Making a Crowd into a
Community
Parish Diary
Fr. Peter Daly
10/1/98
MAKING A CROWD INTO A COMMUNITY
The
evangelist Luke records that when Jesus fed the 5,000, He instructed the
disciples to rearrange the crowd into small groups of about 50. Then He blessed the loaves and fishes and
distributed them to the small clusters of followers. Even for the Lord it was apparently unwieldy
to minister to the whole crowd.
Beginning this fall, our parish, like many others, is
following the example of the Lord in ministering to people in smaller clusters. We are participating in RENEW 2000, a
nationwide program, to spiritually prepare American Catholics for the new millenium.
The
heart of RENEW is small groups. Not the
clusters of 50 people that Luke mentioned, but living room sized groups of six
to ten. But the idea is the same.
It is simply impossible to minister to the
whole "crowd" of the parish in any meaningful way. But when we are broken up into small groups
we can not only can we get to know each other, but we can "minister"
to each other.
Like the theme song from "Cheers" said, we
all want to go where "everybody knows your name." In many
American Catholic parishes that just can't happen because we are too big. For example, my parish, with 620 families and
2,000 souls, is only considered "medium sized." But there is no way I
could meaningfully know everyone.
Compared with many Protestant churches, our parishes are huge. For example, we are engaged in RENEW together
with a neighboring Episcopal church which has about one-third as many people.
If
we operate on the "filling station" model of ministry, just
distributing the sacraments to crowds of people, perhaps we can function for a
while. But we cannot really come to know
one another. We remain alone in a
crowd. Our joys and sorrows, hurts and
triumphs, needs and gifts also remain unknown.
Sometimes nobody even knows our name.
It is impossible for any one person, including
the priest, to know everyone. Even the
Lord could not personally come to know each of the 5,000 people who followed
Him to the hillside in
This
is where the small groups of RENEW come in.
For six weeks each fall and spring we divide up into small discussion
groups of 6-10 people. The groups meet
in someone's home once a week at a time convenient to the participants. We will do this for five seasons, each time
rotating groups a little. Gradually we will come to know each other better.
People
seem to like this idea. In our parish
about 280 people signed up for RENEW discussion groups. We have over 30 groups of all types: young
adults and seniors, Spanish and English speaking, mornings and evenings.
The
great thing about these groups is that they turn a "crowd" into a
"community." We will come to
know each other and minister to each other.
By praying together, we are organized around the real work of parish
life, prayer. By studying the scriptures
together, we are doing what the multitude in the gospel did, listening to
Jesus.
Great
things can come from small groups. After
all, the Lord started with twelve.