Ordering Process

Diocesan cohort participants need to order their faith formation resources. Here are some important things to know first:

• If you have been accepted as a pilot parish, our grant will cover the cost of family booklets and leader/facilitator guides for the core curriculums. The grant may pay for additional family sessions and send-home resources as funds are available.
• If you are not a pilot parish, you can purchase resources with your own parish budget.
• We recommend that you place your order at least two weeks before the resources are needed.

Please follow the steps below.

1. Plan Your Two-Year Schedule

Core Sessions

The grant process covers a two-year extended sacramental preparation process. At a minimum, you must provide your families all the core sessions in the following:

• Growing Up Catholic Faith Stories: Jesus Lives (15 sessions, usually 6 parish/9 home)
• Growing Up Catholic First Reconciliation (6 parish sessions)
• Growing Up Catholic First Eucharist (6 parish sessions)

Supplemental Sessions

Some parishes may want to provide additional gatherings or send-home experiences (and some dioceses may encourage or require this). The grant will generally cover the cost of extra sessions, but please confirm with us.

• Faith Stories retreats. The Faith Stories curriculum includes four family "retreat" sessions, which you are welcome to use:
  • The "Sharing Stories Retreat" is a good introductory/kickoff event.
  • The "Advent Retreat" is a good seasonal event to prepare for Christmas.
  • The "Jesus Retreat" can be used at any time of year, but works well in Lent.
  • The "Signs, Symbols, and Sacraments Retreat" also is a good fit for Lent.
• More Faith Stories themes. If you are looking for a large number of additional sessions, consider the God Calls and Spirit with Us themes, which provide and additional 15 sessions each. They are just like the Jesus Lives sessions.
• Seasonal and other family sessions. We recommend hosting Advent and Lent sessions each year to help your families enter these seasons. We have options for these and other topics to add to your schedule.
• Parent sessions are gatherings of parents separate from their children. We have various options.

Learn more: For English & Spanish Ministries For English-Only Ministries

Sample Schedules

Here are some examples of how you might schedule your sessions throughout the two year preparation process.

2. Consider Send-Home Supplements

We encourage you to also order some simple, reproducible tools to reinforce your family sessions. For example:

• Growing Up Catholic Mass Transit Cards help your families reflect on each week’s Mass readings and see how they relate to their own family life as they drive to or from your church.
• Bringing Home the Gospel for Parents provide weekly reflections on the Sunday readings specifically for parents.

3. Place Your Order

Use our main store website at https://pastoral.center.

• We strongly recommend submitting your order at least two weeks before you need your items. You can place multiple orders, but we ask for your help in placing as few orders as is reasonable so we’re not wasteful with shipping and handling costs. It's fine to order your leader guides early, and to place later orders for late-registering families.
• Begin by adding items to your cart. Click the Search link at the top of the page to look up items by name or product code. Or follow links for the main product lines:
  • Growing Up Catholic Faith Stories: Jesus Lives
  • Growing Up Catholic Eucharist
  • Growing Up Catholic Reconciliation
  • All Parent-Child Sessions
  • Parent Sessions
  • Send-Home Resources
• Take care to add the correct editions: print booklet (not eResource), child's age level, and language edition.
• You are welcome to add our new spiral-bound leader guides for your key leaders/facilitators.
• When checking out, please:
  • Add the following text to the Order Comments: "Purchasing through Growing Up Catholic Lilly Grant Initiative."
  • Choose "Invoice (Check)" as the payment method. We will apply payment for your order.
• If you have any questions or problems, please email us at support@pastoral.center or phone (844) 727-8672.