EARLY CATHOLIC FAMILY LIFE
Our Program
Welcome, and thank you for visiting the Early Catholic Family Life website.
Early Catholic Family Life (ECFL) is a program designed to bind young families to your parish and draw parents and their children into your faith community. It "fills the gap" between Baptism and First Communion. It teaches parents to introduce their Catholic faith to their pre-school children and to create a home with Christ at its center. It was created for both children and their parents, much like ECFE, the successful Minnesota Public Schools program it from which it was modeled. ECFL can be easily implemented in your parish.
Our Mission
The Mission of the Early Catholic Family Life program is to assist Catholic parents in teaching their young children our Catholic faith, and to assist Catholic parishes in evangelizing their young families and building community.
Our Impact
Since its creation in 2001, Early Catholic Family Life has been implemented in more than 100 Minnesota parishes and also in parishes in Wisconsin, Georgia, Kansas and Colorado.
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Families report their children's excitement to attend sessions, more frequent and meaningful conversations about their faith, and more spiritual energy to be good parents.
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Parishes also report excitement about engagement with families and the high quality of the faith-filled materials and training.
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Our Design
The Early Catholic Family Life program is designed to be simple and straightforward for parishes to implement.
ECFL is easily offered in parishes using existing spaces, such as a Parish Council meeting room for parents' discussion and a children's room, usually a parish's preschool or Sunday childcare program space.
Early Catholic Family Life program materials are designed to be self-contained and self-explanatory. They include
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a Parent Leader's Guide
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a Parent Workbook
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a Childhood Leader's Guide and
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a Training Manual
Any additional materials for ECFL are simple and easily gathered from within your parish.
Training for Early Catholic Family Life is regularly offered or easily scheduled by the program's creators, Joanne and Alan Foley and is found to be an essential element of successful implementation.
We invite you to join our mailing list to receive emails with news about our program and upcoming trainings.
As For Me and My House,
We Will Serve the Lord.
