What does a parish picnic have to do with our kids embracing the faith for life? When upwards of 80% of Catholic children are leaving the faith by young adulthood, what can we learn from the increasingly-rare, big, messy, all-family gatherings at our parish?

In the fourth week of each month, we turn our focus to Level 4—Family Culture, how we celebrate our family’s God-given communion, and we can’t help but see a direct link between in-real-life parish gatherings, family culture, and resilient faith.

To illustrate … the other weekend, we coaxed and cajoled our teens and made it to our annual parish picnic, which featured an apple pie contest, bounce houses, face-painting, and even axe throwing. Sure, any of the dozens of families could have been doing a hundred other things on that beautiful fall Saturday, but they chose to come to the parish.

As our kids mingled in the crowd, we caught up with other parents, chatted with their kids, and even heard the news that a friend’s baby was born that morning. Our pastor, two parochial vicars, and two permanent deacons mingled in the crowd and you could see lots of people shaking hands and meeting others for the first time.

Later, as we talked about what a beautiful gathering it was, we thought of an author we both appreciate, David Brooks. He speaks of the importance of “weavers” in our community. He summarizes:

“We’re living with the excesses of 60 years of hyper-individualism. There’s a lot of emphasis in our culture on personal freedom, self-interest, self-expression, the idea that life is an individual journey toward personal fulfillment. You do you. But Weavers share an ethos that puts relationship over self. We are born into relationships, and the measure of our life is in the quality of our relationships. We precedes me” (“A Nation of Weavers,” NYT, 2/8/19).

Parish picnics, festivals, and other gatherings of families (yes…you know we want to include Heaven in Your Home Gatherings in this list, now present in 15 states), these are powerful moments when you as a family basically do the following: 

• You push back against hyper-individualism in your Family Culture and allow God to have more room via the Body of Christ. 

• You push back against our “comfort culture” and you model for your kids how to embrace a little discomfort, extending yourself in new settings as you reach out, introduce yourselves, and strike up a conversation.  
• You give your children the gift of seeing that faith is not a private matter that only their crazy parents care about … but instead, a living reality, the communion of saints, a “family of families,” the Body of Christ.   
• You give your children and others’ children the gift of friendships and relationships with other caring, faith-filled adults, to whom they can go with a question, their good news, or a challenge with which they’re struggling.

You probably don’t need more to convince you, but as JD Flynn, co-founder of The Pillar, recently wrote, quoting a study on faith transmission, “[T]here’s one predictive factor that strikes me as especially important to recognize and consider: That ‘when children grow up with many supportive Catholic adults in their lives, that increases their likelihood of remaining Catholic, even holding all the other factors fixed. Grandparents, friends’ parents, mentors, youth ministers and other non-parental adults can make a big difference.’”

More than ever, our families need to take the initiative to build a robust family culture that includes getting out into the community, “weaving” as a family with no agenda. The parish is a “family of families,” after all, and in addition to worship, families are meant to eat together, sing together, play together, hang out, and linger together.

As we drove away from the picnic, we talked about our friend’s baby born that morning, how nice it was to catch up with families we hadn’t seen in a while, how fast everyone is growing … and how good the food was. Nothing complicated. Not rocket science. Just enjoying some in-real-life moments with friends, and making more room for community in our far too busy days.