Welcome to Middle School Faith Formation!
Click here for the MS Schedule for 2023-2024 (revised Nov 2023)
Session times
Sessions for in-person MS Crew will take place on Wednesdays from 6:15 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. During each session small groups will rotate through the weekly lesson, small group conversations, and an activity to help them connect to the lesson. Our Faith Formation year runs from Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023 to Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
Curriculum & Materials
We use a combination of sources for our MS Crew curriculum - EDGE from Lifeteen, The Bible, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the YouCat, YDisciple, FORMED.org. We rely on all of these sources to build our talks, activities and small group questions.
MS Crew is designed for our 6th through 8th graders to find community while engaging in their Catholic faith. As part of MS Crew, we will be diving into scripture every week. Each middle schooler will be provided a copy of the Catholic Youth Bible to use for prayer and during our time together. If you are new to MS Crew or need a new copy, you can pick one up on the first night of MS Crew. If you already have a copy of the Catholic Youth Bible, feel free to bring it on Wednesday nights! It is also encouraged to bring a notebook and writing utensil for journaling and taking notes.
What does a session of MS Crew look like?
MS Crew takes on a small group approach rather than the traditional classroom model. Instead of having "Catechists/Teachers", we have one primary presenter for all three grades and each small group of teens has a leader that they participate in conversation with. We start our nights with weekly announcements and a brief overview on the week's topic. After weekly announcments, each small group will participate in three, 20-minute rotations that include the weekly lesson, small group conversation and an activity pertaining to the weekly topic.
Small Group Requests
You can request one friend to be with for small groups. Our small groups are going to be limited at 10 members per group to allow enough time for people to share during conversation time. We will try to honor requests as best we can, but do take into consideration date of registration, group size, and leader availability. If a group grows to be too big, it will be broken into two smaller groups.
Small Group Leaders
Parent involvement is absolutely crucial for MS Crew to run well. We are blessed to have a large program at Holy Name of Jesus, but that requires many people to help lead! Small Group Leaders are responsible for walking with a group of about 10 middle schoolers and help faciliate conversation as well as pray and lead activities for the group. All materials and aspects of MS Crew is prepared ahead of time for you by Elliut in a Small Group Leader Guide each week. You can check out a Small Group Leader Guide by clicking here.
Small Group Leaders have the option to lead a group on their own, tag team with another adult, or alternate every other week with another leader.
If we do not have enough small group leaders, we will have small groups have to wait to participate in MS Crew until a leader is found for them.
Registration & Pricing
Early bird fee (May - July 31, 2023): $125
Regular fee (Aug. 1 - Sept. 13): $150
Registration for MS Crew is now closed. If you would like to add your child to MS Crew, please contact Elliut Fonseca.
For questions, please contact Elliut Fonseca