Interest Group Purpose: To gather with like minded people to share ideas and be inspired how to go home and serve in an area you are passionate about. How are you going to impact your local community in this area? What difference can you make as you go forward?
Please read through the following list and pick one topic of interest you desire to discuss:
- Pro life – Seeing the dignity in life from conception to a natural death. Helping others do the same.
- Arts: Music – Expressing God’s love and beauty through musical arts.
- Arts: Visual -Expressing God’s love and beauty using the visual arts (drama, painting, etc).
- Media – Communicating the faith in written word and digital media (blogs, journaling, articles, videos, etc).
- Missions – Direct or indirect ministry in communities outside of your own.
- Liturgy / Parish Renewal – Helping create great Sunday experiences around the liturgy through music ministry, welcoming, community building, proclamation of the Word, etc.
- Ecumenism – Building bridges with our Christian brothers and sisters.
- Prayer & Fasting – Impacting the world through the power of fasting and intercessory prayer, group prayer, healing prayer, etc.
- Youth and Family Ministry – Creating environments for youth and families to grow in faith.
- Ministry to the impoverished – Being God’s hands and feet to those most in need (talking with them on the street, soup kitchens, prison ministry, food banks, etc).
- Uniting Faith and Education – Having a greater faith presence in our school systems.
Interest Group Discussion:
The following questions are more of a guideline to help keep the conversation on topic. They can also be used to further conversation if the group is lacking direction.
- Share our names and where we are from. Briefly share why we chose this group and why we feel God is possibly calling us to this focus area?
- What am I or others (including existing organizations) already doing in this area? How can we better get involved with what is already happening? How can we learn and gather resources?
- What are new ways to potentially get involved in this topic area? How might these impact our communities?
- What do we think God might be asking us as individuals or as a group to do now that we have discussed some common practices and new potential ideas? What difference can we make as we go forward?
- How can we unite as a group to work together, to help support one another, and/or encourage one another in the topic area? How can we stay connected?Ideas: Start volunteering on the same day, share contact info to send updates and words of encouragement, start a Facebook Group, form a prayer chain, etc.
- Pray and lift up intercessions for your topic of interest and spend some time in silence listening for any promptings of the Holy Spirit in people’s hearts. Share any inspirations among the group openly and discuss.