Category : Evangelization

Leaders guide and 3 copies of Continuing the Journey
Book, Conversion, Evangelization, Faith, Friendship, Life, Small Faith Sharing Groups, Spirituality, Transformation
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5 Keys for Effective Faith Sharing Groups

Adults crave quality connections with other adults, where we can have good conversations about the things in life that really matter.

For a variety of reasons, we don’t always have the opportunity to do this; to have these quality connections and conversations. Our schedules become busy with kids, work, commitments, activities, sports, responsibilities, and so on.  We often find ourselves socializing with the people who keep similar schedules in similar spaces. We talk about the things we do or the things we see, but not always what’s going on inside our hearts.

Sharing the yearnings of our hearts–our hopes and dreams, our joys and sorrows, our brokenness in pain and suffering–takes trust, vulnerability, and love.

Trust, vulnerability, and love aren’t characteristics easily found in today’s impersonal, fast paced, technology dependent world.

This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

Yet trust, vulnerability, and love are at the heart of true spirituality, discipleship, and Christian community. Or at least, that’s what Jesus had intended, that’s what St. Paul wrote about, and that’s what Acts of the Apostles describes.

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. (Acts 2:46-47)

The experience of quality conversations and connections is invigorating; these moments fill our hearts with love, peace, and joy. When the topics touch upon spirituality, discipleship, and Christian living, these conversations are evangelizing–kindling our passion for God.

So when, and where, and how can we find quality connections and quality conversations with other adults?  In today’s Church, we can certainly find this within small faith sharing groups.

My last post explained what a small faith sharing group is.  This post begins with a vision for what kind of experience we want (quality conversations and connections) and will focus on How to implement small faith sharing groups.

Five Keys For Small Faith Sharing Groups

Just because you get a group of people together and give them a topic does not mean you’ll get these fantastic evangelizing conversations and quality connections.  Have you ever been part of a never-ending meeting that goes nowhere?  Or one that devolves into either a therapy session or venting and complaining?

Beyond the logistics of who, where, when (and what to discuss), there needs to be a great deal of attention dedicated to how. I suggest Five Key C’s to cultivating evangelizing conversations and quality connections:

  1. Confidentiality – the atmosphere of the small faith sharing group needs to be one of trust, vulnerability, and love.  Whatever is shared in these conversations must not be repeated in any other context.  This is a confidentiality based in agapic-love, willing of another’s good… the only exception to confidentiality is if someone’s life is in danger.  Care and concern for the well-being of another always takes precedence when someone’s life is in danger.
  2. Conversation – participants enter into small faith sharing groups with the expectation of conversation.  Good conversations extend from mutual respect.  To get to a place of mutual respect, sometimes “ground rules” need to be made explicit, such as:
    • encourage laughter and joy… but never at the expense of another.
    • express concern for one another… but not by offering advice, criticism, or judgment of others.
    • recognize and validate emotions… but resist the temptation to counsel, advise, or solve problems (unless specifically asked for).
    • honor one another’s time with both brevity (when sharing) and patience (when listening).
  3. Coordination through Facilitators – a good facilitator is a good listener and servant/leader.  More than a host or a coordinator that plans the meetings, a good facilitator knows how to:
    • invite everyone’s participation in the conversation… but not force it; no one has an obligation to share.  Some folks are natural talkers who easily share; others are introverts that need time to think and process.  A facilitator’s job is to prevent “conversation ball-hogs” by making sure that everyone has a chance to speak and contribute.
    • be patient as participants share their stories… but also be attentive to staying focused on the discussion topic and keeping the discussion within the time allotted.
  4. Conversion and Application to Life – it is easier to talk critical analysis–what you think about a topic–than it is to consider how the material applies to your life.  It’s easier to talk about concepts or other people’s stories than it is to consider how the wisdom of Scripture and Tradition is personally calling you to conversion in your own life.  Faith sharing group discussions are concerned with:
    • How you currently experience [the topic] in your life – whether with success or struggles.
    • Ways in which you feel [the topic] is calling you to live your faith differently or better… a call to action of sorts.
  5. Centered on Prayer – Faith sharing groups always need to be centered on our Life-giving, Loving God.  We need to remember to:
    • begin by inviting the Holy Spirit into the discussion.
    • choose discussion material that helps us focus on how the wisdom of the Christian Tradition applies to our lives today.
    • pray over, for, with our brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling through difficult times… even if it is in the middle of the discussion.
    • end with a prayer of thanksgiving and/or petition.

One last thing to keep in mind when working with adults in a faith sharing group setting: busy adults don’t always have the time to read and prepare.  Or sometimes they do read and prepare, but then time passes, life happens, and they forget.  In a classroom setting, it makes sense to emphasize coming to class prepared.  In a faith sharing group, the focus is on evangelization; quality connections and conversation about faith and life.

Catechesis is an essential “moment” in the process of evangelization (General Directory for Catechesis, 63).

To help adults focus their conversation, it’s always a good idea to offer a summary that reminds participants about the key points in the material before opening the discussion.

Faith Sharing with Continuing the Journey

You know what material easily lends itself to small faith sharing group discussion?  That’s right!  My book, Continuing the Journey: Cultivating Lived Faith.

Even more, you know what will help with the Five Key C’s of cultivating evangelizing conversations and quality connections?  My brand new Leader’s Guide.

LeadersGuide_BookCover
I believe so strongly in the value of small faith sharing groups that I am offering the Leader’s Guide as either a free PDF (click here), or a hard copy can be mailed to you for $5.99 with free Prime Shipping through Amazon.

Note: all Amazon links include my affiliate link, which means Amazon gives me a couple of extra pennies from your purchase.

Go forth and share your faith!  And let me know if I can be of any help in the process.  In addition to these resources, I am available to offer trainings and workshops for small faith sharing group facilitators.  Just email me!

Blessings and peace as you continue your journey!

Love Julie



Sign-up now and receive the 68-page PDF Leader’s Guide to Continuing the Journey.


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Crowd of People facing sunset
Book, Evangelization, Life, Small Faith Sharing Groups
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What is a Small Faith Sharing Group?

Have you ever been on a spiritual retreat and witnessed that profound change in a person?  Maybe you were on the Team giving the retreat.  Maybe you were a participant.  Maybe that person was you.

That change–that shift–is the work of the Holy Spirit.  It’s a transformation in faith.  And it’s such a privilege to witness… it’s why I do what I do.

It’s the “AH-HA” moment that teachers live for; when we get to be a part of someone making a connection between what they are learning and what they are doing.  They get it… they really get it! In religious education and on retreats, that AH-HA moment is filled with the grace and joy because we have the privilege of participating with the divine.

For it is in giving that we receive.

So we see this transformation in faith happen on a retreat.  We see retreatants come to the end of the retreat on fire with the Holy Spirit, receptive, vulnerable, open, and joyful… and asking us how to continue that retreat experience.

That receptive, vulnerable, open, joyful person on fire with the Holy Spirit is why I wrote Continuing the Journey: Cultivating Lived Faith.  I wrote it for adults to read, reflect, and journal on their own, and then come together to discuss their answers in small faith sharing groups.  It’s not that a person can’t read it on their own–they certainly can!  It’s more that those retreatants on fire with the Holy Spirit need something–deserve something–that can help them keep that fire alive as they return to daily life.

That something is lived faith.  That fire is evangelization.  And a fantastic way to do this is through a small faith sharing group.

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Priest giving homily
Article, Evangelization, Faith, Liturgy
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A Bad Homily is a Missed Opportunity

We have all sat through bad homilies.  Too many of them.  Too often.

In “Connecting Sermons to Life,” Margery Eagan is spot-on in her criticism of the disconnect between what’s happening in the world and most priests’ homilies at mass.  Between ISIS, Ebola, air strikes in Iraq, climate change, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Ferguson, and the NFL’s mess with domestic violence, there’s a lot going on in the world.  The Church needs to help Christians process all of this from a faith perspective.

It matters when a priest acknowledges the overload of worldwide suffering, then reminds us that light always emerges from the darkness.

I could not agree more with this part of Eagan’s criticism.

However, Eagan stepped over a liturgical line by concluding that bad homilies mean that Mass is abig bust.”

Uninspiring Sunday sermons, described as “boring,” “irrelevant,” and “poorly prepared” [are a big reason why many Catholics no longer go to Church]. In other words, the Mass — the main contact many Catholics have with their faith — was a big bust.

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23:50
Action, Evangelization, Faith, Grace, Life
2

Stuck at the Gate? or Open to Grace.

You know how when you attend a retreat, your heart is brimming with peace, love and joy?  …how you are swimming in an awareness of God’s grace?

Grace is the free and undeserved help that God gives us (CCC, 1996).

Well, for the retreat I attended, I had just written a book on how to continue that retreat experience—Continuing the Journey—and distributed it to my first group of readers.  I was not only on that retreat-high, I was on the precipice of a new chapter in my life.

And I was exhausted.  But it was that good kind of tired where the adrenaline starts to fade and your entire body begins to relax.  And there was all that grace.


Grace is a participation in the life of God (CCC, 1997).

Bonus: at the conclusion of the retreat, I headed to the airport to join my family in the Adirondacks for a vacation.  It was the first of four weeks of traveling to visit family; Upstate NY, then Boston/New England, then China, then Malaysia.

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Evangelization
Evangelization
1

You Keep Using That Word

For the longest time, when I’d hear the word evangelization, I’d crinkle my nose, thinking it meant proselytizing.  I knew my Church, my faith, my God “called” me to do this thing called evangelization, but really, I’d rather not.   The thing is that the popes, starting with Paul VI, then JP II, then Benedict XVI, and now Pope Francis keep writing and preaching about the “new evangelization.” Not only was this “evangelization” thing not going away, each of these popes keep renewing our call to do it.  (More uncomfortable shifting in my chair.)

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Turns out my understanding of evangelization was off.  Way off.  Well kind of off.

Background

Let’s start with a better understanding of evangelization; a definition which honors the intention, style, and practice of the apostles.  Evangelization is about kindling the burning desire for God in our hearts.

From the beginning, evangelization meant bringing the Good News of the Gospel to every corner of the earth.  The call to do this is in Scripture (at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew), and we call it The Great Commission.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28:16-20)

Historically, we have limited our understanding of evangelization to the missionary work of bringing the Good News to people who have never before heard it.  Which, in itself, is fine (if the ones sharing the message are, in fact, sharing what Jesus taught, how he taught it: with love; without force).

However, evangelization was never meant to be equated with the forceful, negative, judgmental practice of proselytizing.  Because, as you may know, that’s not how Jesus did things.

proselytize - Google Search - Google Chrome 1132014 125130 PM.bmp

Evangelization is about kindling the burning desire for God in our hearts.  Proselytizing is focused on the surface experience of getting someone to agree with you that your religion, belief, or opinion is the right one.  We are not called to proselytize.  We are called to evangelize.

Renewed Understanding

Even better, the “new evangelization” that all these popes have talked about explicitly recognizes that there are actually three distinct groups in need of evangelization:

  1. NEVER BEFORE – those who have never before heard the Good News
  2. ONCE MORE – those who are regular, committed faithful who are in need of rekindling their passion for God.  For many, the fire is there, but it wanes.  For others, it’s less of a fire and more of a flame.
  3. THIS TIME WITH FEELING – those who (for whatever reason) have left the Church and are “searching” for something… are considering coming back… are unsure…  and are in need of kindling that passion, as well as direction, education, healing, etc.

Each of us falls somewhere in here.  Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re somewhere between #2 and #3.  Think about that: Where on this continuum would you place yourself?

How

What I love most about this renewed understanding of evangelization is that there are many, many legitimate ways to evangelize.

Start with yourself.  Ask yourself: What fuels my own passion for God? And then (presuming it’s life-giving and loving) do that thing.  Here’s a list of ideas:

  • Go do service (visit the sick or elderly, help the homeless, build homes at Habitat for Humanity)
  • Participate in your Church (sing, read, serve, pray, adore)
  • Learn about your faith – see what classes or book studies you could participate in
  • Spend time being intentionally present to your friends, family, children, siblings, and parents.  Nurture relationships.
  • Do the thing God called you to do–that thing that fills your heart–and praise God for joy
  • Go on a retreat
  • Spend time in nature, thanking God for the gift of Creation
  • What else would you add to this list

Because the funny thing about evangelization is that it’s contagious.  When you tend to the fire within your own heart, your passion for God spills out into the hearts of others.


  • So what will you to today to kindle the fire of your passion for God?

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