Engaging Faith

Keeping up with ever-changing technology in education is no easy task. We are doing are best to help teachers and students have access to Ave Maria Press textbooks in digital formats. In order to do that we have partnered with Xplana, a division of MBS, to provide our textbooks in electronic formats. Xplana is a new social learning platform designed to provide students with an effective e-learning experience. Xplana staff and members are aggregating content from around the web to provide students with the most relevant information related to their courses and learning needs. Most importantly, Xplana offers a new e-reader that will allow students to access Ave Maria Press textbooks on their computers, iPads, or smartphones. In order to help make purchasing e-textbooks as simple as possible, we have developed this step-by-step guide to getting set up on Xplana. 1. Create an account at www.xplana.com 2. While you are on the Browse page, click on "Find E-Textbooks" under the "Featured Content" section. You will see the website www.digitaltextbooks.com within the Xplana portal. 3. Search for the book by ISBN, author, or title (or click on one of the links to the books on the Ave Maria Press e-textbooks page. 4. Once you find your eBook, click on the orange "Add to Cart" icon5. Register for an account at www.digitaltextbooks.com in order to purchase your books. 6. Proceed to Checkout 7. Enter billing information and credit card information (no dashes in phone number) 8. Print order summary receipt. You should also receive an email confirmation. 9. Return to the home of digitialtextbooks.com. Click on the button "Activate Purchases" in the upper right-hand of the page. (Log-in if you are not already logged in) 10. Click on the button "Purchased from this website" 11. At first you are likely to see "Authorization In Progress" "Download link is being built, please wait a few moments and refresh this page." It may take up to an hour for the link to be built. 12. You will receive an email from DirectPasswords@MBSBooks.com. Do not worry about clicking on the link. Your book will be available for viewing at Xplana.com 13. Sign into Xplana.com with your Xplana username and password. 14. Soon your book will be available either under My Content or Premium Content Note: You may have to wait upwards of an hour before the book is connected to your Xplana account. Troubleshooting It will take some time for the book to be available in Xplana (possibly an 1 hour) so wait awhile after you activate your purchase (step #9) at DigitalTextbooks.com. To view the e-textbook, you need to have Flash installed on your computer. Those of you using Internet Explorer in Windows 7 will have to make an additional installation. Xplana may work better using Internet Explorer according to some tech support people at Xplana. For technical assistance call Xplana at contact@xplana.com or fill out this form at MBS's website. The live online chat line may take up to 20 minutes to begin chatting, but they will be able to assist you. For more information about registering at Xplana, check out this video:

How can you help teens have handle on some of the large issues facing the Church today while also considering ways to participate in some solutions for change? Share with them these 10 Challenges for the Church of the Twenty-First Century. Assign each student one of the issues and have them break it open with a semester-long research project or term paper than incorporates some possible responses to the questions. Ecumenism. How can the Church reach out to people of other faiths, including Islam? Gospel witness. How can American Catholics remain true to the vision of Jesus in a pluralistic and increasingly secular society that accepts as “normal” behaviors and lifestyles contrary to the Gospel? How can the Church best remind people of the reality of sin and the need for conversion? How can the Church challenge national leaders to work for peace in just ways in the midst of a world besieged by terrorism? How can the Church best use her material resources (for example, her sponsorship of health-care facilities and social services through Catholic Charities) to help the poor and needy? Immigrants. How can the Church best embrace the fast-growing number of Hispanic-American Catholics? Will an English-speaking Church impose her customs on them? Or will she respect the cultural and linguistic diversity of this important Catholic community? How can the Church help other Catholic immigrants adjust to American society? How should it better embrace the contributions of African-American Catholics? Leadership. How can the bishops strengthen their credibility among the laity? How can they exercise their authority in a consultative and collegial way? How should they deal with dissenting theologians and politicians who undermine their teaching authority? How can they most effectively share the best of America’s cultural and societal values with the universal Church? Parish life. How can the Church reanimate the person in the pew through a better appreciation of the Eucharist? How can the Church better support lay people in their family and work lives? How can she affirm life and family issues more effectively and teach a respect for the beauty of human sexuality? Religious education. How can the Church most effectively reach out to disaffected Catholics, those who have dropped out, particularly young adults? How can the Church appeal to Catholics who subscribe to the American values of individualism and consumerism in contrast to Christ’s call to community and responsibility? How can the Church win over the minds and hearts of those Catholics whose attitudes toward abortion, stem-cell research, cloning, and sexual issues mirror those of their non-Catholic fellow citizens? Schools. What is the future of Catholic schools on all levels—elementary, secondary, and collegiate? What is their specific Catholic identity and mission? Vocation crisis. How can the Church call and train priest leaders to provide vision for the laity who will assume even greater roles of leadership? How can the Church form priests to lead worship and preach God’s word most effectively to an educated and increasingly secularized laity? How can the Church mobilize the laity to support those in religious life and priests in their difficult ministries? Women. What role should women have in the Church? How best meet their needs and desire for service to God’s people? Self-identity. How does Catholicism in America remain faithful to the Roman Catholic Church as she continues her life and witness in the pluralistic American culture? How can the Church in America be American and yet Catholic? How can the Church in America best be the servant of Jesus Christ? Once and for all, Catholics must answer these questions: In the quest to become acceptable to Americans, has the Church lost its soul? Is the Church too materialistic, too rich, too concerned with numbers and buildings? These questions come from This Is Our Church: A History of Catholicism by Michael Pennock.