Christ The King Parish
Small Church Communities
Pleasant Hill, California

Welcome to the place for news and information 
about Christ the King Parish's 
faith-and-life-sharing communities!

FREE FAITH SHARING MATERIALS

Lent 2009
Cycle "B"
Faith Sharing Group
Discussion Outlines

Parishes across the U.S. are taking advantage of our offer to share the
Lectionary-based Lenten Renewal discussion materials we have created
and will use here at Christ the King Parish.
All six weekly sessions are yours for the asking with our compliments.

Contact
SCC Coordinator Al Garrotto
at
algarrotto@comcast.net

In Uganda, the word for Small Church Communities
is miaki, which means "small fires."

Why Small Church Communities at CTK?

Christ the King Parish, Pleasant Hill, CA, is a thriving suburban community in the San Francisco East Bay Area (Contra Costa County). Our size (nearly 4,000 families) can foster anonymous parishioners. By actively encouraging participation in small faith-and-life-sharing groups, we have been able to counter the problem of anonymity, at least to a degree.

We began, as many parishes did, by participating in a diocesan-wide Renew program in the mid-1990s. Between 700-800 parishioners joined groups. Most stayed through the completion of the five Fall/Spring Renew cycles. Following that, we encouraged Renew groups to stay together and helped other groups to form. 

For the next three years between 15 and 20 groups continued to meet at intervals throughout the year (some weekly, some monthly, some on other schedules). Each year, we rallied these groups to meet for a six-week Lenten Renewal series and resourced them with locally produced discussion outlines based on the readings for the coming Sunday . Between the on-going groups and new groups that formed, roughly 300-400 people participated each time.

In 2000, we added a four-week Advent series and again provided our own discussion materials and continued our usual Lenten Renewal series in the Spring of 2001. Twenty-eight groups met for these series.  

Over the past few years, a growing number of parishes around the United States have begun using our free discussion materials. It is our pleasure to serve these Small Church Communities in this way.

Thank you for visiting our site. Please come again.

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This SCC site was created on
September 25, 2001 
and last modified
January 31, 2009.