The "Commonlife" department of Sojourners is devoted to communities. Its monthly feature article has often profiled a community whose life we have wanted to share with our readers. We would like to broaden the focus to include practical issues of concern for rebuilding the church through shared life, with the hope that we can learn from each other in our common struggles.
This month's article is written by a member of New Jerusalem, a Catholic charismatic fellowship in inner-city Cincinnati, Ohio. We offer it in response to the many people who have asked questions about integrating new members into a community's life.
Suggestions or articles for this department should be sent to "Commonlife" at the editorial address.--The Editors
New Jerusalem's weekly Eucharist draws to a close, and the 300-odd persons crammed into the basement chapel settle down for miscellaneous community announcements. Visitors who are with us for the first time are asked to rise and be acknowledged. A warm round of applause greets the 10 or so people who stand awkwardly and shake the extended hands of community members around them. They are invited to an introductory talk after the gathering, and then the congregation joins in a closing song. To the newcomers standing in the midst of a sea of strange faces, it must seem that everyone in the community knows everyone else, that the intimacy of so many hugs and smiling faces belongs to a close group of old friends.
But in fact, New Jerusalem, like so many other communities blessed with a living faith and worship, constantly attracts visitors and new members. Some commit themselves and stay for years. Others come once or twice, or maybe remain for a few months and then leave, perhaps returning to parishes or prayer groups in other parts of Cincinnati.
But for all who come, it is difficult sometimes to enter fully into the community. Somehow they must learn for themselves what New Jerusalem is all about and what kind of people are behind the sea of faces. They must learn where the community has been and where it's going before they can decide to enter the journey. They have to learn the community's identity and be drawn into its energy before they can discover their own places within it.
In the early days of New Jerusalem, it was fairly easy to share with newcomers a sense of the Lord's gift to us. The good news of what was happening among us simply spread by word of mouth. The small group of members recognized visitors and readily shared with them the ways God had led us to relate with one another and taught us to reach out to the poor and broken. The newcomers moved with relative ease into the rush of life among this incipient family of believers.
God created among us a strong sense of identity as his people and an understanding of where we were called. We now refer to this time of abundant blessing in the life of New Jerusalem as the time our "myth" was forming--the time when the first chapters of our story were written.
Those who were with the community in those early days remember feeling a part of something very alive. They remember the long prayer meetings that lasted late into the night and the feeling of belonging. Most of them were teenagers who had made retreats with a young Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr, who is the pastor of New Jerusalem.
The community continued to grow from that small gathering of teenagers in 1971, and as it grew it moved--from a living room in a private home to a classroom, to a chapel, and by 1973, to the gymnasium of Ursuline Academy, a private girls' school in a Cincinnati suburb. In those days, 800 people gathered in that gym every Friday night to celebrate the Eucharist and to praise God. Our growth was so rapid that we were like an adolescent who suddenly notices his shirtcuffs at his elbows and his jeans up to his knees.
With our rapid growth came a new dilemma. How could we convey the sense of peoplehood, born of the Holy Spirit in a small group of teenagers, to newcomers of every age walking into a prayer meeting of 800 people? As the number of participants grew, we began our prayer meetings with an introductory talk on the community, and we initiated Life in the Spirit Seminars. These seminars gave attention to newcomers and became our way of welcoming people into the community.
But then another change came. In December of 1975, God called us to live together in Winton Place, a neighborhood in the industrial heart of Cincinnati. We grew in depth of commitment and diminished in numbers. We began to remodel old houses, to form households, and to share not only a weekly prayer meeting but the ordinary details of everyday life. We numbered 400 and were beginning to learn the meaning of the Lord's mandate to forgive one another "seventy times seven" times. It became clear that we needed to find new ways to share the vision the Lord had given us with new persons coming into our community.
The Life in the Spirit Ministry began to evaluate our procedures for welcoming newcomers. The questions were many: How does the Christian community transmit the original "myth" to people who come later? How does it effectively integrate the "second generation" into the life of the community? How does it help newcomers get in touch with its roots?
Our initiation program grew out of these questions in the spring of 1976. In the past four years the initiation ministry has expanded, refined, and adapted its initial concept.
The initiation process is understandable only from a faith perspective, and it bears fruit only through the movement of grace. However, it also is a socialization process by which those coming to our community learn our lifestyle, our attitudes and values.
The basic message of initiation is the gospel of Jesus. Each phase includes teaching on the Christian life, but that teaching comes from the substance of our lives, from our own experiences of the good news. Community is at the heart of the initiation teachings; relationship is the place where the Word is made flesh among us.
We modeled the content of our teaching on To Teach as Jesus Did, a pastoral message on Catholic education issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1972. In each phase we included dimensions of message, community, service, and liturgy.
As we developed an initiation program, we used the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, issued in 1972 by the Congregation for Divine Worship, a Vatican committee. Just as the Rite of Christian Initiation consists of four stages, climaxing in sacramental initiation, our own program involves four phases leading to commitment and communion with our particular body of Christ.
The four phases of the initiation program are designed to call and support each person through four natural stages of growth in entering Christian community. To help develop relationships, the participants in each phase are divided into small groups of five or six persons. These groups are led by community members who can serve as pastors for the group and invite the newcomers into our particular way of relating.
Phase I--inquiry--is an indefinite period of relatively unstructured contact with the community. Usually it begins with sharing liturgy and fellowship, followed by an introductory talk given each week where the curious may ask questions and learn more about New Jerusalem.
All newcomers are encouraged to offer their gifts in service to the fellowship. Those who are interested can then arrange an interview with a community member who will help them decide if they are ready to begin Phase II of initiation.
Dialogue with a faith companion is a vital part of the journey. Each initiate is assigned a sponsor, a member of the community who will provide an opportunity for dialogue and help with questions, doubts, desires, and difficulties that naturally arise.
Phase II--transition--draws the initiate into weekly sessions, generally lasting two and a half hours each on weeknights. Each of the nine sessions includes shared prayer, a teaching, small discussion groups, and fellowship. It is here that the participants begin to meet more community members, and have a chance to talk more about spiritual growth--or, for that matter, the Reds' latest victory.
When a group finishes Phase II and wishes to continue the journey with our community, its small discussion group is paired with another group (called a Circle of Spiritual Companionship) from the community with whom they meet every other week. This continues until Phase III begins in early Advent.
Phase III--choice--involves a decision and discernment of whether to join the community. Each of the 10 meetings in this phase includes a teaching on some aspect of our life together as a church community. Small groups continue to emphasize personal sharing and growth in commitment to community. In the interim between Phases III and IV, personal interviews are held to help the new persons discern their call regarding commitment to New Jerusalem.
Phase IV--communion--is the last phase of the process and is held during Lent. Lent traditionally is a time of conversion within the entire church, and for New Jerusalem it's a time of re-examining our response to God and the way we live out that response in community. A Mass of the Holy Spirit is celebrated, and all pray together for a deeper experience of God's love and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The initiates continue to meet weekly for further teaching and sharing and join the rest of the fellowship in this process of purification. Phase IV closes on Holy Thursday, when the initiates who have decided to continue the journey with us join all community members in signing their statements of commitment for the following year. Each member then joins a Circle of Spiritual Companionship. Those circles are formed from the initiation groups, or initiates may join already existing circles of community members.
The new persons now are full members of the community, and because this process of initiation has taken almost a year, they are no longer "new," but have become fitted and joined together with other members of the fellowship. They look out on the sea of faces now and see not strangers but friends.
This process of incorporating new members is not without problems. We are constantly evolving, looking for ways to better support our new life. Some people, who would like to be "full" members right away, think the process takes too long. One family in our most recent initiation group found the time demands of initiation and other community gatherings a strain on their family life. They decided to leave the community in order to spend more time building relationships within their own family. Others have experienced an enrichment of their family life through the same initiation process and have joined us.
For New Jerusalem this process seems the best way of integrating "second generation" brothers and sisters into the life of our community. Through it we can communicate our history and vision and can share our journey as God's people. We have found that this process allows us to receive the gift of life the Lord is sending us in new brothers and sisters. We have loved and cried together, hurt each other and been reconciled. We have grown slowly into one community, one body of Christ.
Mary Glynn, a children's art teacher, had been involved with New Jerusalem's initiation program since January, 1975 when this article appeared.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!