Marriage and Family Ministry Teams

Helping families to be agents of evangelisation within the parish

Seminar presented at ‘PROCLAIM 2012 Conference on the New Evangelisation’

Ron and Mavis Pirola

Thank you for joining us in this seminar to discuss a topic that is very dear to our hearts, namely the marriage and family as a major resource for evangelization in the parish.

We propose to talk for approximately 20 minutes and then to spend time together sharing our experiences and insights.

To have a new evangelization coming from our parishes, something has to change. We propose that one approach to change should come from drawing on a relatively untapped resource in our parishes – marriage and family. We’d like to propose a particular game plan as to how to start that process.

But first, let’s look at some general aspects of marriage and family.

Part I: Background Considerations

Families have needs

Generally in the Church when we think about marriage and family life, we tend to think in terms of supporting the needs of couples and their families – what is the Church doing for families? We tend to focus on providing support for them, such as counselling, mental health, emergency relief and so on

This approach has a rich history in the Church and is well developed through a strong social welfare network. By and large we do this well.

Families are gifted

However, this approach is focused on the needs of families and can overlook their giftedness. Yet every parish is richly endowed with a major resource for evangelization –its families.

In 1981, Pope John Paul the Second, in Familiaris Consortio, went to great lengths to emphasise the giftedness of marriage and family life, especially their evangelizing capacity.

He wrote, “Family: become what you are!”  [Blessed John Paul II, FC: 17, 1981] In other words, your lives now reveal something of the depth of God’s love, so keep developing and spreading that love.

On numerous occasions, he made statements such as, “I repeat with conviction….No plan for organized pastoral work, at any level, must ever fail to take into consideration the pastoral care of the family …. the goal of (which) ….. consists …… above all in stimulating couples and families to play their own and irreplaceable part in the Church and society“. [Blessed John Paul II, Discourse to Bishop Presidents of Episcopal Commissions for the Family,Rome, Nov1988]

In other words, he was trying to create a change in mindset to think of family ministry as particularly drawing on the gifts of married couples and their families.

He made the same point a number of other times in blunter terms, such as, “the family is not simply the object of the Church’s pastoral care. It is also one of the Church’s most effective agents of evangelization”. [Blessed John Paul II, Ecclesia inAsia, 46, 1999]

He was conscious of the fact that the family, as the domestic church, is in the foreground of evangelization, with its interactions at all levels of society – with neighbours, in the work place and at every level of social contact. Most people don’t read Church documents but their opinions about the Church are heavily influenced by the lifestyle of the Catholic families around them.

Blocks to recognizing evangelizing potential of families

There are a number of blocks to recognizing the evangelizing potential of marriage and family. In fact these blocks can be so powerful that marriage and family can get great lip service but very little practical recognition.

It’s revealing to look at the Catholic Directory which lists all the Diocesan Agencies and Organisations and compare Marriage & Family to other areas of activity.

One major block can be that our concept of marriage and family ministry can sound unrealistic or elitist – as though we are assuming that everyone has a perfect family. On the contrary, our starting point is that every relationship carries an element of brokenness. Sometimes it is more obvious than at other times, but all of us have to cope with failure.

Certainly in our own marriage there have been times when we have lain awake wondering where we have gone wrong, even blaming each other when we need each other the most. But we would say that wherever family members choose to hope, love, persevere, trust, courageously try again, the presence of Jesus is felt and the Spirit is moving, the Gospel is alive. In fact, our so-called broken families can have a lot to teach the rest of the parish about perseverance in the face of loss and trust in the face of setbacks.

Another block is to think that marriage is just ordinary. One woman told us that she much prefers to go to a conference on Baptism than on family because family is ‘all that messy stuff’. But parish life is full of messy stuff and that’s precisely where the gift of marriage and family comes in. It is the ‘extraordinary in the ordinary’. These families are all around us and they are a major natural resource in evangelization.

Marriage brings a different perspective to ministry

The engine room of family life is the married couple relationship. Apart from our faith, getting married is the single most important decision people make and couples spend a lifetime working on their relationship. It’s that relationship which is of major importance to the welfare of their children and it’s that relationship that they bring with them into their parish involvement.

Single people tell us that their friends’ conversation changes when they become married. A further change takes place when they have children. That is because marriage is like a prism that gives a different perspective on life to that of a single person. It is not better or worse. It is just different – just as the perspectives of men and women are different and we need both to create a healthy parish community.

Flowing from the married perspective are certain qualities or graces that are much needed in parish life. One is forgiveness. Parish community is constantly weakened by hurts and tensions, often with people walking away or at least pulling back.

Forgiveness is a way of life for married couples. We tend to take each other for granted, to make sarcastic comments and not to listen to each other. Our own marriage couldn’t survive if we didn’t repeatedly forgive each other. It is so common that it is over looked and often referred to as ‘working on your marriage’. A couple will tend to bring their lifestyle of habitual forgiveness to parish life where it is sorely needed.

Another gift of marriage is sexual intimacy. That is the single feature that distinguishes matrimony from all other good Christian relationships. We live in a society that distorts the wonderful gift of sexuality and undercuts the value of commitment. The presence of loving committed couples who are confident in their sexuality is a wonderful sign. Such couples help the parish to witness to the intimate love of Jesus for his people. Our incarnate spirituality, which is expounded in the Theology of the Body, is strongly witnessed to by the presence of the married couples around us.

Building a warm welcoming community is a major challenge for our parishes. The hospitality of our family homes, our Domestic Churches, is the natural training ground for building hospitality in parish life. In fact we recommend that wherever possible, parish programmes be held in the home.

Co-responsibility of couples and families for parish life

The charism of marriage and family takes on a particular significance when we consider Pope Benedict XVI’s statement about the role of the laity. He said, “This demands a change in mindset, particularly concerning lay people. They must no longer be viewed as “collaborators” of the clergy but truly recognized as “co-responsible”, for the Church’s being and action”. [Pope Benedict XVI, address at Rome Diocese Pastoral Convention on the theme ‘Church Membership and Pastoral Co-responsibility, 26 May 2009. See also Sunday Mass reflection in S. Giovanni della Croce Parish in Colle Salario: The Pontiff expressed his satisfaction that the community “wishes to promote, in regard to the vocations and the role of consecrated persons and the laity, the co-responsibility of all the members of the People of God.”]

So the question is: how do we activate the co-responsibility of married couples and their families in the parish?

Part II: Practical Application

If we start by thinking about what can we do at parish level to unleash the evangelizing potential of marriage and family, it’s not hard to come up with a list of possibilities. Some can be ambitious, some can be just small simple things. Some may suit some parishes more than others. In fact the list is endless and if they don’t come readily to mind, we can hop onto the internet and find huge numbers of ideas.

They all come back to one simple question: Who is going to do it? One can imagine most parish priests saying, “Find me the personnel and I’d love to have that happen in my parish”.

Proposal: Parish Marriage & Family Teams

So our core point is that what is needed at parish level is a Marriage and Family Ministry Team or Council. This is the single most important step in making things happen. This is an evolving concept. It began with Pope John Paul II setting up in 1981 the Pontifical Council for the Family. In his typical prophetic and counter-cultural style he appointed married couples as members. That’s quite different to persons who happen to be married. He was drawing on their sacramental relationship.

At the first Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, one of the recommendations was that there be similar marriage and family councils at national, diocesan and at parish level. Now there is an Australian Catholic Marriage & Family Council. It evolved over many years and is also made up of married couples. There are now Marriage and Family Offices in major Australian Dioceses.

What we need now is to implement this concept at parish level so that the mentality of evangelization through the family can be at the heart of parish life. We believe that the creation of Parish Marriage & Family Ministry Teams would be the best way to bring this about.

Let’s unpack that idea for a moment. We deliberately use the word team by which we mean a minimum of two or three people. Hopefully, it would be more than that. We would consider married couples as couples, where possible, to draw on the gift of their sacrament.

We are comfortable with starting with a small number. One of our guiding principles in anything new is to ‘start small and think big’. By that we mean to get the model right with a small number but always have in mind the hope of expanding it to involve bigger numbers later.

We need a team for a number of reasons.

1. First of all, being part of a team helps us to develop the vision of marriage and family ministry. We learn by doing and interacting with one another.
2. Secondly it gives us continuity of involvement. Working with others can help carry us through the inevitable down periods when we can lose momentum and then give up altogether.
3. Thirdly, in working with each other we develop new ideas. In my scientific research it is important that our research team takes time to develop new ideas together which we won’t do when we work on our own. And in our family ministry, we are constantly amazed at how coming together prayerfully will find new ways forward.

Two main steps

So how do we go about setting up such a team? We would recommend the following approach.

Firstly it has to be ‘grounded’ in prayer. And prayerfulness has to permeate all that we do. Ultimately, we are building relationship with Jesus, making the parish the Body of Christ. Particularly in this Year of Grace, as we start afresh in Jesus Christ, we need to give thanks for his love. That love is expressed through the lives of his people and, in special ways, through the care of couples and their families. Furthermore, innovative ways of promoting couple prayer should be an important priority. We believe that family prayer, which is also of major importance, will then be much easier to implement.

Secondly, as in any organization, the selection of the team is a crucial step. We are talking about a leadership role, so it requires an invitation. People respond to invitation. A general call for volunteers may reach more people but it may not provide the best leadership and can sometimes even be counterproductive.

It is important to look for people who are not heavily involved already in the parish. Every parish has a wonderful band of strong faithfuls but we need to look more widely.

Of course, finding the uninvolved is a huge challenge. The best way to start is to meet with at least two or three other people who know the parish well. By interacting with others, far more names are likely to come to mind than doing this on one’s own. There is a huge reservoir of faithful parishioners who are so-called ordinary family people who could bring their gifts to this ministry. Most of them will never volunteer but many would respond if invited.

As for the qualities needed for this role:

• obviously they have to have a mature faith. That is fundamental.
• They have to have some leadership skills. This is a leadership role. Everyone has gifts but not everyone has the skills required for each role in the parish.
• They need to be relatable. In other words, they need to be the sort of people who tend to attract others. A question to ask oneself would be: “Who are some of the people whose homes are warm attractive places for other parishioners?”
• And enthusiasm is important, as it is in any parish leadership role.

There are a number of things to avoid. Some we have already mentioned:

• Such as not just calling for volunteers
• and not just asking those already heavily involved in the parish.
• However, it is important not to overlook someone just because he or she is known to be a busy person in other areas. Just because someone happens to be a politician, a busy tradesman or teacher or training for the Olympics doesn’t mean they can’t also be doing something in their parish.
• Also it’s important to avoid appointing people with a track record of conflict or tension. One needs to ask oneself: “Is this person likely to bring a sense of unity to the team?”

Then we have to think about how to invite them. They need to hear certain things:

• The importance of this role to the parish
• The qualities that others see in them which are needed for this role.
• The fact that others were consulted before inviting them.
• And finally what is involved. There are endless possibilities but they should be approached one step at a time.

In a nutshell: a MFMT is a team of prayerful animators with vision and enthusiasm. It is more than a parish contact base, although that in itself is a great start.

So what does the Team do?

In the Appendix is a list headed ‘Marriage & Family Ministry – the Opportunities’. It lists a number of possible ways in which couples and their families can be agents of evangelization in the parish.

Some of these activities may already be thriving in your parish. There are a lot of good things happening out there! For example, sacramental preparation programmes, the celebration of special wedding anniversaries, childrens’ liturgies, marriage preparation, bereavement outreach and many others.

Of course, there is always far more that can be done. And each parish knows best what is appropriate for its particular situation. However, focussing on what needs to be done can allow us to lose sight of the gifts that we can bring. In the case of a married couple and their family that means bringing the qualities of the marriage and the qualities of their domestic Church into what they are doing.

At the most basic level, a Parrish Marriage & Family Ministry Team can act as contact point for a diocesan or deanery network of planning and action. It can receive and distribute information and resources about marriage and family life. At the same time, it can also involve families in ministry as families

A simple example is the Grandparents Kit that was distributed to all Australian parishes recently. In our parish it would have been just one of thousands of items received and, not surprisingly, it went unnoticed. So that was a communication and distribution problem. However, when we personally showed it to our parish priest and offered to distribute it at Masses on the Sunday closest to the Feast of Sts Joachim and Anne, the grandparents of Jesus, he was delighted. So we put a notice in the bulletin and families in the parish distributed the handouts to each parishioner as they arrived at Mass. More importantly, it brought the smiling faces of the Domestic Church to the parish entrance while the handout itself highlighted for the parish one aspect of family life, namely the role of grandparents in passing on the faith and the evangelizing gift in that. So it was both fulfilling a need in the parish and promoting community through family life.

That was just one tiny example. But if a group of couples get together, they soon start to see other opportunities and develop other ideas of what can best suit their parish.

The first and foremost area of evangelization of the married couple is with their own children. They are the prime educators of their children in faith and life.

Beyond the family, other particular areas where married couples can witness and mentor are: to the engaged and to newly married couples. Personal contact and mentoring by couples is a particular opportunity for evangelization. In the process, the mentoring couple grows in their own relationship.

Marriage & Family Ministry Teams don’t ‘have to do it all’. For example, for marriage enrichment there are marvelous movements such as Marriage Encounter, Teams, Couples for Christ and SmartLoving. There are pamphlets here on these. Neighbouring parishes could combine to outsource one of these programmes. The parishes would only need to publicise and promote the event.

It is also important that the Teams see themselves as animators, not just doers. They need to encourage other families and to draw them into sharing their gifts with the parish. It is a particular form of Stewardship.

Networking of Teams is important

To be effective, these Teams need to network with other Parish Teams and to exchange ideas with a central source. We have a model for this in Broken Bay Diocese where the Co-ordinator of Family Life Ministries, Janette Davidson, has made a start on this and has established a diocesan network of parish marriage and family life ministries. The initial feedback has been encouraging and she plans to hold regional gatherings to share ideas and experiences.

The promotion of Parish Marriage & Family Ministry is a particular project of the Australian Catholic Marriage & Family Council. We invite you, if you are interested, to print your email address on the sheet on the table so that we can keep in touch and exchange information and developments. We would certainly appreciate any feedback from you. With all the vast resources of today’s social media, it should be much easier to share resources and experiences.

Finally, could we make the point that the biggest challenge for us in this Seminar is to balance the need to make things happen with the importance of developing the right mentality. Ultimately, we need to develop our understanding of the evangelizing power of the family. It is our hidden treasure, waiting to be activated.

We would like to stop here. Thank you for your time. And now we would like to hear from your experiences.

APPENDIX: Guidelines for the Formation of a Parish Marriage and Family Ministry

The establishment of a Marriage and Family Ministry Team (MFMT) in a parish is the key to the success or failure of this ministry. This is the single most important step in ‘making things happen’.

The MFMT would be accountable to the Parish Priest and the Parish Pastoral Council.

An important step is the involvement of uninvolved parishioners.

The difficulties of involving new people are enormous – but the reservoir of potential personnel is also huge.

We recommend the following approach:

• Meet with at least two or three other people of sound judgement who know the parish well. By interacting with others, far more names are likely to come to mind than doing this on one’s own.
• Consider married couples, as couples, where possible. Draw on the gift of their sacrament.
• Spend some time prayerfully reflecting on the qualities that one would hope to find in people suitable for a Marriage & Family Ministry team.
• Some guidelines to qualities required:
  • A mature faith – fundamental.
  • Leadership skills – this is a leadership role. Everyone has gifts; not everyone has the skills required for each role.
  • Ability to attract others to be involved – more important than any leadership style. A key question would be ‘Who are some of the people who are committed to family life and whose homes are warm attractive places for other parishioners?’
  • Enthusiasm – important, as in any parish leadership role.
• Do NOT:
  • try to find new leaders on your own.
  • start with people who are already heavily involved in parish activities, no matter how effective they are.
  • overlook someone known to be a busy person in other areas. They can decide for themselves.
  • make a general call for volunteers.
  • appoint people with a track record of conflict and tension. Ask yourself: ‘Is this person likely to build a sense of team work at parish meetings?’
• Having selected names, approach them directly and tell them
  • why this role is important to the parish,
  • what qualities in them led you to ask them,
  • that you consulted with others before asking them,
  • what is involved – do not understate the involvement but talk about it motivationally
• Provide briefing and training and ongoing support.
  • Motivation and understanding regarding importance of role,
  • input regarding the Church’s vision for marriage and family life
  • practical suggestions and sharing of ideas
  • monitoring of progress

Marriage & Family Ministry – the Possibilities

Affirmation and welcome of Marriage & Family Life in the Parish

This single strategy is of major importance. In 2002, every UK diocese took part in an extensive consultation with laity. Welcome to the parish was identified as the single most important issue for families. Anecdotal evidence in Australia supports this. Affirmation is the single most important antidote to debilitating pessimism. When good people get together to improve things in the Church, the conversation soon turns to problems and the cumulative effect is destructive negativism. A culture of affirmation opens us to the extraordinary good that is evident in the lives of parishioners, even in the most difficult circumstances. It raises hope and encourages us all to do even better.

• Establish a Parish Facebook – ensure that it includes a family perspective.
• Establish a Hospitality Roster to welcome people before and after Sunday liturgies, involving whole families as far as possible.
• New families in parishes to be contacted by a parish family and personally welcomed.
• Affirmation of milestones in family life during parish liturgies (eg wedding anniversaries, blessing of children baptised during the year, blessing of expectant parents, newly married couples)
• Affirmation of single parent families during parish liturgies. It is noteworthy that all relationships carry some element of hurt or loss and affirming single parent families that provide models of handling such difficulties with commitment and courage in adversity. Public affirmation general without specific identification of single parent families.
• Affirmation and welcome of families with members who have disabilities
• Recognise and affirm the gifts of single people in parish life.
• Establish a Family Visitation Program whereby families in the parish annually invite at least one other family to visit their home and share a meal
• Celebrate the faith heritage of ethnic groups in parish
• Promote special marriage/family events eg Marriage Sunday, Family Week, St Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Grandparents’ Day.

Involvement of Children and their Families in Parish Liturgies

• Promote Sunday Children’s Liturgy (or ‘Kid’s Church’) as a means of encouraging families with young children to participate in Sunday liturgies. There are many parish models of this in which the Liturgy of the Word is handled separately for children and adults. Involving couples as couples has the advantage of bringing both the masculine and feminine perspective to the passing on of the faith.
• Establish Primary School “Class Masses” to be held at regular intervals on Sundays. These could be for children of a particular primary school class, from both Catholic and non-Catholic schools; require attention to involvement of children in the liturgy and making ‘unchurched’ parents feel welcome. Guidelines are available on a variety of diocesan websites.

Formation/education for Marriage and Family Life

• MFMT to gather information regarding initiatives/programmes relating to marriage and family life.
• Parental Involvement in Sacramental Programmes. Where possible, these should be home based to provide a welcoming and hospitable atmosphere which can be especially significant for families of mixed faith. Promotes concept of Domestic Church.
• Promote parental Involvement in Primary School Faith Education though a model that involves parents in homework of school faith programmes, eg ‘Walking Together in Faith’ (www.teresapirola.net/walktogether), ‘My School Diary’ (www.LivingWellMedia.com.au)
• Distribution of regular ‘Family Tips’. Establish a central resource of ‘family tips’ for ‘drip feeding’ via outlets such as parish bulletins, school newsletters. A variety of websites provide suggestions and resources that can be adapted to individual parishes.
• Youth – in a parish-based youth programme, encourage the mentality that this involves proximate marriage preparation. Encourage input on Theology of the Body and involvement of married couples (eg Antioch Youth Movement).
• Immediate Marriage Preparation. Encourage mentoring by married couples in the parish wherever possible. Programmes available include ‘Evenings for the Engaged’, ‘SmartLoving Engaged’. These are usually run over six sessions in the home of the presenting couple.
• Newly married couples. Ideally mentored by couples from the parish. (‘Ministry to the Newly Married’)
• Marriage Enrichment and Leadership Development. Consider promoting at least two marriage enrichment programmes annually. These could be held in the parish itself or offered at deanery or regional level. These could include weekend or evening seminars run by Marriage Encounter, Teams, Couples for Christ, SmartLoving Marriage, Centacare, Diocesan Stewardship training, Catholic Adult Education Centre and other Catholic agencies. Importantly, couples need to be called to mission as couples – to contribute to the parish in a leadership capacity.

Christian education in sexuality

The growing disillusionment arising from the sexual revolution presents the Church with an unparalleled opportunity for evangelisation. The Church has the world’s most comprehensive and soundly based approach to sexuality. Our greatest resource for this is the experience of sacramental marriages and Christian families. Australia is arguably in a better position than most countries to communicate Church teaching such as the Theology of the Body in relatable language because of the informed enthusiasm of a very small but growing number of young Catholics.

• Organise parish and/or deanery talks and seminars on Christian sexuality
• Promote the Church’s vision for sexuality including explanation of why the Church promotes NFP. Examples could include: lectures by experts, Café or Alpha style meetings using YouTube clips, DVDs by Christopher West and others, seminars organised by Catholic Adult Education Centre, Centacare, SmartLoving, etc
• Address current issues such as pornography, influence of media, embryonic stem cell research. Examples could include: lectures by experts, Café or Alpha style meetings using DVDs by Christopher West, Choicez and others, seminars organised by Catholic Adult Education Centre, etc.

Outreach and support

• Embrace divorced and civilly remarried couples and their children in parish life (see ‘Divorce and the Catholic Church – FAQs’ – provides in clear yet compassionate terms the Church’s teaching regarding divorce and civil remarriage with special regard to the Eucharist).
• Promote awareness at a Parish level of regular information nights on the annulment process. These provide a pathway to inclusion in the Church
• Establish a Bereavement Outreach – includes visitation, card to family on 1st anniversary, annual parish Mass for those deceased in last year.
• Recognition and welcome for those who feel distanced from the Church because of ethnic background, sexual orientation, etc.
• Promote healing experiences to reach out to those who are hurting.
• Establish a ‘Meal Bank’ for those in crisis/need.

Prayer

• Launch ‘Movement for Continuous Prayer for Marriage and Family Life’. Requires one parishioner to co-ordinate a roster of parishioners to pray for one hour a month for marriage and family life. It is made relatively easy by the provision of an inclusive prayer booklet.
• Promote couple prayer
• Create a parish ‘Catholic Family Rituals Resource’ which celebrates family relationships and nurtures family spirituality.

The list of things that can be done in families is almost endless and only a few may suit an individual family at one particular time in its life cycle but the impact can be considerable. Most of these ‘rituals’ are small and simple, eg blessing a child as one says good-night, having a ‘treat’ on the way home from Mass. What may not suit one family may be ideal for another. Disseminate individual suggestions periodically through parish homilies, bulletin clips, school newsletters, Catholic media and parish organisations and lay spirituality movements.

Prioritisation of time for God and Family

A very difficult long term project with a very high potential benefit. The strategy is NOT to ‘turn back the clock’ but to engage fully in modern society and to prioritise time for relationships. A central part of the strategy is reclaiming Sunday as ‘the Day of the Lord’, a process that, apart from its spiritual value, brings a psychologically healthy rhythm into daily lives and helps to clarify daily priorities. Families would play a pivotal role in such a process. Despite the powerful tide of a materialistic lifestyle the strategy has the advantage of responding to a heartfelt need for a better balance in people’s lives.

• Promote Family Meals as a major means of sharing values and building relationships – a core gathering of the Domestic Church.
• Reclaim Sunday as ‘the Day of the Lord’ through tips for families – ‘drip fed’ through outlets such as bulletin clips, school newsletters, etc
• Avoid Functions on Sundays, where possible, unless related to Spiritual or Family Support.
• Refer to Sunday as ‘The Day of the Lord’ wherever practical. (Eg notice board of Mass times outside parish church).