Read This if You Want to Hold the Attention of the Children in Your First Reconciliation and First Communion Prep Program Engaged and Get Their Parents Engaged with the Faith

Today we wanted to introduce you to our First Reconciliation and First Communion programs.

These programs are called Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation and Received: Your Journey to First Communion. We’ve designed these programs to work together seamlessly, but if you prefer to use one or the other individually, they’ll work just fine that way as well.

Each program offers 12 lessons of content. That content includes some wonderful short videos, usually less than five minutes each, to keep children engaged.

These videos tell the story of a little girl named Felicity as she prepares for her First Reconciliation and First Communion. The children in your program will learn alongside her about things like sin, mercy, forgiveness, Christ’s love for each of us, and his Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Teaching about these things can be a little tricky. We believe in “the visible and the invisible” after all, right? So how can you teach about the invisible in a way that makes it easy to understand?

The videos in these programs solve this challenge brilliantly. We had a team of animators help us to show the children what is truly happening in these sacraments. Just take a look at this clip from the program (get the tissues ready!).

You see, children this age are full of awe and wonder. The videos will engage their senses, but as we know these children can be pretty fidgety too. We made these programs with them in mind.

These children struggle to sit still for a long time. We know that asking students to sit while we lecture about the sacraments is ineffective. Children need to move!

On top of that, many prep programs are held in the evening after children have spent an entire day sitting still at school. At that point in the day, we’d just be fighting a losing battle trying to get them to sit still and listen, right? This is why we present a range of activities in Renewed and Received, including interactive activities to get children engaged and moving!

Another thing about children this age is that they’re very visual. Every lesson in Renewed and Received has original artwork to capture their imagination. These are the kinds of images that stick with you and you carry into adulthood, like Jesus, David and Goliath, and the Good Shepherd.

Those are some ways the programs engage children, but what about their parents?

We know how important it is to get the parents involved in their child’s catechesis. They are the primary catechists, after all. Don’t worry. We made sure to take care of your parents too.

For the parents in your program, we have online Parent’s Certification Courses for each program.

These online courses feature some excellent presenters, including Fr. Mike Schmitz, Fr. Josh Johnson, Mark Hart, Jackie and Bobby Angel, Emily Wilson Hussem and Daniel Hussem, and Sister Josephine Garrett. They’re only four sessions long, and parents can watch them on their schedule and from the comfort and privacy of their own homes.

(We’ve been using this online course approach with our Baptism preparation program Belonging: Baptism in the Family of God, and we’ve been getting rave reviews from the parents who go through it. They really seem to love this option!)

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Beautiful presentation
Renee on Jan 31, 2023
Father Mike gets two thumbs up! This course not only captured my husband and I’s full attention, but the real life stories that were shared were funny and so relatable! Also loved how convenient this was to accomplish on our own schedule in the comfort of our own home! Highly recommend it.

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Enlightening course
Agnes on Jan 29, 2023
I didn’t expect this course to be interesting to watch and listen to. But I ended up liking it. It’s interesting, educational, and enlightening at the same time. Easy to follow and to understand. For me, it’s a reminder of how important my Baptism was and still is.

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Great presentation
Shelby on Jan 28, 2023
I really enjoyed this whole presentation about Baptism. It was very easy to follow, and some of the stories were quite moving. It really allowed my husband and I to have a meaningful conversation about the importance of Baptism and what it would mean for our children!

In these Parent Certification Courses, we don’t try to re-catechize these parents and cram 20+ years of religious education into them in just six videos. That would never work.

Instead, we focus on helping them rediscover the reality at the heart of all of this: God’s infinite and personal love for them as a unique, unrepeatable person and his desire to be in a deep, loving relationship with them. When that reality takes hold, it lights the spark of faith within them and leads them deeper.

As they go deeper, we come alongside them and provide tips and strategies to help them to accompany their children through the sacramental preparation period and beyond.
But that isn’t all we have for the parents. We also have some great resources to help them live out their role as their child’s primary catechist.

The first one is a Reconciliation book called Renewed by Jesus: My Guide to Reconciliation. For many children, going to Confession can be intimidating, and we wanted to give parents something to help them calm those fears. This little book is something their child can bring with them right into the confessional. It helps children remember what to do and say at the different points in their confession.

The second resource is similar to the first. It’s a Mass book titled Receiving Jesus: My Guide to the Mass. Going to Mass when you don’t know what to do can make you feel embarrassed. It seems like everyone else knows when to stand, sit, and kneel and what to say the whole time. That can leave children who don’t know these things feeling like they stand out. This Mass book helps them understand what to do and why we do it, so they’ll feel more comfortable coming to Mass.

(And when they feel more comfortable coming to Mass, they’re more likely to come, right?)

But maybe you’re concerned about how hard it would be to have your team switch over to using a new program.

Do not worry.

We’ve made it easy. The Leader’s Guides for the Renewed and Received programs are thorough without being overwhelming. Even a first-time volunteer catechist can pick it up and take your children through the lesson simply and easily. They have everything they need right there in front of them.

In fact, we decided to include 12 lessons of content in each of these programs (the most you’ll find in any program out there) because we knew that many teams struggle with not having enough. And that forced them to create a lot of material themselves. It would take hours to cobble together different activities, lessons, videos, and more from the internet.

With 12 lessons of content, there is no more need to scamble.

Each lesson in Renewed and Received has all the contents of the Student Workbook, with the Leader material wrapped around that student content. You’ll get activities, prayers, objectives, stories, original sacred art, and so much more.

To ensure we’d gotten it right, we had a team of reviewers made up of parish Directors and Coordinators of Religious Education take a look at what we put together and offer us feedback. After all, who knows what will work for you better than the folks out there doing this work every day?

But we didn’t stop there. We asked folks who have served as catechists what the difficulties they ran into were. Then we partnered with some fantastic Catholic experts to create an Online Leader Certification course to help your team grow in confidence.

They’ll understand exactly how to step into their role as a catechist and have success. (“Feeling prepared enough” was one of the biggest areas of concern we heard from many catechists.) The course helps with classroom set-up, student and parent engagement, creating an inclusive environment, and maintaining an active prayer life. And since it’s online, they can access it anytime, anywhere, on their schedule.

They’ll be learning from some of the most experienced folks in the Church, like Fr. Mike Schmitz, Jackie and Bobby Angel, Sister Josephine Garrett, Mari Pablo, and Charleen Katra!

We wanted to take care of your team in every way we could. So we even took the artwork from the program and created prayer cards with some of your favorite saints and blesseds like St. Therese, St. Francis, St. Dominic Savio, and Blessed Carlo Acutis.

Here is just a fraction of what these new programs offer:

  • Capture the natural energy of children and redirect that power to help these children grow in their faith using tried-and-true activities in every lesson.
  • Looking to hold children’s attention? Need help explaining the “trickier” aspects of Reconciliation and Communion? Look no further! Our stunning live-action videos use the power of animation to help communicate the spiritual dimension.
  • Get. Parents. Involved. (Yes, the white whale of sacramental prep!) Experience what it’s like to have your parents THANK YOU for asking them to do more! Discover the simple way you can ensure your parents finish the online course. Watch as they have their faith re-invigorated, and they realize the beautiful gift of our Catholic Faith.
  • BUILDING THE DOMESTIC CHURCH - Help families bring what their children are learning in prep class back home with them. Our Reconciliation Crate and Communion Crates offer fun card games, stickers, window clings, pins, activities, prayers, and more so your families can take the faith that they are learning and live it out!
  • Want to lighten your workload? Would you love to be able to take some of the burdens off your shoulders? Easy-to-use leader’s resources make implementation a breeze even for first-time catechists. Our online Leader Training course gives you a convenient and hands-off way to build your team’s confidence and know-how, improving the quality of your program and saving everyone stress.

If this sounds like something you’d like to take a look at, we have great news.

You can review the entire program completely risk-free.

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A Trusted Source

For more than 20 years, Catholics around the globe have trusted Ascension to provide high-quality and top-tier Catholic faith formation materials.

We’ve produced popular and award-winning programs and materials such as

  • Chosen: Your Journey to Confirmation
  • Belonging: Baptism in the Family of God
  • The Bible Timeline: The Story of Salvation
  • What We Believe: The Beauty of the Catholic Faith
  • The Catechism in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz podcast
  • The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz podcast

Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation and Received: Your Journey to First Communion are the latest programs from Ascension. They have both been granted inclusion on the USCCB conformity list and a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.

We’ve seen so much success with Chosen: Your Journey to Confirmation, we just knew that we had to create complementary programs for First Reconciliation and First Communion! Bring Renewed and Received to your parish. Preorder your Starter Pack now.

You can learn more about these programs and order them right now at the link below.

What Is Included?

What you will receive in the Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation and Received: Your Journey to First Communion Complete Starter Pack:

  • The Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation DVD set – $145.95 (if purchased separately)
  • The Received: Your Journey to First Communion DVD set – $145.95 (if purchased separately)
  • The Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation Student Workbook – $17.95
  • The Received: Your Journey to First Communion Student Workbook – $17.95
  • Renewed by Jesus: My Guide to Reconciliation - $14.95
  • Receiving Jesus: My Guide to the Mass - $14.95
  • The Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation Leader’s Guide – $29.95
  • The Received: Your Journey to First Communion Leader’s Guide – $29.95
  • Online Leader’s Access for Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation for one year – $27.95
  • Online Leader’s Access for Received: Your Journey to First Communion for one year – $27.95
  • The complete set of the Renewed and Received Saint Prayer Cards (1 set of 24 cards) - $5.95
  • Renewed Online Parent's Certification Course access - $9.95
  • Received Online Parent's Certification Course access - $9.95
  • The Renewed and Received Online Leader Certification course access - $14.95
  • Lesson planning resources that include lesson overviews, lesson format (step-by-step guide), and lesson plan outlines.
  • Sample Chapter of the Renewed: Your Journey to First Reconciliation 2ND EDITION Student Workbook (Available for Preorder in June 2024)
  • Sample Chapter of the Received: Your Journey to First Communion 2ND EDITION Workbook (Available for Preorder in June 2024)

Total value $514.30 / Your price $279.95

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