Youths dressed up as their favorite saints for Mary Parish – Oskaloosa’s All Saints Day celebrations in 2024. They are pictured here in the church with Father Joseph Phung, the parish’s pastor. The Diocese of Davenport continued its yearlong focus on Youth and Family Engagement with a webinar last month.
By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
Parishes working toward engaging youths and families on a deeper level can count on small steps to bring big ideas to life. “Even if you’re starting little, dream big,” presenter Denise Utter said during a recent Youth and Family Engagement webinar. “Then, you can take the steps to get there.”
The Davenport Diocese is on a three-year journey to explore priorities identified in the Diocesan Synod listening sessions in 2022. The focus of year two, which began last summer, is youth and family engagement. Utter, a Chicago-based speaker, coach and writer, spoke at the year two kick-off summit and is leading four follow-up sessions via Zoom.
During the first Zoom session, held in August, Utter encouraged parish teams to create opportunities for parents and others to share their needs, concerns and experiences. A presentation in November focused on interpreting information and building the framework for future brainstorming. Utter shared brainstorming techniques and resources last month during the penultimate presentation, “Idea Factory: Unleashing Creative Possibilities.”
At the start of the webinar, Utter asked parishes where they are at in gathering and processing information. Julio Mercurio said his parish, St. Mary-Oskaloosa, recently conducted a survey that has provided valuable insights about what parishioners think and what they look forward to in terms of programming and getting involved in parish life. One survey participant wants to participate in programs but has several children and no childcare; the parish is now considering a childcare ministry. Utter affirmed the Oskaloosa parish’s discernment and reiterated the importance of considering “what you do respond to and what you don’t respond to.”
Once a parish has identified focus areas, they can begin the brainstorming process, Utter said. She offered the following brainstorming techniques for developing ideas and solutions:
- SWOT analysis: Assess Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats in identifying six priority areas.
- Mind Mapping: Create a diagram to develop and organize ideas and information. This method promotes creative thinking and helps illustrate the relationships between different ideas, Utter said.
- Brainwriting: Participants write down their ideas individually and pass them to others to build on. The technique helps ensure everyone is heard, not just dominant personalities.
- Round Robin: This technique follows the same rules as brainwriting but participants verbally express and build upon ideas.
- Rapid ideation: Generate a large volume of ideas quickly without judgment or editing. “Invite everyone to write down as many ideas as they can in a certain amount of time,” Utter said.
- Storyboarding: Visually narrate a problem to gain deeper insights and develop potential solutions. “Flesh it out in story form” by asking what, where, when, who and why questions.
Utter suggests starting with a SWOT analysis before moving on to other brainstorming techniques. “This gives you a chance to see who you are and create a vision.” During idea-generating activities, avoid editing, judging or erecting barriers. “Instead, ask, ‘What if?’”
Utter works with parishes throughout the country. In her experience, the most successful approaches involve flexibility, spaces for connection, a culture of storytelling and a focus on people over programming. “One church made a podcast club for moms, as opposed to a book club,” offering mothers a hands-free approach to enriching their minds and building community.
Diocesan Marriage and Family Life Coordinator Marianne Agnoli encouraged webinar participants to move past the fear of failure. “Don’t be afraid to try something,” she said. “The worst that can happen is you learn what not to do next time.”
Diocesan parish teams looking for ideas and resources can subscribe to the Office of Faith Formation’s Y+FE e-newsletters or look online, Utter said. She suggested browsing www.lifelongfaithtraining.com, familieslivingfaith.com, futureoffaith.org and vibrantfaith.org. One webinar participant asked where to find resources in Spanish. “We are all much more cognizant than we have been in the past” about providing multilingual resources, Utter said, noting that www.ncclcatholicfamilies.org and www.catholicfamilyfaith.org have English and Spanish content.
The final follow-up session, “From Concept to Reality: Impacting Engagement,” will take place May 8 from 7:30-9 p.m. on Zoom.
Recordings of previous summit events and additional resources are available at www.davenportdiocese.org/synodal-summit-yfe. For more information about the upcoming session, contact Marianne Agnoli at 563-888-4242 or agnolim@davenportdiocese.org.
