Faith Interviews - $4.00
By Catholic Religion Teacher
Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith has been on the forefront of studying the rather startling statistics of why so many American teens are giving up their faith as they get older. Here’s a brief summary of his conclusions:
“No other conceivable causal influence… comes remotely close to matching the influence of parents on the religious faith and practices of youth.”
“Parents, for better or worse, are actually the most influential pastors... of their children.”
“One of the strongest factors associated with older teens keeping their faith as young adults was having parents who talked about religion and spirituality at home.”
With these findings in mind, I have tried to create extra opportunities for my students and their parents (and strong Catholic adults in general) to have meaningful conversations of faith. This assignment was designed to do precisely that.
Whether you use this as part of your Confirmation program or simply as a Religion class assignment, you will be emboldened knowing you did your best to provide opportunities for faith growth for not only your student, but their parents and possibly sponsor as well. (Who knows, this interview might spark a parent to come back to the Church or begin to take their faith more seriously…)
There are two sets of parent and Confirmation interviews provided in this download. Each interview provides questions from the following categories:
Just for Fun - Questions to help break the ice and get the conversation going (Example: If you had a time machine, where and when would you travel and why?)
Life - Questions about general life experiences (Example: Who were some of your heroes/role models that you looked up to while you were growing up? What about them did you admire?)
Faith - Questions specifically about the personal faith of parents/sponsors (Example: What have been some of the most profound spiritual moments in your life?
Your digital download includes:
- 2 editable parent interviews
- 2 editable sponsor interviews
- Editable list of instructions for students and explanation to parents/sponsors on the purpose of this assignment
- Editable interview introduction page that can be shared with parents/sponsors if so desired
- Powerpoint (PC) versions of my original Keynote (Mac) files
