By Paula Day

Five northwest metro deanery parishes are initiating RENEW, a two-and-a-half-year process aimed at revitalizing and giving new spiritual direction to every member of a parish faith community.

St. Jude the Apostle parish in Sandy Springs, St. Thomas Aquinas in Alpharetta, St. Joseph’s and Holy Family in Marietta and Holy Spirit in Atlanta plan to launch RENEW in October.

A nationally-known, structured effort, RENEW aims to involve everyone in the parish in its activities. These include focusing on and expanding the Sunday Scripture readings using homilies, music, prayer and small group discussion. The groups, led by specially-trained facilitators from the parishes, meet once a week during each of the five RENEW seasons. Each season lasts for six weeks.

St. Jude’s will precede its RENEW program with a parish mission, Oct 2-5.

“We’re taking a different tack,” Father Michael Woods commented. The current pastor of St. Jude’s and its two parochial vicars came to the parish in June, inheriting from the previous staff the plans to initiate RENEW.

“My contribution has been to voice a certain concern,” Father Woods continued. “RENEW is a Christian maintenance program so my concern was to question, ‘maintenance of what?’ Maybe we should review who we are before we start RENEW.”

With this in mind, Father Woods will conduct the mission, “gathering the parish to examine prayerfully what embers of the faith community expect to receive from parish life, and what they contribute to parish life as a community.”

“The goal of RENEW then will be to maintain the spirit of what happens in the mission,” he explained.

Parishes will initiate the process with a “sign-up” Sunday when parishioners will select the small group to which they want to belong. Holy Spirit, for example, will offer a variety of options for small group participation, varying time, location and group make-up.

The topic for the first six weeks will be “The Lord’s Call.” During Lent 1990, the topic will be “Our Response” to that call. In the fall of 1990, the topic will be “Empowerment by the Holy Spirit,” in Lent 1991, “Discipleship,” and the final topic in the fall of 1991 will be “Evangelization.”

Father Robert Baker, SM, pastor of St. Joseph’s, is looking forward to the experience of RENEW as the logical follow-up to the Parish Evaluation Project (PEP) completed last January.

“After that we made some organizational and administrative changes’ in the parish, he said. “RENEW will more specifically focus on the spiritual aspects of our parish.”

Under the direction of Tina Harding, RCIA director, 30 leaders have been trained to lead small groups that could serve up to 500 participants, according to Father Baker. St. Joseph’s has 1,650 households in the parish.

Holy Spirit in Atlanta celebrated its 25^th anniversary as a parish this year. Its pastor, Father Edward Dillon, pointed out that the parish has had a strong adult education component focusing on doctrine.

“The focus for RENEW, on the other hand, will be on the individual’s relationship with God and with the rest of the Church,” making the doctrine personal.

“I liken it to the old-style parish retreat,” Father Dillon said. “Only instead of lasting one week, it will last six weeks … and instead of fire and brimstone, it will focus on love of God and the call by God to each individual.”

Father James Fennessy, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas parish, pointed out that faith sharing in small groups will allow participants to get beyond superficial concerns and help them talk about those things that really matter. This will have the added benefit of bonding them into a support group. He noted that many in the Church in Atlanta have left their extended families in other parts of the country and they can find the Church here a substitute for supportive family they’ve left.

“One of my concerns,” Father Fennessy said, “is nothing has replaced the family rosary. There’s a lack of prayer in the family. I’m hoping RENEW will help bring back prayer into the home.”

Father Paul Fogarty expressed the same hope.

“RENEW can strengthen the faith of the people in the parish,” the pastor of Holy Family parish said. “It has a lot to offer to bring the parish together as a family and strengthen their sense of belonging to the Church. The approach is to take another look at Church and their life and their role in the Church.”

Father Fogarty also hopes the process will give longtime members of the parish and new members the chance to meet, mix, and “get to know one another on a first-name basis.”