers, have no personal experience or memory of that council’s immediate impact. Nevertheless, we all live in a very different Church than the one I grew up in. The council radically (there’s that word again!) altered our understanding of the essential nature of catechesis. Richard Reichert names the shift well:

Prior to the council the goal of catechesis was to help children become loyal, obedient, and conscientious members of the institutional church by providing them with a solid education in the truths of the faith. The council, on the other hand, initiated a shift toward understanding the goal of catechesis as one of forming disciples of Jesus who would be both willing and capable of participating in a community committed to proclaiming and promoting the reign of God in today’s society (Renewing Catechetical Ministry: A Future Agenda. Paulist Press, 2002, p. 3).

The catechetical shift that Reichert describes is affirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church when it states that "early on, the name catechesis was given to the totality of the Church’s efforts to make disciples . . . " (CCC, no. 4, emphasis added). That effort to "make disciples" has now been thoroughly explored in the Church’s General Directory for Catechesis (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), the authoritative guide regarding all dimensions of catechesis. The GDC quotes the Holy Father: "The definitive aim of catechesis is to put people not only in touch, but also in communion and intimacy, with Jesus Christ" (no. 80). And what does that mean? Listen.

The Christian faith is, above all, conversion to Jesus Christ, full and sincere adherence to his person and the decision to walk in his footsteps. Faith is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, making of oneself a disciple of him. This demands a permanent commitment to think like him, to judge like him and to live as he lived. In this way the believer unites himself to the community of disciples and appropriates the faith of the Church (no. 53).

Sounds like we’re about something more than "teaching religion," doesn’t it! We must be clear. We’re not talking about the emergence of some new catechetical fad or a marketing gimmick for a new program that promises to answer all our catechetical needs. We’re talking about a profound shift in the very nature and practice of catechesis, one that, literally, challenges and changes everything we are and do as catechetical ministers. We’re confronting transformative questions such as these:

• What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus, and how does one become one?



• How would a genuine shift in our focus from institutional membership to discipleship within community affect our catechetical goals, methods, and program structures?



• What role does the community play in nurturing conversion and fostering discipleship?

SBG Religion wants to explore questions such as these with practitioners like you. This series of articles is an invitation to join in that conversation. With the announcement of its new core mission, SBG Religion renews its long-standing commitment to the Church’s catechetical ministry, and thanks you for being part of the grand adventure that is contemporary catechesis!