Challenges to Apprenticeship Learning in Religious Education: Narrow Use of the Apprenticeship Model and Current Developments in Youth Ministry

Abstract

In 2012, I proposed the apprenticeship model as a promising catechetical model for church communities in which catechists might be hope generators, and the church community becomes a community of hope. This article argues that the original meaning of the apprenticeship model is challenged by an emphasis in youth ministry practices on the individual relationship between youth ministers and youngsters and on finding individual forms of religious sense in life in favor of the ideal to acculturate a new generation in faith communities. The article discusses the implications for religious education practices that teach young people to learn to hope.