Have you ever asked yourself “How can I be a more fruitful leader in the Charismatic Renewal today?”   Have you wanted to find teaching resources for growth for your prayer group core team or to help form potential leaders?  I’d like to recommend a wonderful DVD series from the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal: “A.C.T.S. of Leadership.”  This series explores four aspects of formation necessary for leaders to continue to grow in their relationship with God, their relationship with each other and to help them effectively answer the plan that God has for them.

One of the topics is on Communal Formation.  Walter Matthews covers three points that leaders need to know about Christian community:

1. The call to community is intrinsic in baptism and renewed and energized in our experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit.

2. We need to experience community concretely.

3. John Paul II challenged us to cultivate, to deepen, a spirituality of communion.

Here is an excerpt from the 2nd point covered in Communal Formation:

***

We need to experience community concretely.  The US Catholic Bishops a few years ago wrote a document entitled Called and Gifted for the Third Millennium. They wrote: “The renewed outpouring of the Spirit of Pentecost in our times has stimulated a great desire for experiences of deeper Christian community.”  The desire for deeper community is one of the fruits of the Spirit that you and I have experienced in baptism in the Spirit.  The Spirit impels us, causes us to look for ways to be with others.  We are called to experience community concretely in our marriages, in our families, in the groups to which we belong, in our parishes and in the wider Church. 

The word “community” – koinonia in Greek, communio in Latin – is often translated “fellowship” which is unfortunately a kind of weak translation.  The word is meant to express the inner life of the Trinity which we have entered though our Baptism.  The relationships of Father to Son, Son to Spirit, Father to Spirit and so on, we have entered into that community, that communio, that koinonia.  Such community, John Paul II says in Christifideles Laici is the very mystery of the Church.  We are caught up in a mystery that is bigger and greater than the little groups that we are part of: the prayer groups of the Renewal, our sharing groups, our men’s groups, our women’s groups, our bible studies.  We are caught up in being in the mystery of the Church as one communion. 

But the word has an interesting other meaning.  It means, in the concrete, the sharing of goods.  Acts 4:32 is a passage we well know: “no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.”  So this call to community, which we are to experience and to express concretely, has both a universal dimension and a very practical one.  John Paul II uses a phrase coming out of the Second Vatican Council in his philosophical reflection On the Dignity and Vocation of Women (Mulieris Dignitatem):

“Being a person means striving towards self-realization (the Council text speaks of self-discovery), which can only be achieved “through a sincere gift of self”. The model for this interpretation of the person is God himself as Trinity, as a communion of Persons. To say that man [and woman] is created in the image and likeness of God means that man is called to exist “for” others, to become a gift.”

There are three aspects of this sincere gift of self: sincere, gift, and self.  I think those of us in the Renewal, having experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit, can take for granted the understanding that our love needs to be genuine.  In our wedding rings, my wife Claire and I have inscribed the passage “To love one another constantly, from the heart.” That’s what we’re called to do in our sincere gift of self, to love one another constantly from the heart.   John Paul II tells us that the communio, the communion that we are meant to live concretely involves a sincere gift of our self. 

***

Each of the presentations in this series draws from Church Documents, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Scripture and personal experience.  This series can be purchased through the NSC website: www.nsc-chariscenter.org - click on Resources.  (There are also limited copies available to check out from the WWCCR Lending Library).

I highly recommend this series!
Tammie Stevens

Introducing the Prayer Group Development Committee

By Virginia King

Since Catholic Charismatic Renewal began in 1967, the Charismatic Prayer Meeting is the most common place for people to be introduced to “life in the Spirit.”  Though I initially experienced baptism in the Holy Spirit alone in my living room, I learned to live it out on a day to day basis through the encouragement and prayers of those I met at the weekly prayer meeting in my parish.  It was there that I learned new ways of praying with song, praying with Scripture, praying spontaneously in English and in tongues.  I heard testimonies from others about the way the Lord was working in their daily lives, which built my faith and helped me to be much more aware of how the Lord was working in my life.  I learned to give my own testimony.  I learned to pray with others. I learned to “rejoice with those who rejoice and grieve with those who grieve.” (Rom 12:15)  I became part of a loving community, the Prayer Group, which helped me to “grow up” in the ways of the Lord. 

I realize that it is possible to experience and learn these many things in other settings, but I believe that the Prayer Group is an ideal place for maturing in our faith, for maturing in our understanding and use of various charisms, and for maturing in our love for one another.  The stronger our prayer groups are, the more effective they will be in helping their members to grow into mature “life in the Spirit.”  So one of the initiatives of WWCCR is to help weak prayer groups grow stronger and help strong prayer groups to thrive. 

It takes a lot of time, energy, prayer and commitment to be part of the leadership team or core group for a Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group.  Recently, WWCCR has formed a new committee whose total focus is on helping parish prayer groups to be vibrant and effective.  This will include helping in the formation of new prayer groups in parishes that don’t yet have one.  It is a small committee now, but the members are already working hard to get to know the leaders in many of our prayer groups and to offer assistance as needed.

For 2009, the goals of the Prayer Group Development Committee are:

1. For each committee member to visit at least one prayer meeting a month to build up a friendship with the members of the prayer group and offer support and encouragement.

2. Sponsor a gathering for Prayer Group leadership teams and core groups.  This will be held on Saturday, July 25.  (see below)

3. Assist at least one prayer group to sponsor a Holy Spirit Seminar.  We are working with the prayer group at St. Hubert’s in Langley to do this, probably in September.

4. Develop a training course for prayer group leadership teams and core groups.  Determine how many would take advantage of this type of training.

5. Develop a resource package for Holy Spirit Seminars, to make it easy for a parish or prayer group to sponsor one.

If you are on the leadership team or core group of a Prayer Group, please come to the gathering on July 25.  If you would like to have a member of the Prayer Group Development Committee visit your group, please call Bell Moore at:  360- 730-1689 or email her at moore.spirit@yahoo.com  Or get in touch with her about any other ways that we can help your parish to have a vibrant and effective Charismatic Prayer Group.

The current members of the Prayer Group Development Committee are:
Barbara Neiman, Bell Moore, James Beback, Andy Lee, and Virginia King.