Evening with the Holy Spirit
Everything you need for the Evening with the Holy Spirit is below. To jump to those sections quickly, use the Quick Links.
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Evening with the Holy Spirit is the opportunity for each team member to discern where he or she is called to serve during the next retreat weekend. Evening with the Holy Spirit is led by a facilitator identified by the Continuation Committee who will guide the group through the process.
Discerning God’s call is a faith exercise. It is a process of listening to God’s call to you for the ministry He has in mind for you for the next weekend retreat and formation. It is a process of listening to Him call your team mates also. It is not about what you want to do, but what He wants you to do. Often, people come into the process sure of their call, and the team hears it differently. It would be a mistake to look at the ministry descriptions and make any final decisions about what you will and will not do for the team at this point in the process. Discernment only happens with your recognition that it isn’t only your understanding of His will, but the team’s understanding of His will. And, it is all about you turning to His will.
Each team member has unique gifts. Team members bring their own personalities and spirituality to the team and to the retreat weekend. Each team member is being called to exercise a specific ministry during formation and during the weekend. No ministry is more important than any other ministry. All ministries, large and small, are needed in order to give the retreat weekend. The beauty of the weekend actually stems from the Holy Spirit and the interconnecting love the Holy Spirit brings.
Your facilitator will give you some preparation guidelines the week or two before Evening with the Holy Spirit, which will include prayer and listening to God’s voice. Your call may come as a quietly rising feeling, a slowly developing thought, or like a light bulb turning on. It can come during or after you are reading His word, the ministry descriptions or even as you go about your living, even at a long traffic light. Listen for Him wherever you go, whenever you stop.
Evening with the Holy Spirit has three elements:
An inner call to the Lord’s preference for your ministry and work in the coming weekend, and in how you participate in your weeks of JOURNEY with Christ ahead. Hearing God’s call may bring you peace or it may challenge you to serve in areas that are uncomfortable for you. Have no anxiety of you all. The Lord knows what He needs, what you need, and what the people attending the retreat need. He knows what will help your spiritual growth and what role you can assume to renew our parish.
The second element is the team discernment. Your team members may be called to encourage you toward a specific ministry, particularly when you are not clear on what your call is or if you feel inadequate about the ministry you are considering. Also remember that more than one person may feel called to the same ministry. This is where the team’s dialogue, if based on prayerful reflection, can discern who should serve in each ministry to benefit the whole team and the parish.
Third is the Commissioning. Here we will all call on the Holy Spirit to help us send forth each person to ministry. We will say a prayer after members are discerned as a form of commissioning.
Evening with the Holy Spirit asks you to have an openness of spirit, a readiness to grow in discipleship, the faith that God can speak to individuals and manifest His will through the community and trust in the Lord and the Holy Spirit. You will also be asked to speak the truth with love and receive that honesty with love, be aware of forgiveness and healing and love for each other.
The most important thing to remember is to be open to the Holy Spirit.
A note: Following discernment, you may still have questions about why you were called to a specific ministry. Trust in God. Move forward in faith. And ask for the Holy Spirit to bless your ministry.
Retreat Ministries
The specific ministries needed for the retreat weekend are determined by the parish Continuation Committee depending on the size of the team and are not changed during the Evening with the Holy Spirit. With large teams, some parishes choose to discern a lead coordinator and assistant(s) for the support ministries. Other parishes choose to discern co-coordinators. The Continuation Committee provides many of the behind-the-scenes support functions, so these ministries do not need to be discerned for a small team. An ideal JOURNEY team has about the same number as the number of retreatants for the retreat weekend. The recommended maximum number of people who can attend the retreat is 24, so no team would ever have more than 24 discerned ministries. Typically, the following ministries are discerned during Evening with the Holy Spirit:
Journey Leader
Six witnesses
Table Leaders (usually six, depending on number of retreatants expected)
Sacristan
Liturgist/Music Coordinator
Weekend Coordinator
Agape Coordinator
Materials Coordinator
Physical Arrangements Coordinator
Kitchen Coordinator
Invitations Coordinator
All possible ministries are described on the Ministry Descriptions page.
Variations in Team Sizes
Ministry roles that are discerned at Evening of the Holy Spirit may need to be modified due to team size. The Spiritual Guide and the Continuation Committee will make final decisions about the ministries to be discerned. The following provides suggestions as to what adjustments to make.
If there are significantly more team members than retreatants, the number of Table Leaders may need to be adjusted. The weekend retreat was designed such that one Table Leader and one witness would host six retreatants at each table. Fewer than four retreatants per table can inhibit participation. It may be better to add an extra witness to a table and decrease the number of Table Leaders discerned. Assistants or co-coordinators can be discerned for support ministries as needed.
A very small team can host a retreat weekend. It is best to discern the Witness Room ministries (Journey Leader, witnesses, Table Leaders) from the current team (formed from the immediate past retreat participants). A small team can also reach out to people who completed a retreat weekend previously but did not go through JOURNEY with Christ and add them to the team. In this situation, support ministries can be discerned from members of prior teams. It is important that there be no “professional” team members and that each team experiences JOURNEY with Christ as a new JOURNEY together.