Spreading the message of the Gospel

CHESTER  St. Lawrence the Martyr Parish here has taken a big step in the past year to help its community of believers grow in spirituality toward a closer relationship with Christ and each other with help from a national initiative.

The initiative takes its cue from Jesus’ personal style of ministry — calling together a small group of Twelve Apostles in “missionary friendship” to form them and ultimately to challenge them to spread the Gospel to the world.

Members of St. Lawrence, including Father Nicholas Bozza, pastor, have expressed their enthusiasm about the Morris County parish’s involvement with the Wisconsin-based The Evangelical Catholic, which has been helping it train an enthusiastic army of leaders to develop and lead what has grown into a large number of small faith sharing groups. By the beginning of Lent, St. Lawrence had formed 12 small groups with up to 12 members in each. The leaders walk with their group members in their faith journeys in a personal way — a relational approach to evangelization that they can use in their everyday lives. The parish provided the leaders 20 weeks of rigorous training, guided by materials and a consultant from The Evangelical Catholic.

“In the small groups, our parishioners have been reading the Scriptures for the next Sunday, reflecting on them, praying over them and then sharing with the rest of the members about Scripture and about their lives. At the end of each session, they also come up with an action plan [with ways that they can evangelize],” said Father Bozza, a member of the point team at St. Lawrence’s that oversees another team that trains the leaders. “We are just starting this but everyone is enthusiastic. We will be looking for the one of the 99 — the one lost sheep — or looking for someone we think could benefit from faith in Jesus. This also has been strengthening our faith in the small groups. We want the entire parish to get involved,” he said.

For Lent, many St. Lawrence parishioners — even those not in a small group — have signed up after recent Masses to commit to the “one-percent challenge” — to devote about 15 minutes per day listening to the Lord by praying with the Bible. Andre Lesperance, The Evangelical Catholic’s consultant for the parish, gave that challenge to parishioners, during a visit to St. Lawrence for a Lenten retreat on Feb. 20.

“I truly believe that if each of us faithfully committed 15 minutes each day, just one percent of our day, to sitting in the presence of Jesus, to listening to his words, to considering carefully what he is saying and to conversing with him about it, it would change all of our lives for the better,” said Father Bozza, who noted that St. Lawrence gave parishioners a card with suggested readings from the Bible for 30 days and with guidance on how to pray with a Bible passage.

The process with The Evangelical Catholic started a year ago, when Alan Wright, former academic dean at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Evangelization Center at Bayley-Ellard in Madison and current principal of Koinonia Academy in Plainfield, recommended that St. Lawrence partner with The Evangelical Catholic. The parish formed a point team that consists of Father Bozza; Father Yohan Serrano, parochial vicar; and Deacon William DeVizio; with parishioners Bob Holl and Margie Scobell, the pastor said.

The next step for St. Lawrence was to invite select active faithful from various ministries in the parish to become leaders. So far, the parish has offered two sessions of 20-week training, during which trainees got to know each other by sharing their own faith journeys. Among other things, leaders learned how to read Scripture, different types of prayer, ways of evangelization and how to lead a small group. The parish will schedule more training sessions as it invites more parishioners to sign up as leaders, Deacon DeVizio said.

For Lent, the small groups meet once a week for six weeks sometimes in the parish but usually outside it, such as parishioners’ homes or elsewhere. Deacon DeVizio leads a group in the church chapel on Monday nights with his wife, Joan. Guided by The Evangelical Catholics’ “With Jesus to the Cross” materials, he enjoys talking about the history of stories in Scripture and asking engaging discussion questions.

“We are learning to read Scripture and pray to hear God’s voice and to connect Scripture with our own lives. We also want to form closer personal relationships with each other outside of Mass,” said Deacon DeVizio, who noted the leaders are encouraged to meet with group members individually and invite parishioners in their other ministries to get involved. “We hope that this will help grow the parish,” he said.

Four times a year, Lesperance visits St. Lawrence and conducts video chats with core team members regularly. The Evangelical Catholic also provides printed, video and online materials for the training of leaders and small-group discussions. It seeks to “inspire and train” St. Lawrence and the 95 other Catholic faith communities in U.S. parishes, campus ministries and military bases that it serves in “relational ministry” — “to form their laity in reaching out to their circles of influence and bringing the Good News to them,” he said.

“We offer a more rigorous training for leaders to learn to pray, ask good questions in their small groups and walk with the people in the group in missionary friendship” with techniques for evangelization that “can go way beyond the parish,” Lesperance said. “We at The Evangelical Catholic are delighted to be in a relationship together with St. Lawrence,” he said.

Another core team member and small-group leader is Holl, St. Lawrence’s evangelization coordinator.

“In the small groups, we immerse ourselves in the Scripture stories. We learn about theology and discuss what speaks to us, so we can hear better what is being said in the Gospel and get closer to the Word of God and to Jesus,” said Holl, who noted that the groups promote a confidentiality policy if some group members share very personal details.

One of the trainers of the leaders, Scobell joined a group as a member for Lent and leads, when needed. The training, she said, gives the leaders the knowledge and confidence that they need to facilitate a group.

“Some Catholics might see the Church as big and impersonal — the place were they go to fulfill their Sunday obligation. We need this — to be looked in the eye and be heard. We are learning to walk with and encourage each other in deeper relationships. That is what will draw people back to the Church and grow — even through this turmoil now — and help them stay rooted in Jesus through the Sacraments and each other,” Scobell said.