At a diocesan formation day for catechists last week, I met Elizabeth, a retired secondary-school teacher.

She was not a keynote speaker, nor did she hold a senior position in the Church. To my knowledge, had never written a theological book, hosted a podcast or addressed a conference on ‘religion’.

In an age fascinated by platforms and influence, it is easy to overlook people like Elizabeth. Yet I left wondering whether she might be among the most important people in the Church.

Who is forming us?

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that modern people inhabit a “social imaginary”, a world shaped by stories, assumptions and habits that often operate beneath conscious thought.

Politics, media and technology all contribute to forming that imaginary. The question is not whether we are being formed, but by whom.

Elizabeth understood this instinctively.

Honest answers, no bluffing

Ask her what the Church teaches about LGBTQIA+ people and she would turn to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, with its insistence upon “respect, compassion and sensitivity”.

Ask her about a difficult moral question and she would explain the Church’s position as clearly as she could.

Ask her something she did not know and she would not bluff. She would simply say so.

This may not sound revolutionary or particularly worth an article about.

Shaped by practices

Yet the American theologian James K. A. Smith has spent much of his career arguing that human beings are shaped less by ideas than by practices. We become what we repeatedly do.

Formation occurs not only through formal instruction but through habits, communities and rituals.

In that sense, catechesis is far more than the transmission of information. It is the patient formation of Christian imagination.

Growth by attraction

That insight echoes the teaching of Pope Francis. In Evangelii Gaudium, he observed that the Church grows not by proselytism but by attraction.

Catechists such as Elizabeth embody that principle. They teach without coercing, explain without humiliating and accompany others without surrendering the truth they have received.

Most people encounter Christianity not through theological treatises but through another human being.

A difficult teaching can be made harder by arrogance and easier by patience. The messenger matters almost as much as the message.

The Church invests considerable energy in leadership. Perhaps it should pay more attention to those whose influence is unassuming and harder to measure.

Long after the conference speeches are forgotten, Elizabeth will still be there, helping someone understand the faith.

The future of Christianity may depend on more people noticing.

• James Gordon Reid Haveloch Jones is an educational consultant, public theologian, and author of an Amazon Top 50 Study Skills bestseller. He is an Honorary Associate Fellow of St George’s House, Windsor Castle, and a trustee of the Heythrop Association at the University of London. He completed post-graduate studies at the University of Oxford Faculty of Theology. He is a Contracted Contributing Writer for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (“God Who Speaks”) and a guest writer for: The Tablet, Church Times, National Catholic Reporter and Premier Christianity. Website: www.jamesgordonreid.co.uk