International model of faith-based small groups finds a home in Minnesota archdiocese

ST. PAUL. Minn. (OSV News) — An international model of faith-based small groups is finding a home in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis less than a year into its implementation as part of Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda’s vision in his 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room.”

The model — Parish Evangelization Cells System, or PECS — is designed to strengthen parish life through small groups and encourage people to share their faith and hope in Jesus Christ with each other — and then the broader community.

Rick Goulart of Our Lady of Grace in Edina said he knows one person in his small group who began talking with his postal carrier about Jesus’ love, and over time, the postal worker asked about joining the Catholic Church at Our Lady of Grace through its Order of Christian Initiation for Adults program, or OCIA.

“That’s spreading the good news door to door,” Goulart said.

PECS is popular in parts of Europe, South America and Africa, but the Minnesota archdiocese’s approach marks the first time the model has been introduced across an entire diocese. More than 1,220 small groups with over 16,000 participants were established in the archdiocese during Lent this year.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Discipleship and Evangelization makes it easy for people to join small groups that promote prayer, community and evangelization with an interactive website map that can be searched by parish and small group types, topics, times, locations, days and targeted stages of life.

The goal at Our Lady of Grace is to have everyone in the parish be part of a small group, said Jessica Balzarini, the parish’s associate for discipleship. It will take time, Balzarini said, but some foundations are being laid.

PECS provides a structure that is fruitful when used consistently, while also allowing flexibility to meet the needs of any number of small groups, archdiocesan officials have said.

Seven elements of a PECS meeting are: praising God with songs and prayers; sharing recent experiences of God and participants’ responses to him; a teaching element and discussion, with content depending on a group’s focus; parish announcements; intercessory prayer for people in and outside the group; and prayers for one another’s petitions within the group.

“The way that our international partners have talked about it is the seven moments of a PECS small group are like the skeleton of a body,” said Gizella “Gizzy” Miko, PECS group facilitator in the archdiocese’s Office of Discipleship and Evangelization. “They help give it the structure that protects what’s essential.”

There is flexibility to minister to a particular need in a special way in a small group, while maintaining the seven elements that together make PECS effective, Miko told The Catholic Spirit, the archdiocesan newspaper.

Miko traveled to Milan, Italy, at the end of May with Laura Haraldson, the evangelization office’s facilitator of implementation, to talk about the archdiocese’s experience with PECS at the 34th International Seminar of Parish Evangelization Cells. They learned from other groups around the country as well, Miko said.

Danielle Blanshan, 28, a member of Epiphany in Coon Rapids, leads a small group of about seven women in their 20s and 30s who organized out of the Catholic Softball Group in the archdiocese. In addition to softball, Blanshan’s small group meets once a month to more deeply explore their faith in a PECS-based group.

“I love the community and talking about my faith,” Blanshan said.

The PECS model is effective, in part because it provides a variety of entry points for people to participate, and a framework in which to keep the conversation going, she said. It is a blessing to hear several viewpoints while steering the meeting forward, Blanshan said.

People who are quiet or shy might not offer a lot of small talk, but they could be ready to share as a conversation takes a more theological turn, Blanshan said.

“It rounds out the opportunity for everyone,” she said. “That, and I love the prayer at the end, the healing prayer or the intention prayer. That’s pretty cool.”

At first, Blanshan said, she asked people to write down their prayers so they could be read to the group. That was not popular with everyone, so “then I opened it up to a more ‘popcorn’ style of conversation and people were more willing to share,” she said.

“There is structure, but there is still some flexibility,” to the PECS model, Blanshan said.

Goulart, 71, said he leads a small group of about 12 people at OLG.

“The power of the PECS model, I think, is its design to regularly connect with people on their personal journey of faith outside of Sunday services, to meet them where they are emotionally, spiritually,” he said.

Goulart said he titled his group Be Calm Amidst the Chaos, and it has helped people from their late 30s to early 40s and into their late 70s share life’s stressors, such as family conflicts, anxiety or loss. Studies have included St. Gregory of Nyssa’s fourth century homilies that centered on the Lord’s Prayer and the Beatitudes, he said.

The group will meet Year Two’s focus on the Mass and the Eucharist this year as it helps implement the archbishop’s pastoral letter, and it is laying the groundwork for an effective Year Three focus on parents as the primary faith educators of their children, Goulart said.

Patty Beissel, 71, leads a small group using the PECS model at St. Raphael in Crystal. At a recent Sunday morning Mass, all 13 members brought up the offertory gifts. “That draws attention to small groups,” Beissel said.

“When I asked my small group (about bringing up the gifts) the hands went up” in affirmation, Beissel said. “Nobody commented. The hands just went up.”

At first concerned about forming a small group because “we did that years ago and I didn’t like it,” Beissel said she responded after a homily at her parish that stressed God’s presence to those who might be afraid.

She is happy she did. The PECS format encourages people to share without putting them on the spot and making them uncomfortable, Beissel said. It also helps the group leader keep participants on track when the conversation begins to veer off topic, she said.

“In my group, there is an order to it,” Beissel said, explaining that she honors people’s time by starting promptly at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and ending promptly at 11:30 a.m., with an open invitation to stay longer as people might desire.

“I play songs, it sets the tone for the meeting,” Beissel said. “I write the intercessions. There is trust in our group, and organization.”

Other small groups at the parish also are doing well, Beissel said, and she sees the benefit as people know each other better and are naturally kinder, more open, caring and sharing. Beissel herself plans to start a second small group, this one for couples.

Beissel said she is grateful to the archbishop. “I believe in his dream,” she said. “I believe this is how we get more people excited about the faith.”

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