Strategy to Deepen Faith Focuses on Parents
July 2, 2025
Parents need to deepen their understanding of faith and cultivate their relationship with God just as their children do.
The St. Joseph Evangelization Center is rolling out plans to help parishes with this by making presentations and holding discussions with parents beginning in the fall.
“My hope is to help parishes in their work to evangelize parents, many of whom are inactive in faith practice and may not even be believers. We can work together in getting parents and families more engaged with the parish and coming to Mass on the weekends,” said Tom Quinlan, director of the SJEC, based in West Des Moines.
Parents are understandably busy with work, helping children with homework, and shuttling them to various after-school activities, Quinlan said.
“I try to invite them into a relationship with God in Jesus Christ, to take time to pray, to see the beauty of their calling as parents and not just the day-to-day tasks that they’re driven by,” he said.
“Out of that comes conversion and that’s game-changing. Once you know God and you experience God’s love in an intense and personal way, Mass isn’t a hoop to be jumped through. It’s this amazing, grace-filled experience that you hunger for,” Quinlan said.
Parenthood is a vocation, and God is there in the busyness, said Megan McCarthy, a mom of four and parishioner of St. Boniface Parish in Waukee.
“It is oftentimes easy with the business of life to ignore the blessings that God puts right in front of me,” she said. “Tom reminded me to find them in the sweet, chocolate-covered faces after a treat, in the skinned knees and tears that only mom’s comfort can ease, and in the moments that I get to slow down and play a board game or do a puzzle with my children.”
Quinlan hopes his sessions with parents can be a part of a broader parish strategy to deepen faith in households. The approach benefits both parents and children. Parents who are growing in their own faith life are more inclined to walk with their children in an intentional way as they discover and learn about the beauty and richness of Catholic faith.
Rather than dropping kids off at weekly Faith Formation sessions and leaving it to someone else to teach the faith, the SJEC’s sessions invite parents to journey with their children on a path of growing in relationship to God.
Eleven parishes in the Diocese are working with nationally known catechetical leader John Roberto to focus on family faith formation. Quinlan’s project ties in the family-centric approach.
He piloted this evangelizing parent experience at St. Boniface in Waukee and St. Mary of Nazareth this past spring. Both sessions were well-received. He plans to bring it to more parishes in the Des Moines metro area in the fall.
Father John Frost, pastor of St. Mary of Nazareth, said Quinlan connects with parents.
“He is gentle, authentic, and rich in knowledge as he makes his presentation, and his delivery style resonates with those needing to hear the message of God’s everlasting love,” he said.
Quinlan hopes these sessions and the strategic consultation he provides parishes through the St. Joseph Evangelization Center will help to renew both faith and practice of faith in many families in the Des Moines metro area, where he serves. And as a longtime advocate of parent and family faith formation, he affirms the direction many parishes in the Diocese of Des Moines are going.
“Less outsourcing of faith and more family engagement of Catholic faith together - this needs to be our aim,” Quinlan said. “Where parents are growing in faith and leading their children to faith, we see much better outcomes.”