Each Formator, and every Formation Team is being invited to reflect upon the programs of Initial Formation across the Institute. To assist this process we would like to offer the following text as a GUIDE. It begins with a brief description of the way we went about our visits to formation centres in the past four years.
This will be followed by an overall view of the STRENGTHS we saw in the area of Initial Formation during our visits. Then we will move on to the CHALLENGES we face, concentrating on 7 core topics. This is where we would like to focus most of our attention, examining these challenges and also searching for promising ways to address them. We will use several Marist texts to shed light on our efforts – and to make things easier, we have included these in an accompanying document.
We believe that our reflecting together will enable us to accomplish three goals:
- Recognizing and esteeming the positive results being achieved in the field of Initial Formation.
- Attaining a sharper and more coherent vision in regard to several important challenges.
- Shedding light on how to animate formation in the future, and to make those changes in programs of Initial Formation that this reflection process indicates as needed.
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Introduction