According to Stefanick, about 75 per cent of Catholics stop attending church by the time they reach age 21, with 85 per cent no longer attending church by the time they reach age 30.
Stefanick’s solution is to create a program that will engage teenagers and convey the messages that are sent in Confirmation in an extremely effective manner. It was from this point that Chosen: Your Journey Towards Confirmation began.
Chosen is a “highly engaging presentation of the faith. It draws teenagers into the the faith and Jesus Christ while teaching them about everything to do with confirmation from A to Z,” said Stefanick, who co-authored the program with Ron Bolster, director of the Office of Catechetics at Franciscan University.
The program was designed for Grade 8 to 10 students because these are the grades when most teenagers are confirmed. But Stefanick strongly feels that the program can be applicable for Grades 7 through 12.
The goal of the program is to prepare teenagers for the sacrament of Confirmation and to experience a personal encounter with Jesus. In addition, the program encourages teenagers to continue visiting church.
“We would like to convince the non-convinced that it’s something worth living for,” said Stefanick. The Chosen program follows the RCIA model for a catechetical approach. It is broken down into three sections. The first being The Way, or pre-catechumenate, where you remove the student’s obstacles and answer their questions about the faith and where you present the heart of the Gospel message.
Next is The Truth (Catechumenate), where the teens review the substance of the faith. The last section is The Life (Purification and Enlightenment), the final prep for the sacraments. Here they will analyse their spiritual life.
Chosen emphasizes small groups. It is an experience of discipleship where they are gathering with leaders who are going through the material to see how they are processing the information. These small groups emphasize mentorship between students and leaders.
The lessons are carefully designed to keep the students engaged and interested, and go back and forth between video segments, workbook readings and class activities. In total, there are 24 lessons that convey the faith for youth in a compact and engaging way. Each class begins with a review game of the previous lesson’s material. Each lesson is carefully divided into 10 steps which include a challenge of the week, Dive In (a short story that introduces the topic of the week), video segments and much more.
“We are showing the program to kids through a medium that they are used to — media — in the quality they are used to. We are hoping that Chosen will be able to assist the average parish volunteer in the convergence of the kids,” Stefanick said.
Program guides for parents, leaders and sponsors are incorporated. For more information see www.confirmationstudy.com.
(Swist, 16, is a student at Loretto Abbey Catholic Secondary School in Toronto.)