April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
KATERI INSTITUTE
Catholic artist and teacher 'waiting for inspiration'
As he worked, the parishioner of St. John the Baptist Church in Valatie had been praying for God to tell him what ministry he should pursue. Then the phone rang. It was someone from the diocesan Kateri Institute for Lay Ministry Formation, which he had researched a year prior.
"I had totally forgotten all about it," Mr. Stead told The Evangelist.
He has now finished his first year of the Kateri Institute, a diocesan program to train lay ministers, while he juggles his job as a fourth-grade teacher at Mary E. Dardess Elementary School in Chatham, fatherhood and a passion for art.
Mr. Stead has considered using his creative skills to teach children about the faith and to evangelize adults, as well.
"I feel this calling, and I'm always struggling with what I'm supposed to be doing," he said. "I just feel like I should be helping. [At the Kateri Institute], you can just feel this energy. They're passionate and knowledgeable, which I didn't expect them to be. I've learned that there are other people out there like me looking for the call.
What's next, God?
"I'm hoping I get an answer to my question - what I'm supposed to do next, what my mission is," he continued. "I think there's a need for Catholicism more than ever, and maybe I have [a role to play]."
Mr. Stead uses charts, doodles and cartoons to help his fourth-graders understand their schoolwork. The students think of things to draw to remember vocabulary words, and he invites them to add to his drawings of "Fraction Land" when they work on math.
"It's a good way to have kids enjoy art," the teacher said. "It sort of breaks down the walls, opens the doors for them to use art without worrying about it looking perfect. It's a way to make it be more accessible to them [and] help them synthesize the information.
"I usually start with aliens and stuff - kind of crazy creatures," he added.
Mr. Stead has been teaching for 16 years, including a year spent in England. He's certified in elementary and secondary art and had planned to use teaching as a fallback for his art career, but fell in love with the classroom.
He has since taught himself animation software to use with students and often takes the initiative to give them opportunities to use their creativity: for instance, he wrote grants to use LEGO robotics and to have a classroom garden.
He also leads workshops for adults on his creative teaching methods. "I get really excited when I show people this," he said.
Reawakened
Mr. Stead was born in Clifton Park and attended St. Mary's parish in Crescent as a child, but his faith became lackluster by college. He and his wife, Rachel, whom he married in 2004, were attending St. John the Evangelist parish in Schenectady when they discovered their first of three sons would be born.
Mr. Stead remembered experiencing an awakening while listening to a singer from Union College at a Sunday-evening Mass: "I was thinking about my son and what I really wanted for him. Something happened. God woke me up."
When his son was born, "it sort of transformed my responsibility for him and what he needed to know. It all became very real."
Mr. Stead started to consider questions his son might ask about the faith and realized he didn't know all the answers, so he dove into books on Church history and books by famous Christian authors. He wanted to know about the Eucharist, where the Bible came from and why Catholics believe what they do.
"Why I love being Catholic is, there's an answer to every question," he said. "A lot of times we're afraid, or we get mad and say, 'You just believe because you've got to believe.' A lot of Catholics are leaving because they don't know these answers."
Faith-based art
But education and exploration made a difference for him: "It's like you've discovered this treasure and you want everyone to know. I feel like I'm just a totally different person. I know where to go when things aren't going well: to the Church through Jesus. I had to go through the intellect first before it [went] to the heart."
Mr. Stead has been thinking more and more about evangelizing and catechizing through his art, but he's wary of his informal, cartoony style seeming disrespectful. The Evangelist recently published his cartoon, "Saint Lady with the Screaming Child at the 10:30 Mass;" now, he's considering doing a series of "everyday saints" who do "little things that people don't think of as saintly."
He's also pondering children's books about Bible stories: the Catechism in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the classic "Lord of the Rings" series.
Mr. Stead once self-published an illustrated fishing book for adults, too. He always has a few side projects cooking.
"It's taken me a long time to realize that I've just got to be me with my art," he said. "I haven't put my true self out there yet. I'm waiting for inspiration to hit."[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.