Wild Child In Religious Ed

[superblue]

So this 8th grader in my class i volunteer for, totally drops a bomb in class for what reason i can not remember, mentioning that a friend of hers had invited her to attend some kind of Jehovahs Witness thing, that she went and enjoyed it and had a good time and enjoyed the fellowship it offered.

I do not remember the entire convo, but i remember and did witness to what she said that her mother and her family rarely go to mass any more, and that when she does serve as an alter server , her mother simply drops her off and picks her up after mass ( that i have seen and was wondering why ),

 

so, basically, from what i can tell, the parents want their children to be baptised and confirmed into the Church, but they rarely attend mass together as a family, and are so scattered as to allow their child to attend another religion, ( if jehova is actually a religion i dunno ).... 

 

now for an adult to want to investigate and learn that is one thing, but i see it as a conflict of interest to try and raise a child teach a child about the faith to then be like sure go attend the jehovahs and have a good time.  

 

And as a religious education volunteer / teacher it sure does put me in a spot, but i did my best to point out that the difference simply first is the Sacraments that church offers, any how the girl got really hyperactive after that and i had to change gears and get back on track to the lesson at hand.

 

 

I do not think there is anything specifically i can do to change anything, and i know better than to just confront the parents and be like yadda yadda yadda,   perhaps the only thing i can do is continue to pray and perhaps encourge the girl to  talk to her family more about the faith and encourage them to go to mass as a family.

 

 

 

I could bring it up to our Pastor who i am comfortable with, but i don't really know if that is even warranted or if i were to do so would that just come off as being a busy body.....   i mean thinking aloud, talking to my pastor about it doesn't seem like a bad idea at least if i were to do that i would be passing the concern on to him, to which he can either advise me on how to talk to the girl in class, or the subject completely passes on him to handle being the pastor he is, seems to me he would want to be more involved. least if i were him i am thinking i would want to know......

 

 

anyhow that is all i got for this new round of drama as the button says ( click here to start new drama )

[Basilisa Marie]

Does your parish have someone in charge of the religious ed program? Bring it up to them.  It's pretty common for teenagers to go visit churches that their friends go too (usually we did it in high school, I think eight grade is still a bit young for it).  The big flag I see isn't that the parents let her go visit the Jehovah's Witnesses with her friend (though that's a little troubling as they aren't involved in their own church), it's that they aren't going to mass.  What age does your diocese confirm? 

If you can, I'd hook her up with some good books about the fundamentals of the faith (I like the "prove it" series), or something like that.  Does she really enjoy altar serving? Are there any opportunities for "fellowship" at your church? 

 

But yeah, I'd tell whomever's supposed to be heading up the RE or youth ministry program.