ST. MARY SMALL GROUPS
Small Groups
Small groups are a great way to grow in friendship with others, by gathering regularly to learn, discuss, pray, have fun and relax. It’s a Catholic gathering in which everyone is known by name, and you form those relationships that sustain you in your journey of faith. This Easter Season, we are promoting the formation of new Small Groups in our parish. Small Groups have anywhere from 5 to 12 participants and are usually divided men & women.
The proposed format for a Small Group meeting is:
Gather in a home twice a month.
Use the proposed course on FORMED.org as the main content.
Video, discussion, sharing, prayer, food, fellowship.
Small Group course
The course we propose for this season is “The Gospel of Mark” (14 episodes) on FORMED.
If you are interested in gathering with others as a small group, we encourage you to circulate this idea with a group of acquaintances and friends at St. Mary’s, and to sign up as a group facilitator. We will train you to facilitate the small group, show you how to access the video talks, and provide you with the materials you need.
Our upcoming training session will happen on Thursday, April 21st, 7pm-8:15pm in the Aquinas room (located across the hallway from the Parish Center). If you can’t make this session, we will be recording it and you can watch if after the event. As part of the process of accompanying Small Groups, we will also gather with facilitators periodically, so as to help with questions they may have and help them solve challenges that come up along the way.
Frequently asked questions:
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Can I sign up as a participant and be assigned a small group?
It would be very difficult for our staff in the parish to match individual people in a way that those small groups would work well. It is a much better solution if people talk to their friends and people they know about forming these groups. For this reason, we are not encouraging individual sign ups at this time. It will work better if you connect with other potential members of a small group, and then get trained to carry it forward.
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Do I have to host people in my home every single time? Will it involve a meal?
No, each group can decide what works best. The facilitator can host, or you can take turns hosting. A meal is not necessarily involved – you can gather after dinner time around snacks or dessert.
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What if I am already part of some sort of small group?
If you are part of a small group or community that is working well, please keep it! This is aimed primarily at those who currently do not have a small faith community and would like to gather around one.
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If we would want to use a different format, can we still gather as a small group?
Yes. There are groups of friends that gather regularly to pray the rosary, have a book club, have open-ended faith discussions, and so on. If you want to have a different format because it would work best with your group, by all means, do it. We wouldn’t ask you to attend the training in this case, as this training will be more specifically geared to train facilitators for this format with the formed.org video talks.
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Will Small Groups end after finishing the course on the Gospel of Mark?
There are no strict rules about the duration of a Small Group. You can encourage your friends to sign up with you for this first course on the Gospel of Mark (around 7-months long), and then renew their commitment if they like it. Many Small Groups have a 3-year life span. After 3 or 4 years, many people experience that their small group needs some renewal, so individual members branch off to start new small groups of their own. However, some Small Groups blend so well that they keep going for decades.
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What if I don’t find four other people, but only three?
You can still give it a try. We strongly recommend to try and recruit a few more people, though. In our experience, it’s not uncommon that people have to miss some group gatherings. If you are only 4, one or two absences means you’ll practically have to cancel.