2024 ANNUAL REPORT

Over the last five years, Faith and Family Life Catholic Ministries has accompanied numerous families and has walked with parishes and dioceses, transforming how they assist families in handing on the faith. These last five years have been filled with many stories of families re-engaging with their parish communities, spouses and children that have newly entered the church, and church communities that have become beacons for family life. Church halls that rarely saw young parents enter their doors are now filled with parents sharing faith and life together. As families open the Pathways boxes in their homes, real life happens, and in the midst of all that messiness, God shows up. Families are finding out how faith and life fit together. 

As we continue to surrender this ministry to the Lord, he continues to surround us with inspiration and the support needed to accomplish our mission. We are so grateful for our generous benefactors who have believed in our mission and sacrificed to provide the means to help grow our reach. In 2024, our Pathways ministry reached over 17,000 families in over 130 parishes and schools across the country and internationally. We continue to grow 30% year-over-year. We were able to bring on our new Executive Director, who will help us continue our growth and expand our mission field.    

We used this past year to optimize our platform to best serve the dioceses, parishes, and families looking to engage with our resources. With a small team and a large suite of resources, we have developed structures to help onboard and form leaders in our method and help them feel confident when rolling out Pathways in their communities. Our new Leader Learning Center will allow us to systematize our support, provide a way to preview the materials, and establish a discussion forum for best practices. 

Our team continues to expand our Pathways offerings. We created Made, an ongoing formation experience that encourages the entire family to embrace their identity as male and female, made in the image of God. They are given the framework of a positive anthropology, providing anchor points for building a deeper and richer understanding of the human person. We have continued developing our line of resources for adults. Seek for Adults and Root for Adults are now available to assist in accompanying the adults of your parish to encounter the Gospel, discover their role in salvation history, and learn about the essential teachings of our faith through discussions, activities, reflections, witness sharing, and teachings. These resources can be used to form adults to become disciples, can be utilized in the marriage catechumenate, and implemented to call forth leaders to become a part of the accompaniment team for other ministries. We have also released Root for Adolescence and Root for Pre-Adolescence to guide our middle and high school members to better understand the Trinity and the essential teachings of our faith contained in the Creed. Youth are invited to deepen their understanding of what we believe and be empowered to share faith with their families. 

Along with adding to our Beside accompaniment team building resources, we kicked off our first cohort of Mysterion for six Diocesan teams. Each of these teams has been led through a personal experience of the catechumenal process. They have experienced how to implement this process using Pathways materials and learned how to share this method with others in their diocese. We have found that transitioning faith formation structures and approaches can be difficult without first-hand experience. Mysterion provides these teams with a mix of in-person and virtual experiences that accompany them through the catechumenal process that can then be modeled for the rest of the diocese. 

As we look forward, we see great potential and increased engagement. We have begun the Catechetical Approval Process with the USCCB’s Committee on the Catechism to be officially added to the conformity list. We have connected and scheduled workshops in a number of new dioceses where we see great promise for new Pathways pilot programs. Many of the parishes we work with struggle to find volunteers and thus build the teams needed to successfully implement our lifelong process. We have developed accompaniment team resources that help build and sustain teams. We will be continuing to roll out these tools through on-going webinars and our Pathways Workshops taking place this summer in Chicago. The workshops are meant to help parish teams to better understand the catechumenal process and learn how to build a team that will sustain their ministry. 

We look to continue our support of our current and future parishes by bringing on a Formation Director to our team. This new position will extend our intentional support as we accompany families. We are also looking to develop and release four new resources this year. Sent will be an on-going formation resource that walks the entire family through what it means to be a disciple and answer our vocation. Build will be our first pre-evangelization resource meant for families with 0-5 year olds which will focus on building human skills and fostering intentional community among these new families. Devotion will be our first twelve part at-church resource to serve as a supplement to our ongoing resources and offers a monthly devotional experience for the parish. Wellspring a marriage enrichment card deck for couples to foster intentional faith and marriage skills conversations.      

Faith and Family Life Catholic Ministries is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization and a public association of the faithful in the Diocese of Orange. Our mission remains to rebuild the Church one family at a time. We would like to invite you to consider making a gift to help us reach our goals for 2025. Please take a moment to visit our website to see all of our current resources. You can reach out to us anytime. We would love the opportunity to further share our vision, approach, and details of our plans with you. We look forward to the opportunity to partner with you at this pivotal moment in the life of the Church. Thank you for your continued support and for the good work you do in the Church. Be assured of our prayers for you and your family.