Small Faith Sharing communities have two origins. communidades de bases originated in latin America as small gatherings of lay faithful for prayer, reading scripture, especially the gospel, sharing your response to scripture with members of the group, and applying the gospel message to your own daily life, and hopefully being led either individually or with your small group to some form of ministry or social justic outreach. although the format was used by those engaged in liberation theology movements, they do not have a monopoly on it.
Christ Renews His Parish, Renew 2000 and other parish renewal programs have as one of the bases of their programs formation of Small faith sharing communities with the goal of carrying on the renewal of the parish through reading and praying with the Sunday lectionary readings, and also leading the group and the individuals within it to receptivity to the gospel message, and its application to daily life, especially within the parish.
rightly founded and facilitated they can be renewing and energizing for individuals and parishes. wrongly used or manipulated, like anything else in the wrong hands, and used to serve an agenda, they can be dangerous.
it is not bible study, rosary cenacle, church circle or prayer group (ala cursillo or CCR). the format is a short, 1 hour meeting of ideally no less than 8 or no more than 14 members who meet regularly, usually weekly, in homes or at church. they open with prayer, read the sunday readings, allow everyone a chance to speak their reactions and feelings about the readings, and then close with intercessory prayer.
participating and later facilitating a small faith group over a 10 year period in my former parish was the beginning of my spiritual rebirth and renewal, return to orthodoxy, involvement in ministry, and the reason I am still Catholic. The group has a natural life, beginning, maturity, and ending. when the group dissolves, ideally the members go on to be more mature spiritually, more involved in parish life, an apostolate or ministry. This is how our group worked. 20 women participated at one time or another, and not one life was not changed for the better. I could go on and on about prayer miracles and good things that resulted. Do not fear them or be suspicious. done right, for the right reasons, they are dy-no-mite. because of them, Eucharistic Adoration was restored in that parish, and then the true renewal began.
