The Rite Stuff

Re-weaving faith community life: Parish sponsors

Many of our young adults fall away shortly after the baptism because they don’t know anyone else in the community. They can’t seem to find other parents their age, and they get lost at many parish functions. Everyone else seems to know someone. They may be interested in getting involved in the parish but they don’t know how to “get in.” Although to an insider it seems fairly straightforward, to someone who has been away or who is new to the parish, it can be a formidable task.

According to the latest studies, the young adult population (those in their 20s and 30s) is even larger than the baby boomers in numbers. They represent at least one-third of our church but are frequently absent from our Sunday assemblies. One reason is that they are looking for the presence of their peers, often noticeably absent from liturgical ministries. They also seek good preaching and music as part of the worship experience. Like all of us, they want to feel they are welcome and want to belong somewhere. Additionally, 40 percent of young adults have had no religious formation and are confused by Catholic rites and beliefs.

Enter the concept of parish sponsor; actually, we call them companions so as not to confuse the sacramental concept of “sponsor.” Each new family is assigned another family in the parish to walk with them for one year. The sponsors agree to make contact with their assigned family monthly for one year. They can invite them to join them at Mass, have dinner in their home, come to parish events with them, and introduce them to others in the community.

This is a new ministry at our parish and one we will be expanding this year. Although anyone is welcome to apply, we hand-pick our sponsors and invite them to a half-day retreat once a year that helps reconnect them with their own faith journey and ideas about church. We try to match appropriate histories together — single moms paired with those who have been single parents, those with children who have special needs such as disabilities or illness paired with families that have struggled through such circumstances. We try to recruit couples under 40 so they are working with their peers. We train the sponsor couples in listening skills and offer them resources to help their new family.

We ask them to meet their new family at the baptism classes and to attend the baptism celebration. Later, they will maintain contact through a parish welcoming basket — small gifts to celebrate the birth of their child — and offering them parish and local resources to help them in their new responsibilities. We offer ideas on a seasonal basis (like introducing an Advent wreath) as a reason to contact them. We also have in place faith-sharing groups (similar to Renew groups) just for young adults. By integrating them into parish relationships, it is our hope that the baptismal commitment they have made on behalf of their child will deepen.

Of course, those companioning these families also benefit from growing in faith. Through the training sessions, they are enriched in their own understanding of who taught them faith and how they continue to grow now. These sessions give them special access to staff to explore faith questions that time usually does not permit in typical faith-formation experiences. Like catechumenate groups, they create their own community of support and, by sharing their faith, grow more deeply in their own relationship with God.

The Catholic Church has too long relied on a generational faith that presumes that a child born into a Catholic family will continue to practice Catholicism as an adult. Evangelical churches are teaching us that close personal contact is the most important way to attract young adults to stay in a faith community. When people join such a church (many of them have more than 10,000 members), they are immediately assigned a smaller group of people with whom they may do Bible study and other activities. The fact is, this method works, and their numbers are growing astronomically. While the Catholic faith remains the largest denomination in the Western world, if we don’t address the nurturing of these relationships in a very proactive manner, we will continue to see the loss of our members to other faith communities where they can more readily feel like they are welcomed and belong. ML

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