Roberto (Faith Formation 2020: Designing the Future of Faith Formation: Envisioning Dynamic, Engaging and Inspiring Faith Formation for the 21st Century, 2012) eloquently listed some of the influences that affect faith formation as including:
That was 2012. Twelve years later those trends and many other trends have only increased.
For example, America now has more unchurched people than the entire populations of all but 11 of the world’s 194 nations (Barna, 2000)! Plus, worldwide on average, people spend about 143 minutes (that's 2 hours and 23 minutes) on social media every day. That's almost 2.5 hours per day spent scrolling through different platforms. That amounts to 16.67 hours a week, or all the waking hours of the average person every day of every week! Nothing we currently do can compete with that average investment of time and attention (Google AI).
One consequence of this and much more that I have included in my books is that traditional methods of formation with the focus on teaching content are ineffective. My evidence for that is the staggering attrition of Catholics and, in fact, all Christians. Pew Research guesstimates that the number of Catholics who have wandered away is somewhere between ten and thirty MILLION. Worldwide, those who have wandered away number in the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS!
My advocacy of competency-based mystagogy is my attempt to respond to these current social realities.
The Oxford Languages Online definition of competency is “the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.” It is also variously described as capability, ability, capacity, or proficiency.
Most broadly social competencies are defined (National Institutes for Health) as
the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that contribute to individual and organizational performance. Knowledge is information developed or learned through experience, study or investigation. Skill is the result of repeatedly applying knowledge or ability. Ability is an innate potential to perform mental and physical actions or tasks. Behavior is the observable reaction of an individual to a certain situation. The target proficiency level for each competency will vary based on an individual’s position and the organization’s needs.
An AI Overview of skills and competencies distinguishes a skill as a learned ability to perform a task, while a competency is a broader ability that includes skills, knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes:
Though competency-based approaches were developed in schools and businesses I have come to see that that learning theory and motivational approach can be applied to becoming a Catholic Christian. That is especially important for those living in the secular world I have described. That is, Catholic Christians need renewed formation approaches if they are to live in and thrive in our amazingly secular world.
While I am advocating for a new educational motivational approach, I am NOT aiming to change doctrinal sources such as the Catechism, the Apostles Creed, the Great Commandment, or Sacred Scripture. However, what is “new” is the emphasis on competently living the universal call to holiness. More will follow in what the Vatican II focus on our shared call to holiness. However, that universal call to holiness is at the core of my mystagogical workbook (Biersbach R. , 2024) and leader’s guide (Biersbach R. , 2024) for now you can look to the Vatican II dogmatic constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium, chapter 5) for more on the universal call to holiness. What is new about my work is the more explicit development of ascent to God steps, transitions, and periods in a stepwise form as research-based learning-theory approaches.
I will readily grant that my learning-theory and motivational approaches will be experienced as radically different for many Catholics. It will require both the reflections of the Church and its many saints PLUS a competency-based learning approach that has some unique characteristics.
The most essential differences between competency versus traditional approaches to formation and learning are the switches 1) from content to competence, 2) from teacher to student focus, and 3) more flexible learning boundaries such as times, places, roles, tasks, and resources (Guthrie, 2009):
Thus, a mystagogical focus on formation will involve a shift from seat-time to a more mastery focus in formation.
A mystagogical focus on formation will involve a transformational shift in the roles of formation instructor/leaders
A mystagogical focus on competency-based formation also makes it easier to redefine the parameters for any learning or group, namely, 1) times, 2) places, 3) roles, 4) tasks, and 5) resources. On those parameter/boundaries Guthrie pointed to several differences between competency-based and content-based training. Those differences include both positive and negative factors:
These are huge shifts and will require much more development than I can do alone. However, my meager efforts will hopefully be a beginning.
We can observe some of that development of competency as a starting point in Vieten & Scammell (Spiritual & Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice: Guidelines for Psychotherapists & Mental Health Professionals. , 2015) addressed to Catholic psychotherapists who need to work through client’s spirituality concerns.
One model of competency learning (Hess Hess, Colby, & Joseph, 2020) has four parts: 1) attitudes, 2) knowledge, 3) skills, and 4) assessment. By adding a few related questions, I can offer the following as one example of implementing those competency-categories:
To be clear, “there is no single model or universally used approach” to competency-based learning (UTA: University of Texas at Arlington, 2024). Rather, the benefits, or drawbacks, of competency-based learning (CBL) — also known as competency-based education, mastery-based education, performance-based education, standards-based education and proficiency-based education — are up for debate. But after several years of wrestling with the problems of “becoming Catholic” in the OCIA, and more specifically, in the fourth period of the RCIA/OCIA competency-based learning offers a hopeful approach to forming Catholic Christians who can persevere in their faith, develop deep friendships in this life through FSSGs (Faith-sharing small groups), learn to witness to and mentor others, and advance in their personal ascent to God.
Barna, G. (2000). Re-Churching the Unchurched. Ventura, CA: Issachar Resources.
Biersbach, R. (2024). Competency-Based Parish Mystagogy: Leader's Guide: Ascent Through the Purgative Period.
Biersbach, R. (2024). Mystaqgogy Tames the Wandering Demon: Participant's Workbook.
Guthrie, H. (2009). Competence and competency-based training: What the literature says. Retrieved from NCVER: Occasional Paper: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED507116.pdf
Hess Hess, K., Colby, R., & Joseph, D. (2020). Deeper Competency-Based Learning: Making Equitable Student-Centered Sustainable Shifts. Thousand Oakes, CA: Sage.
National Institutes for Health. (n.d.). What are competencies? Retrieved October 25, 2024, from https://hr.nih.gov/about/faq/working-nih/competencies/what-are-competencies
Roberto, J. (2012). Faith Formation 2020: Designing the Future of Faith Formation: Envisioning Dynamic, Engaging and Inspiring Faith Formation for the 21st Century. Retrieved October 22, 2024, from Lifelongfaith.com: https://www.lifelongfaith.com/uploads/5/1/6/4/5164069/__ff_2020_handout_-_charlotte.pdf
UTA: University of Texas at Arlington. (2024, September 30). The Pros and Cons of Competency-based Learning. UTA. Arlington, Texas. Retrieved October 24, 2024, from https://academicpartnerships.uta.edu/healthcare-nursing-online-programs/rn-to-bsn/pros-cons-competency-based-learning/
Vieten, C., & Scammell, S. (2015). Spiritual & Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice: Guidelines for Psychotherapists & Mental Health Professionals. . Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.