What's New at STEP?
A Wealth of New and Continuing Partnerships offers STEP a Broader Reach in Helping the Church
 Archdiocese
of Atlanta:
"In the Archdiocese of Atlanta we want to
make the wonderful opportunities STEP provides available to everyone. We will
especially target catechists and parish ministry leadership because STEP
will directly impact the quality and breadth of our evangelization
(proclamation, initiation, and catechesis) efforts. The greatest benefit of STEP is its
flexibility and availability. Because the Archdiocese of Atlanta comprises the
entire north-Georgia region, the demands of distance and resources challenge our
ability to provide sustainable face-to-face formation models. STEP, along with
other initiatives, helps the archdiocese provide broad and permeable formation opportunities
that enhance a lifelong formation framework. STEP is an exciting addition to a
growing array of opportunities designed to animate leadership, foster mature
discipleship, and promote vibrant communities of faith," according to Dennis Johnson, Jr., Director, Office of
Formation and Discipleship.
JCP enjoys a
strategic partnership with the Satellite Theological Education Program
(STEP).
3. VISION Vocation Network: The VISION
Catholic Religious Vocation Discernment Guide, the leading online and print
religious vocation discernment resource, continues to offer discounted
rates on STEP courses to vocation discerners, vocation directors,
candidates, associates, oblates, and other members of communities of
consecrated and apostolic life. People associated with these communities can
select the VISION Vocation Network discount when registering for STEP
courses. www.vocation-network.org
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The Church
November U.S. Bishops' Gathering
Six years of intense work on the English translation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal
are drawing to an end with five action items set to be voted on by the
U.S. Catholic Bishops at their meeting in Baltimore, November 16-19.
See this news release for more details.
Read more
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National Pastoral On Marriage
A draft copy of the Bishop's Pastoral Letter on Marriage was published by the National Catholic Reporter-- Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan. You can read it at this link
Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan
The letter will be voted on for approval at the Bishop's November meeting and then published if accepted.
It was reviewed by the NCR. If you want to read what they said, you can do so here. The Bishops should start over
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Catholic Populations by City
Where does your diocese fall? Here is an interesting survey on different dioceses and catholic populations. Check it out. Survey
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Course Participants
Diocese of Ogdensburg 2009 Deacon Ordination
In
2006, STEP began working with its first
formation group, the deacon
candidates in the Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York. These men were recently ordained. On September 19, 2009, at St. Mary's Cathedral,
Ogdensburg, New York, the Sacrament of Holy Orders was conferred upon:
Mark Bennett, Frank Bushey, Jr, James Chaufty, John Cogan, Marvin Connor, Brian Dywer, Jack Lukasiewicz, Tom Proulx, David Sandburg, James Snell, Jonathan Votraw, and John White.
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Update on Course Contact Hours
We are in the process of assessing the number of Contact
Hours associated with our courses that offer Certificates of Completion. This
assessment is something we've intended to do for a while, and some recent partnership
gave us additional incentive to make it a higher priority.
We know that not all of our courses that have 25 Contact
Hours associated with them are necessarily the same difficulty, e.g. readings and
assignments can vary greatly between courses. We want to make sure we are giving accurate and consistent values to course Contact Hours as these
Certificates continue to be important to many participants for certification,
formation, and education program credits.
We have developed a standard method for assessing Contact
Hours, including a review of the Student Tracking historical information for
each course. From what we see so far, most courses will either remain the same
or have a higher number of Contact Hours associated with them. The new Contact Hour designations will be in place by Jan.
1, 2010.
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Meet a New STEP Facilitator--
Marlene DeLeon
We do not always highlight facilitators, but Marlene deserves special
mention. Marlene started with STEP as a course participant. She now
returns to STEP as a facilitator, working with her first course this past August.
Marlene concentrated in scripture and theology while obtaining the Master of
Theological Studies degree at Boston
College. At her parish in
Foxborough, Massachusetts, she is a lector, responsible
for the confirmation program; and will begin developing a faith formation
program for adults. Prior to her current activities, she was an investment
professional for twenty-three years, and for several years before that she
developed college textbooks for a Boston
publisher. She is happily trying to serve in various ministries around the
clock now. Marlene and her husband have three children.
Please welcome Marlene!
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STEP on FACEBOOK
If you have not already become a FAN of STEP, please join us on Facebook to hear the latest news about what is happening at STEP and view video snippets from great courses and lectures.
You can join easily from the STEP homepage. Check it out!
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