Building Community
As the process of conversion is lifelong, so building a community of love is an ongoing process. In your sessions, you will want to foster certain qualities that will allow sharing and learning to flourish more easily because a community of love is established. The community won't be perfect but will be in process. Four essential qualities to building this community are understanding, respect, communication, and collaboration.
Understanding is the first step or building block. When persons listen to and understand one another and appreciate each other's differences as gifts, they are less inclined to hurt others or to have problems in relationships within the group. They become less self-centered and their perspective is widened.
Respect is based on understanding. Just as the participants expect to receive respect, so must they be willing to freely give it. Respect helps build self-image and esteem and enables the participants to better realize their worth as children of God.
As respect grows, so does the desire and even the need to communicate . Help foster an atmosphere that encourages participants to express themselves freely but also with respect for the feelings and viewpoints of others.
Collaboration is an important skill for participants to acquire in building up a community of love. Learning how to work together is essential if they are to make the most of their sessions and fulfill their calling as disciples of Jesus to carry on his mission.
The facilitator can draw out participants who tend to be silent, but also challenge those who express themselves more freely to allow others the time to share their ideas and reflections. Facilitators should strive to stretch the minds and hearts of the group members through activities, questions, and so on, and to keep communication open between themselves and each catechist or teacher in their group. They can ask the group how they think the session went, affirm the strengths of each person, point out any problem behavior and suggest behavior changes in a positive way.
For example, if catechist John tends to take a lot of time sharing his own experiences, the facilitator might affirm his contribution but suggest that, because of time constraints and the need to enable others to share, John briefly share the main point or points of his reflections.
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