What is the Domestic Church Institute?
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Our Vision
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The vision is that each family becomes a domestic church.
As the first community of Faith for members of the family and with God's grace, the parents become its spiritual leaders and teachers. Each baptized child is provided an opportunity to know and accept his/her identity as a child of God, and begin to experience the joy of the Gospel, to understand and live its meaning, and to embrace its challenges by way of the family.
As the first community of Faith for members of the family and with God's grace, the parents become its spiritual leaders and teachers. Each baptized child is provided an opportunity to know and accept his/her identity as a child of God, and begin to experience the joy of the Gospel, to understand and live its meaning, and to embrace its challenges by way of the family.
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Our Aim
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The aim is to bring the New Evangelization to families; to equip married couples and parents to transform their families into domestic churches where the home becomes a school of faith, hope, and love for the making of disciples of Jesus Christ prepared to engage in the mission of the Church.
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Two Important Considerations
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Two separate but important studies reveal these facts:
How can the New Evangelization reach the family?
It is through the evangelization of parents. It begins with evangelization and conversion of the individual spouses. When a Catholic has committed their life to Jesus, responding to God's specific call, their vocation, is embraced and lived as their path of loving God and loving others. For disciples in the vocation of marriage, deeper commitment to their spouse, faithful service to their family, and the Christian formation of their children flow from their personal conversion to Jesus. The family becomes the first and primary faith community whose spiritual life is led by the Christian parents. To inspire parents build a domestic church and equip them to raise their children in the Catholic Faith are work that DCI sets out to accomplish.
- "Half of young Americans who were raised Catholic no longer identify as Catholic today. Roughly eight in ten (79%) who shed their faith leave before age 23." (Vogt, Brandon. Return: How to Draw Your Child Back to the Church, 2015)
- "No other conceivable causal influence ... comes remotely close to matching the influence of parents on the religious faith and practices of youth." (Smith, Christian. Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults.)
How can the New Evangelization reach the family?
It is through the evangelization of parents. It begins with evangelization and conversion of the individual spouses. When a Catholic has committed their life to Jesus, responding to God's specific call, their vocation, is embraced and lived as their path of loving God and loving others. For disciples in the vocation of marriage, deeper commitment to their spouse, faithful service to their family, and the Christian formation of their children flow from their personal conversion to Jesus. The family becomes the first and primary faith community whose spiritual life is led by the Christian parents. To inspire parents build a domestic church and equip them to raise their children in the Catholic Faith are work that DCI sets out to accomplish.
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Domestic Church Institute Directors: Bob and Nannet Horton |