McGrath Institute Blog

Looking for new ideas or resources to engage your faith or your ministry? Here are our weekly curated links, including offerings in each of the following categories: Prayer for the Home, Educational Opportunities, Resources (for ministers, educators, parents, etc.), and Flourishing and Fun.

Looking for new ideas or resources to engage your faith or your ministry? Here are our weekly curated links, including offerings in each of the following categories: Prayer for the Home, Educational Opportunities, Resources (for ministers, educators, parents, etc.), and Flourishing and Fun.

Looking for new ideas or resources to engage your faith or your ministry? Here are our weekly curated links, including offerings in each of the following categories: Prayer for the Home, Educational Opportunities, Resources (for ministers, educators, parents, etc.), and Flourishing and Fun.

Ministry leaders are working hard this year to adapt programs to new formats, including online and hybrid models. It can be tempting to “copy and paste” old programs into new formats, to put old wine into new wineskins (see Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, and Luke 5:37–38). For example, we can email parents a lesson plan and tell them which pages to cover in the religious ed textbook, or we can gather the teens on Zoom to watch the youth minister give a talk and send them into breakout rooms for small group time. These solutions are fine, but they fail to respond creatively and take into account the reality we are all experiencing.

After having made the transition from in-person to online education this past spring, many parents have spent the summer grappling with the decision of whether to send their children back to school—either in-person or virtually—or to homeschool them. For those who have opted for the latter, the beginning of this school year may seem like a daunting prospect; however, this four-part series by McGrath Institute staff member and long-time homechooler Caroline Murphy offers ways to approach this form of education that can help enrich both the educational experience and life at home, while preserving the mental wherewithal of both parents and children.