Evangelization Supplement

Small Church communities help connect faith with daily life

By Mary Ann Wyand

Connecting faith with daily life is the focus of small Church communities at several parishes in the archdiocese.

Nationally, more than a half million Catholics are involved in small Church communities that promote discipleship and evangelization in parishes and cities.

St. Bartholomew parishioner George Moon of Columbus compares the small Church community experience to the faith relationship that the first Christians shared in the early Church when they gathered at homes for worship and friendship.

Moon joined the parish 38 years ago, and saw his faith community more than double in size with the consolidation of St. Bartholomew and St. Columba parishes in 1994 and construction of a large church.

With 1,620 households, he said, it’s important to have small Church communities so parishioners can share faith and friendship in addition to praying together during weekly Masses.

“We have 13 or 14 small Church communities in our parish that have evolved during the past six years,” he said, with up to 12 members who meet once or twice a month in parishioners’ homes.

“As you grow together and learn more about one another, you become closer,” Moon said. “Just like in the early Church, you get to tell your story in conjunction with the Scriptures. As you share your story, you learn from others and your faith deepens. You can’t do that on Sunday at worship.”

Small Church communities “intimately connect faith and life,” he said, through Scripture, prayer, community and outreach.

“If you’re going to be Church, that’s where evangelization comes in,” Moon said, “either in helping others or bringing in new members. … Nationally, studies show that, in small Church communities, a very high percentage of members go to Mass on Sunday, receive the Eucharist often and are involved in leadership in their parish.”

Father Clem Davis, St. Bartholomew’s pastor, also promoted small Church communities when he was pastor of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis.

In a written reflection titled “Where Two or Three Are Gathered—Connecting Word, Faith and Daily Life,” Father Davis noted that the small-group experience reminds him of Jesus’ promise to his disciples, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).

“If we gather in the name of Jesus to study the Word of God, to share our lived experiences in the light of our faith or simply to experience friendly conversation with other believers, we can count on Christ Jesus being present in our gathering. This is an awesome gift and privilege, one that has blessed me more than I can say.”

St. Monica Parish, which marks its 50th anniversary this year and has 2,700 households, has 36 small Church communities, said Jean Galanti, who serves as pastoral associate and is a parishioner. They gather every month to share their faith as well as help with Church and community service projects.

When the groups evolve from discipleship to evangelization, Galanti said, members find that helping others deepens their faith.

One small Church community in the parish organized a picnic for non-Catholic friends, she said, and another group celebrated Easter with soldiers at Camp Atterbury that were training for military service in Iraq.

Another small Church community helped a non-Catholic spouse with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process so she could join the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil this year, Galanti said. Members of another group help the Little Sisters of the Poor care for elderly residents of the St. Augustine Home for the Aged in Indianapolis.

St. Monica parishioner Mary Ann “Dede” Swinehart of Indianapolis said members of her small Church community helped in countless ways when her first husband, Mike Stomoff, died unexpectedly.

“When Mike died, the group was pivotal to me as Church,” she said. “They were the constants in my life.”

She serves on the board of directors of the National Alliance of Parishes Restructuring Into Communities, which is based in Dayton, Ohio, with Father Davis, and is still a member of her longtime small Church community at St. Monica Parish with her second husband, Jerry Swinehart.

“I know personally what a big difference it has made in my life,” she said, “and it’s changed the dynamic of the culture at St. Monica Parish for the better. This is how the Church began, sharing things in common, … their relationship with God and with each other in homes.”

Msgr. Paul Koetter, St. Monica’s pastor, invited Stefanie Anderson, the communications and marketing coordinator for the archdiocesan Secretariat for Catholic Charities, to speak to small Church community facilitators on May 3 at the parish about how the groups can evangelize by helping with Church ministries.

Anderson discussed Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, “God Is Love” (“Deus Caritas Est”), as well as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ statements on life issues and social justice.

“It’s very important to realize that there are folks at all times who are in need,” she said, “without places to live and without food, and we need to keep that in our consciousness at all times by praying for them and helping them.”

Small Church communities offer wonderful faith experiences, said St. Malachy parishioner Roni Wyld of Brownsburg, who is the coordinator of the Special Religious Education (SPRED) program for the archdiocesan Office of Catholic Education.

Wyld said the model of small faith-sharing groups is the basis of the SPRED program, a process of faith formation specifically designed for people with developmental disabilities.

“We progress on our faith journey by reaching out and helping others,” she said. “We try to introduce people to Christ through relationships with others. The goal is to be a small community that opens the door to the larger parish community for people with special needs.”

Wyld said she has learned so much about God by talking with SPRED participants about their faith during small-group gatherings.

When a girl from St. Pius X Parish in Indianapolis was asked what SPRED means to her, she responded, “It means that when I die, I’ll go to heaven.”

And during a SPRED retreat at the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center in Beech Grove last year, Wyld said, five participants didn’t want to leave the chapel after the prayer service.

“They just sat and sat and sat,” she recalled. “Finally, the young man next to me stood up and said, ‘I don’t want to leave. I feel like God is in here.’ ” †