Today almost everything can be done with the click of a button. We order food with an app. We stream movies instantly. We deposit checks from our phones. We can have almost anything delivered to our door tomorrow. Our world has become increasingly transactional. We want things easily, and we want them now. A colleague of mine used to say that we are living in the Burger King Era of religious education—people want it "their way."
As a Director of Religious Education (otherwise known as “DRE” or “Does Really Everything”) at my parish, I often feel pressure to treat religious education as merely transactional—to pass students on quickly or hand out the sacraments without question, giving parents and families faith formation “their way” to help them simply check a box and complete a transaction.
But the truth is, faith can't be transactional. You can’t download a relationship with God. You can’t stream holiness. And you can’t click a button and suddenly understand the mysteries of salvation history. Religious education isn’t something that can be rushed or immediate.
The Catholic Faith is so rich, so extraordinary, and so humbling. In having the privilege of supporting students through their faith formation, I get to talk about mysteries greater than anything science can explain and human intelligence can fully grasp, yet these mysteries resonate deeply with us. I long for students to understand the unfathomable truth that God offers himself for us at every Mass. That Jesus feeds us with his very own Body and Blood. That the story of salvation history is not random, but a carefully crafted masterpiece of God’s love for humanity. I want to shout it from the rooftops! But sometimes I struggle to convey my love for these deep mysteries to those who simply want to complete a transaction.
So for a DRE the question becomes: How do we share the great mysteries of the Faith in a world that moves too fast and just wants to check a box?
And that is exactly where Pillars of Faith comes in.
Pillars of Faith takes the incredible richness of the Catholic Faith and presents it in a way that students and parents can easily understand and fully absorb. It gives students a ladder to climb, carefully and thoughtfully. Rooted in Sacred Scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, each lesson becomes another rung, helping them rise step-by-step into the beauty and mystery of the Catholic Faith to fully encounter Jesus Christ.
Together, Scripture and the Catechism help students see the big picture of the Faith—that God has been working throughout all of history to draw us into a relationship with him.
When students begin to see that story, they begin to understand that the Catholic Faith is not just another transaction to complete. It is a lifelong journey of knowing God, loving him, and learning to live as His disciples. It also reminds me that being a DRE might actually be one of the coolest jobs in the world.
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