I’m on our parish council and working on this right now. Bear with me as I meander through this, I’m trying to crystallize this for the parish council. Writing this will help me get my throughts together.
No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and ***anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. ***
The first thing to remember is that God (through Christ) causes spiritual growth. People DON’T cause it. Christ reveals God to people, and God uses those people to show Christ to others. It all comes from God. That is absolutely key. Without it you don’t get past square 1.
A vibrant spiritual community needs to develop an attitude of discipleship, meaning that people who are close to Christ need to commit to discipling relationships with other individuals. My personal vision is that every person should commit to a spiritual sharing relationship with at least two people – one teacher, and one student. We need to learn from those who know Christ better than we do, and teach those who don’t know Christ as well as we do.
Scattered throughout your community are people who are more spiritually mature than most. They have an array of gifts. Some are great scripturally, some are prayer warriors, some are highly contemplative, some have special gifts of discernment, some are skilled at perceiving needs in others, and some are teachers. And so on.
A parish needs to identify who those people are, and those people need to spend time together and forge a commitment to a mission of growing the spirituality of the parish. From there come your teachers.
This is important because teachers need to teach from spiritual knowledge, rather than intellectual knowledge. We all know that from our expience with regligion teachers over the years. How can I teach someone to commit to a life in the spirit if I can’t show someone how I’ve done it in my own life?
OK – if you get this far, you’ve got your spiritual army for the parish. These are the people that need to be active in teaching.
Teaching itself can come through many forms. In my experience, there is no substitute for small groups and one-on-one. I personally get far, far, FAR more from these groups than from sitting in some type of seminar, or watching a film. It’s just more valuable to sit with someone who is in the pews on Sunday just like me, and learn how that person lives their spiritual life.
We do that through CRHP, bible study groups, Moms groups, business networking groups, senior clubs, youth groups, young adult groups, etc. Not all groups in the parish, but many. My personal goal is to get members of the spiritual army into every group in the parish and develop an attitude of spiritual sharing. Ultimately all parish groups should funnel people toward exposure to the spiritual army.
Now you have spiritually strong people permeating the parish, and they are committed to growing the spirituality. They live as lights in the parish. We know from John’s gospel that people are either drawn to the light, or they run from it. Those who are drawn to the light are spiritual fish that need to be fed. At the beginning, this needs to occur in one-on-one or small group settings. Why? Because they are taking a huge leap of faith, and they should be welcomed by people who know what they’re doing.
Some fish will grow slowly. Others will be hungry fish, and will be able to develop quickly. The spiritual army will be able to discern the difference, and direct those people to where they can be helped the most. Some of the really hungry fish will ramp up and join the spiritual army, and the cycle repeats.
IMO, this type of approach is necessary because so many people remain at spiritual infancy well into adulthood. ***A spiritual infant needs to meet Christ and start to walk with Him to grow to the point of being ready for more detailed teaching. ***
IMO this type of growth doesn’t happen in seminars or film sessions – it happens in small groups. People need to be helped in their own baby steps toward God. Once they’ve truly met Christ, taken a few steps, and physically seen and experienced the fruits of the spirit through exposure to the spiritually mature in the parish, they become ready for programs. They’ll want to study the bible, the catechism, the sacraments, and the mass in detail.
Does this make sense to anyone?
