Someone asked me a great question recently as we’ve talked about our vision to become a parish of small groups. What are small groups? How are they different from existing organizations like Women’s Club, Ladies Sodality, Senior Group, Men’s Club, or Holy Name Society? 

When we say “small group” we are envisioning: 6 to 12 people seeking a deeper friendship with Jesus Christ, who gather weekly to share what’s going on in their life, learn from God’s word together, and support each other as believers. As we learn about small groups, some of our initial experiments are bigger or meet less often, but the vision above is where we hope to go. Also: thank you, Lord, for the enthusiastic response to our first efforts! 

As we start more small groups in the months ahead, we hope that they can give people space to go deeper and cultivate strong Christian friendship. That’s why we hope they’ll be smaller than the great organizations named above. They are more like our bible study and Lectio Divina groups. That’s also why we want to have many small groups in our parish: so many people can share the blessings that come from meeting regularly, intentionally, with Christian friends for the purpose of growing as followers of Jesus Christ. God bless you!