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"If the church could help me get beyond the one-word answer with my son, I would come to everything you did." One father's words changed how Robert Feduccia thinks about parents.
Youth ministers say it all the time: "I love working with kids, but the parents drive me crazy." Robert Feduccia, president of EQ Saints, went looking for a different answer. With grant funding, he and his team sat down with marginally engaged Catholic parents: families who drop their kids off for faith formation but aren't at Mass on Sunday. They met in parishes in San Diego County, outside Dallas, in rural Pearl, Mississippi, and in the Archdioceses of Chicago and Boston.
What those parents said overturned two common assumptions. They don't hate parish programs, and they are not disconnected from their kids. They want to meet other parents, laugh with their child and have a real conversation, and they want help getting past the one-word answer. Robert shares how he puts this into practice at his own parish, why the classroom has quietly become the "source and summit" of parish life, and why the Church needs to answer the "so what" of the Eucharist, not only the "what."
Robert Feduccia is the president of EQ Saints, which equips youth leaders through events, training and resources. His ministry began on NET Ministries retreats as a teenager. He later served as a parish youth minister, led youth liturgical leadership formation at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, and spent about nine years at Oregon Catholic Press as general manager of Spirit & Song. He serves on the scripting team and as on-site program director for the National Catholic Youth Conference, and he lives in Nashville.
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Recorded on Riverside (affiliate link).
The Church Podcast is produced by Marathon Youth Ministry and Stephen Herrera of Be Well Creative.
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