Introduction to JOURNEY
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Foreword
Thanks for entering the formation process of JOURNEY: New Life in Christ. You have already experienced the weekend retreat and are now invited to enter more deeply into a personal relationship with Christ and others through this faith journey. How often you have been told, “The best is yet to come!” Yes, the best is always yet to come because an ever-deepening appreciation of ourselves and our relationship with Christ continually brings us to something better. The hope and expectation are that the spiritual formation process outlined in this handbook will assist you in continuing to nurture your own spirituality as well as preparing to provide the JOURNEY retreat to the next group.
As a member of the JOURNEY team for the next retreat, you have a special calling and challenge. The calling is to continue your own growth as a disciple of Jesus and the challenge is to prepare well to provide an enriching retreat experience for the next group of retreatants. Both are fully interconnected as you will experience as you enter into this time of formation.
This handbook is provided as a resource to help you and all your team in responding to the calling and challenge you have received. It provides a wealth of material for you and your teammates to explore as you move forward in being disciples and witnesses to Christ.
The JOURNEY process has proven to be successful in many local parishes. It is crucially important that the process be followed carefully with adaptations made only after consultation with the JOURNEY Continuation Committee for your parish. The process as outlined in this handbook has been developed over the years under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the experience of innumerable retreat teams. Trust the Spirit as you journey through this time of preparation and formation.
Again, thank you for your commitment and your desire to continue your growth in your baptism through this renewal of your life in Christ. It will have a tremendous impact on you, your family, the next retreatants, your parish, your world. May the Holy Spirit be your Guide and Christ Jesus your Lord and Savior!
Fr. Tom Tank
Introduction
JOURNEY: New Life in Christ is a parish-based, volunteer-led retreat program, presented at the parish, by parishioners. The Holy Spirit is the true guide for the retreat and there are no professional presenters. JOURNEY is a way to grow in your relationship with Christ through a deepening relationship with your fellow parishioners. Formation can help you in your personal spiritual journey.
JOURNEY has three parts:
The weekend retreat
Formation
A life of service and spiritual growth
You’ve experienced the weekend retreat and have chosen to become part of the team that will give (because it is a gift) the next weekend retreat. You and your team will now enter a period of personal spiritual formation called JOURNEY with Christ.
JOURNEY was designed to proclaim the love of God which comes to us through Jesus Christ and to proclaim it in a way that, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can accept that love. The teams that minister the renewal weekends were formed to proclaim God’s Good News of love. Through God’s grace and mercy, every parishioner is offered an opportunity for a total interior renewal.
This is the primary experience of a JOURNEY weekend at a parish. The weekend gives parishioners the opportunity to respond more fully to God’s call to a deep and personal relationship with Him. During the weekend retreat, we are called to change our lives, rethink our priorities.
During the retreat you may have felt a subtle stirring or a strong response. Your weekend experience may have been a continued encounter with your loving Father and your friend, Jesus, or it may have been an unexpected encounter. The Holy Spirit may have begun to work in you. The team that put on the retreat expected that you would find a rebirth in the love of the Trinity. And now, you will provide the same opportunity for someone else.
The themes of the weekend help those who attend reflect on the power of the Holy Spirit to heal our lives, our place in God’s family, our personal relationship with Jesus as friend and brother. For some, the weekend may be their first experience of a loving and welcoming Christian community. They may hear a deeper invitation to Eucharist, to prayer, to Scripture. The themes provide the opportunity to reflect on living the values of the Gospel, forgiving and forgiveness, and the call to share the Good News with others.
As a result of your weekend experience, you have now committed yourself to your own spiritual growth, to increased discipleship in Jesus and to the ministry of the next retreat weekend. This handbook will provide you with the basic structure of how to prepare for and provide a retreat weekend. Keep in mind that the best preparation will be prayer and the best guide will be your Bible.
JOURNEY with Christ
JOURNEY with Christ is an exceptional opportunity to further your spiritual journey and deepen your relationship with Christ through Scripture, the faith stories of your fellow team members and through shared prayer. JOURNEY with Christ is not a series of committee meetings to plan the next retreat. Most people who faithfully attend the JOURNEY with Christ meetings say the deepening relationship with Christ is a life-long, life-changing experience. Each renewal team, although many parts, is one body with a common goal: to be a model of love and unity for the parish. The members of the team share both what they are and what they have, with each other, with those who attend the retreat and with the parish.
Each week you will pray together, share your experiences of God in your life and come to recognize more clearly God’s love for you so that you can share that love and faith with those who will attend the next retreat weekend. The team meetings are a time of spiritual formation, not event planning.
Formation is comprised of The JOURNEY Begins, Sharing Our Journey, JOURNEY with Christ meetings, Evening with the Holy Spirit and the retreat weekend. Living a New Life in Christ occurs for the outgoing team after they have commissioned the new team during The JOURNEY Begins.
A word about schedules. Yes, we should be on God’s time as we go through formation, but the demands of daily life necessitate respect for people’s schedules. It’s important to start meetings on time and end them on time, while allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through the agenda.