BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--After completing Season I of RENEW 2000, which attracted more than 17,000 people of the archdiocese to faith sharing groups, parish coordinators say the feedback is extremely positive and additional people are expected to sign up for Season II starting in Lent.

“We had a very positive response overall. It was very exciting to see our young adults, who continued to meet between Seasons,” said Denise Hains, RENEW 2000 coordinator at the Church of St. Ann in Marietta. “Our young adult groups love the way it brings the tradition and Scripture together into a practical lesson they can think about.”

St. Ann’s formed 102 faith sharing groups involving over 1,000 people, including a satellite group of young adults attending local colleges who decided to use RENEW 2000 faith sharing materials. St. Ann’s Little Rock Bible study program has also added members, apparently as a result of the interest in Scripture generated by RENEW groups, Hains said.

Jewel Marks, coordinator at Holy Family Church in Marietta, said that parish formed 18 adult groups and 2 young adult groups in English, 5 Spanish groups and 1 Portuguese group, assisted by Father Jack Vessels, SJ, of the Ignatius Retreat Center.

“Every one of our groups wants to stay together” for Season II, said Marks. She expects as additional people sign up, some will be added to existing groups and then new groups will be formed. Each Season of RENEW is six weeks long.

Approximately 75 percent of the parishes and missions in the archdiocese opted to take part in RENEW 2000, in response to the call of Pope John Paul II for Catholics throughout the world to prepare spiritually for the year 2000, which will be celebrated as a Great Jubilee Year of salvation in Jesus Christ.

The process brings interested people together with others in their parish or mission once a week to reflect on a chosen topic, read Scripture, share their faith and discuss a practical faith action for the coming week. Groups are kept small, usually no more than 10 to 12 people each, and meet in homes. The reflection booklets are provided by the parish and follow one theme per RENEW Season.

The theme for Season I was the Trinity, while the theme for Season II, which will use Lent Scripture readings, will be conversion. Three future Seasons will be offered in the fall of 1999, Lent of 2000 and the fall of 2000 devoted to the themes of reaching out to others, reconciliation, and renewing for the 21st century.

People who want to continue to meet between Seasons can use other faith sharing booklets. The vision for the entire process is that many groups will continue beyond the Jubilee Year, forming a model of parishes made up of many small communities for the next millennium. The groups are always under the guidance of the parish and are called upon to serve the parish and to be active members. At the same time, small communities can help break down the anonymity for Catholics of large parishes and be a place for lay people to support one another, share faith, witness to the action of God in their own lives and be renewed by hearing others’ faith stories. Booklets are available in many languages, including Vietnamese and Korean.

“It was something that really affected me,” said Rob Mitchell, coordinator at St. Pius X Church, Conyers. “This thing is working because the Holy Spirit wants it to work. So many people told me it was a very touching experience for them and they had never done it before.”

“Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive” to Season I at St. John Neumann Church, Lilburn, according to Patti Miller, RENEW 2000 coordinator.

The parish had over 50 groups form in Season I and also involved its large, active Life Teen group in the faith sharing. Miller said she is preparing for over 600 adults and 130 teens to participate in Season II. “We are anticipating we will have more people” in Season II, she said.

“What is exciting is the whole diocese is doing this and to think there are small groups of people reflecting in homes, praying to the same ends, to be a people alive with the Gospel as the new millennium approaches,” said Terry Zobel, adult education/evangelization coordinator at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Alpharetta. “This is exciting.”

One of a few North Georgia parishes already familiar with the RENEW model, St. Thomas Aquinas came into RENEW 2000 with about 30 small faith communities already in place. “We have some groups that have been in existence for 10 years,” Zobel said.

The parish has now formed 18 new groups and all of its faith sharing groups, new and already existing, are studying the RENEW 2000 materials to be unified with one another and with their fellow Catholics across the archdiocese.

In a letter to his parish, Father Albert Jowdy, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas, drew from the imagery of the Epiphany in encouraging even more people to join a small faith community this Lent.

“We are not so very unlike the Magi who two millennia ago followed a star. We, too, long for deeper meaning in our lives, for a sense of purpose, for meaningful relationships, for reconciliation, for a way to make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren,” he wrote. “RENEW 2000 and its small faith communities provide a comfortable, prayerful setting for us to sort out the demands of our complicated, busy lives and to feed the hunger of our souls.”

“This is such an important moment for the Universal Church and for us as a parish. I encourage every adult and young adult parishioner to accept the Holy Father’s invitation and to join us in this historic movement of faith.”