As part of the new materials provided by the diocese for sacramental preparation, we hope to provide some ideas for parishes about how they can support the children and their families.  Any ideas from around the diocese would be welcomed, and will be shared.

One example is entitled Faith Friends. In the past it has been undertaken in St Bride's parish, East Kilbride, St Ninian's, Hamilton, St Bride's, Bothwell, and St Bernadette's, Motherwell.

The description and materials provided here reflect current practice in St Bernadette's, Motherwell, and reflects significant changes from the original Faith Friends.

In St Bernadette's,  the programme is overseen by an organising team comprising the parish priest and some local parishioners who are primary school teachers.  The programme itself is delivered by older teenage parishioners (known as Faith Friends), and latterly these have been pupils at Our Lady's High seeking the Caritas Award.

The Faith Friends are recruited by the parish priest in conjunction with Our Lady's High, and they meet with the organising team who introduce them to the Faith Friend materials.  Each Faith Friend is allocated a group of confirmandi to work with throughout the 3 sessions, and writes a personal invitation to each of their group, which are delivered to St Bernadette's primary.

The Faith Friend teams, supervised by the organising team, meet in the parish hall over 3 Sundays (normally with a fortnight between sessions), from 10-11 a.m., and all participants are invited to the 11 a.m. Mass afterwards.  After the 3rd and last session, the teams present their work and are interviewed during the sermon at the 11 a.m. Mass, thus involving the whole congregation.

St Bernadette's primary is very supportive in the whole process, especially in facilitating the blogging activity between session 2 and 3.

The scripts and other materials are as follows:

Week One: God's Invitation script (click to open) 

Week Two: Our Unique Response script (click to open) 

Week Three: The Body of Christ (click to open) 

Invitation template (click to open) 

Invitations matching game (click to open) 

Confirmation invitation (click to open) 

Why we go to church cartoon for Week 2 (click to open)