A Small Christian Community is a group of 8-12 adults who come together in each other's home or at church once or twice a month to share the gospel, share their insights and share themselves in community with fellow parishioners.

Transitions

"One way of renewing parishes, especially urgent for parishes in large cities, might be to consider the parish as a community of communities and movements. It seems timely therefore to form ecclesial communities and groups of a size that allows for true human relationships... In such a human context, it will be easier to gather to hear the word of God, to reflect on the range of human problems in the light of this word, and gradually to make responsible decisions inspired by the all-embracing love of Christ." - Pope John Paul II

RENEW ended in the fall of 1999. However, the groups formed here at St. Justin and throughout the Diocese are continuing as Small Christian Communities. Parishioners gather in community for prayer, scripture discussion, fellowship and service. Why do we bother to gather? What's gained by attending a Small Christian Community?

"The people who show up for Small Christian Community gatherings bring wounds, dysfunction or loneliness wrapped in shreds of hope. They come with joy, insight and friendship, shrouded perhaps in anger. When the group gathers, the very act of listening and sharing echoes Christ's message in John 15:12 'Love one another as I have loved you...' One of the key reasons people seek out small community is because they feel anonymous in the large church. And one reason small community works in the long run is that the participants realize they could not gather and reflect in the same way at the large parish Mass. We learn from listening to people's experiences. These stories reflect the joy, pain and questions of real lives. After all, we usually live life as we stumble through it, and understand it on looking back. In the place where we hear one another's evolving stories, sudden insight often happens. Remarkably, in the telling of story we finally understand what a moment ten or twenty years ago really meant. And that is revelation... In the telling of stories, we learn what makes us similar, connected and beyond the desolation of separateness from one another."