April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
PROFILE OF LEADER
Directing faith formation means contacting families
Directing faith formation means contacting families
Mrs. Rosmus, who was formerly a theater and English teacher at a boarding school in Virginia, moved to New York State in 2004 with her husband, Matthew, a scenic artist. The couple has two sons: Daniel, a computer engineer in Georgia; and John, a student at Beloit College in Wisconsin.
Mrs. Rosmus started coordinating faith formation at St. Patrick's as a volunteer. Four years ago, it became a staff position.
"It's a small parish," she explained. "You have to pitch in."
In her seven years at St. Patrick's, Mrs. Rosmus has pushed for making the parish as family-friendly as possible -- a need she'd observed when she moved to the area as a parent with young children.
After homeschooling her children and teaching at both the high school and college level, Mrs. Rosmus believes that her role as director of faith formation fits in well with her interests.
Recently, she made the parish's bathrooms gender-neutral, putting a baby-changing station in one of them. The two bathrooms were identical except for the gendered signs on their doors, she said; now, they're more inclusive to all. Mrs. Rosmus has increased the number of children's activities at parish functions and offered movie nights for kids during adult faith formation events.
She also encourages teens to be involved in different ministries in the parish.
"A big thing is just talking to people," the faith formation director remarked. She always tries to make herself visible at events and talk with parishioners. Since St. Patrick's is a small parish of about 200 families, she even has the luxury of scheduling programs around people's schedules to boost participation.
"Some of the young adults are so busy," Mrs. Rosmus said, so she's trying to implement online programs, too: "If they can pull up something while standing in the grocery line, that's ideal."
Working with families, she tries to make sure everyone is benefitting from faith formation.
"If we only have the children, we have them one hour a week for about 24 weeks," she said. "That's 24 hours a year. That influence is small compared to other influences in their life."
Stressing that parents are the biggest influences in a child's life, she said that being able to get to know and work with the parents in a parish is just as important as educating their children in the faith.
"Our job is to assist the families," she said. "It's really the family's responsibility to pass it on to their children."
Mrs. Rosmus helps to educate and comfort grandparents who may be upset that their grandchildren are not being raised in the faith. "We're trying to reach out to them as much as we can, trying not to alienate them," she said of such families. "There's a danger in saying, 'You should be here every week,' or guilting them."
Keeping parishioners involved means staying current with programs sponsored by the vicariate or the Albany Diocese. Mrs. Rosmus said that some of those events are a good boost to faith formation at the parish level.
"Part of my job is to spread the information," she said. To some, Cambridge may feel far from the seat of the Diocese, but "Albany is not the dark side of the moon."[[In-content Ad]]
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