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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

If you enjoyed this post, Please Share

So it’s lent.  The question used to be: What are you giving up for lent?  Now, people are asking: What are you going to do for lent?  Instead of “giving something up,” many suggest we “take something up.”

The thing is that both of these questions can be good ones, and in both cases, our responses can miss the point.

The term “lent” comes from a word meaning “spring” or “springtime.”  In the south, the whole of spring is a beautiful season of warmth, light, and growth.  In the north, it’s often drab and dreary: muddy, cold, and barren trees well into early May.  Many a blizzard has fallen after March 20th.

Regardless of where you live, the idea of spring is the season of rebirth, promise, and hope.  Spring is when we see nature go from death-to-new-life.

Lent is about that death-to-new life transformation of springtime.  Like Jesus’ time in the desert, it is a 40 day spiritual journey.

The idea of lent is to spend 40 days on a spiritual journey of transformation and growth.  It’s about inner-conversion, or metanoia (in Greek), turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel.

That principle–spiritual growth–should be at the heart of whatever lenten promise we make.  Here’s a great starting point: Is there some sinful practice that you can (and should) give up?  Do that.  

For many of us, those sinful practices are embedded in our daily lives.  It’s harder to nail down a promise to be less judgmental or distracted, so we choose something concrete like “giving up soda” (or candy, or wine, or Facebook). There is nothing wrong with giving something up for lent. Especially not if we approach it as an opportunity for spiritual growth.  Take “giving up soda,” for example:

•  If you’re a person who is addicted to soda, give up the vice of the addiction through the practice of abstinence, with the hope that you will ultimately be able to better practice the virtue of temperance (moderation, self-control) in the joy of Easter.
• Maybe you’re not addicted, but rather you’re a person who enjoys soda… then anytime you might find yourself wanting a soda, use that “desire” as a reminder to pray.

This approach to lenten sacrifice reflects the ancient Christian practice of asceticism which involves self-denial and abstaining from worldly pleasures.  Asceticism is an opportunity to take something that we may be somewhat attached to (like candy, or soda, or television, or electronic devices, or Facebook) and redirect that obsessive energy towards God.  Ascetic practices serve to open us to new life in God.

One way things go awry is when we focus only on the torture of denial without the promise of hope, joy, and transformation of Easter.  We are a people of the Resurrection, not a people of Good Friday.  It is one thing to remember Jesus’ sacrifice and share in Christ’s suffering.  But “giving something up” misses the point if it doesn’t help us to grow spiritually.

The “taking something up” crowd also needs to keep in mind the purpose of spiritual growth.  Take up a practice of reading Scripture, or praying the rosary, or attending daily mass.  Do something positive in your prayer life, for sure, but do it as a matter of inner-conversion not as a self-improvement project.  Make the attempt to integrate this positive behavior into your daily life permanently.

So maybe the better question to ask is: Whether giving up or taking up: how are you growing in faith and spirituality this lent?

If you enjoyed this post, Please Share

Looking for a resolution you can stick to in the New Year?  How about modeling humility?

You know how most Catholics prefer to sit toward the back third of the Church?  Not my family; we sit in the front pew.  For one thing, the pew at the front is almost always available.  For another, it helps my kids (and me) pay attention when we can actually see what’s going on.  The problem, as you might imagine, is that the boys behavior is on public display.

As this post is about modeling humility–not perfectly behaved children at Mass–I’d like to make it clear: we don’t have that good-behavior thing down.  I’ve made two-steps-forward, one-step-back progress with regards to Church-behavior, but we are far from having “arrived.”

Two-Steps Forward

1. I finally realized that growling whispered threats between pursed lips to SIT-STILL-AND-BE-QUIET was probably not helping them to develop a positive attitude toward Mass.  So I changed my language: Everything we say and do at Mass needs to show respect and reverence to God.
2. I encourage my boys to use the Magnifikid or the Missalette to follow the Readings as well as all the rest of the Mass prayers.  Because participation shows reverence and respect.

One Step Back

So there we are, last Sunday, sitting in the front pew, and both boys are having a particularly difficult time being reverent and respectful.  Their bodies are either slumped jello or, with their ever-growing bodies and gangly legs, they’re sitting on our laps, inappropriately snuggling and being playful… essentially doing everything except paying attention.

And then my 8 1/2 year old starts to pick his nose. Digging deep. Never ending. I smack his arm and fish a pack of tissues out of my purse. He twists it to form a cotton sword, and goes back in. I grab another tissue, whisper-growl to knock it off and pay attention. There’s a back and forth about picking the crumpled tissues up off the pew and floor. Eventually we get to the winning moment: we’re holding hands for the Our Father, and while his left hand is in mine, his right is back up his nose.

All I can think about is how he’s about to shake people’s hands during the Kiss of Peace and then receive communion in-between nose picks.  I squeeze his hand past the point of discomfort, he starts to yelp in pain, and I hiss at him to go to the bathroom, clean up, get himself together, and come back when he can be respectful and reverent.

Because respectful and reverent was exactly what I was being.

When he eventually came back from the bathroom, I leaned over and whispered, “I’m really sorry for hurting you. That wasn’t my intention. I lost my temper, and I’m sorry. I want to help you, not hurt you.”  And with that, he covered his face with his jacket and cried.  And hugged me.

Modeling Humility

When I model humility to my children, I show them how to take responsibility, apologize, and make amends.  Because, yeah, they’re not perfect, and neither am I.

When I model humility, I admit my imperfections, but don’t allow them to be a reason to stop showing up and trying.

When I model humility, I embrace the truth… however messy or embarrassing.

When I model humility, I can invite you into my home and practice hospitality, even though my couch is covered in laundry and my floors haven’t been vacuumed in… a while.

Humility doesn’t mean putting myself down.  It means owning who I am – gifts and flaws, sin and grace – and my need for God.

As a parent, as a spouse, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, humility is the pathway to love in the midst of tension, arguments, and unrest.  Humility is the antidote to pride and resentment.

I’ve been practicing modeling humility for a while now.  It keeps working… in part because I keep screwing up.  Gifts and flaws, sin and grace, right?

“The Back Of Church Pews © Depositphotos.com/DesignPicsInc”

If you enjoyed this post, Please Share

We are in the season of Advent.  The season of preparation.  The season of waiting.

We live in an instant-gratification culture that hates waiting. We are barraged with Christmas sales, music, and merchandise in October.  So when we hear talk about “Advent” we tend to think only of the countdown calendars… and even then, it’s hard to understand and embrace the waiting.

Advent is a Season of Preparation

What is it that we are “preparing” for?  We prepare for the coming of Christ.

For young children, we certainly focus on the Miracle of the Incarnation: in Advent we prepare for the birth of Christ.  But as we grow older, we hear the readings throughout Advent… readings that are not simply about the coming of the Christ-Child, but of the Second Coming and John the Baptist’s message of repentance.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) summed up the meaning of Advent when he suggested that in it, we celebrate three comings of the Lord: the past, the present, and the future,

• The Past: The first coming was the coming of Christ in history: the Miracle of the Incarnation.
• The Present: The coming of Christ within the hearts of disciples.
• The Future:This final coming (often referred to as “The Second Coming”) will take place at the end of the world (the Apocalypse).

The Past – The Incarnation: Amid the secular holiday retail extravaganza, we do manage to see the images of the nativity, however meager. Look for them.  Revisit the story of the Nativity.  Marvel at the Mystery of the Incarnation: God became human.

The Future – The Second Coming:  Though admittedly, we don’t see many images of the Second Coming in seasonal decorations.  Not very heart warming, I suppose. Even as Jesus himself admits we do not know the hour (Matthew 24:36), we are called to prepare our lives for this reality by having our priorities in order.

The Present – In Our Hearts:  St. Bernard referred to this dimension of Advent as the “invisible” reality.  Here, we can look to the multitude of Christmas movies and focus on the messages of conversion, from The Grinch to Rudolph to even my least favorite, Frosty.

Yet still, we manage to misunderstand the meaning of this season of preparation in our daily lives.  Bear with me as I ask you to take a moment to engage your religious imagination:

The thing is that Jesus couldn’t care less about the condition of my house.  What he cares about is the condition of my heart.

When John the Baptist tells us to Prepare the Way… to Repent and believe… he’s telling us to get our priorities in order.  To quit obsessing about the things that don’t matter (consumerism, materialism, and perfectionism, just to name a few) and give our hearts to the things that do matter (love, presence, and a faith that does justice).

So perhaps in the midst of all that time we spend waiting, we could ask ourselves a better question:  

• What do I need to do to prepare my heart–my life–to welcome Jesus?

IMG_0220 by Alex Harden licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you enjoyed this post, Please Share

With two Lego-loving boys in the house, there was little doubt that we would see The Lego Movie.  The previews looked cute, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the movie I genuinely liked.  It was fun, funny, and playful, and you can’t leave the theatre without singing “Everything is Awesome!”

There’s one scene that struck upon a deep theological truth.  Short of being a spoiler alert for those who haven’t yet seen it, I’ll simply say that in the battle between good and evil, good wins.  It’s not just that good wins, but what happens next.  Tucked in to the last moments of the movie is a conversion story, where the protagonist (Emmett) tells the antagonist (President/Lord Business):

In some ways, this scene reminded me of the conversion of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.  In the battle of good and evil, Luke is convinced that there is still good within his father.  The moment of conversion from Darth Vader back to Anakin Skywalker is the unexpected and almost unbelievable climax of the film, which leads to the triumph of good.

So many of the stories we watch and read (and show-to and tell our children) involve good triumphing over evil.  It’s rare to see a story of conversion, however. Usually, the bad guys are dismissed as evil and defeated (and often humiliated by the victor).

Yet it’s these stories of conversion that pervade Scripture, particularly as a major theme of Jesus’ teaching.

• Think about the stories you’ve read or movies you’ve watched lately.  Are they stories of conversion or defeat-and-dismiss?

Paschal Mystery

Catholics use a lot of words and phrases that we don’t always stop to unpack and explain.  One of these is “the Paschal Mystery.”  I’m pretty sure that as a child I resigned myself to not understanding what it meant because as it says, it’s a mystery.

The Paschal Mystery refers to the Passion (suffering and death), Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus.

The very essence of Christian faith revolves around the fact that the suffering and death of Jesus was not the end of the story.  Rather, from His death, comes new life–in the Resurrection.

Death is not the end.  From death to new life.

It is a mystery because we do not understand how it happens.  But it does.  And in this mystery we find our salvation: death is not the end.

Moreover, it’s not just something that happened to Jesus.  God’s transforming power in the Paschal Mystery happens in our lives every day.  We see the cycles of from-death-to-new-life when we recover from brokenness, whether it is physical, emotional, spiritual, or even financial.

In the post Change Anything, Change Everything, I talked about my biggest regret mistake–my failed first marriage.  After that marriage ended, I was broken.  Shattered.  Depressed.  Eventually, I picked up the shattered pieces of my life, moved half-way across the country, and with the loving help of my family, an excellent therapist, and the right anti-depressant, I worked on healing and rebuilding.  And by the Grace of God, I healed.  I grew.  I matured.  I am not the same person I once was.  From-death-to-new-life, the Paschal Mystery is alive in me.

• What are some of your own experiences of death-to-new-life?  How is the Paschal Mystery alive in you?


• Where in the Paschal Mystery are you now: the suffering and death of the Passion on Good Friday?  The in-between of Holy Saturday?  New life in the Resurrection of Easter Sunday?

Lent

Ash Wednesday is around the corner, which marks the beginning of Lent.  Lent is a term derived from a word meaning “spring” or “springtime,” the season where we see nature go from death-to-new-life.  Like Jesus’ time in the desert, it is a journey of 40 days.