The call to accompaniment
OEC offer workshops on making parishes spaces of belonging
What does it take to make a church both ‘invitational’ and ‘relational’?
That is the question and the challenge that the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis has been addressing across the Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennan in recent months.
From June to December of this year, the OEC has travelled across the Peace Country to offer workshops on the theme of “Hospitality and Accompaniment”. It is just one phase in the office’s ongoing efforts to offer workshops in formation and evangelization for pastors and parish leaders.
To OEC director Fr. Emmanuel Ekanem, hospitality and accompaniment represent two distinct but related acts of evangelization. At the grassroots and parish level, “hospitality” is about creating a welcoming environment, while “accompaniment” is about sustaining that environment, to help those who have been welcomed now continually feel that they belong in the Church.
“While hospitality is about building a ‘invitational’ church, accompaniment has to do with building a ‘relational’ church. It’s about how we are able to relate to our parishioners and sustain this sense of belonging throughout their lives,” he said.
These workshops, held for Deanery 3 last June, for Deanery 2 in October, for Deanery 1 in November and Deanery 5 in December (and a Deanery 4 workshop to be re-scheduled in the new year), provided tools and different practices to tackle this challenge. A key phrase used in the workshop is that hospitality and accompaniment represent “womb to tomb” ministries.
“From the moment one is born, the church is present in their lives. Accompaniment is a womb to tomb journey for parishioners,” Fr. Emmanuel explained. “So how do we journey with a family, from the moment they are born, through their upbringing, through their journeys into marriage or the priesthood, through all of their struggles in life – struggles in their finances, in their marriages, in their faith. How do we help them know the Church is part of their lives through it all?”
The central question for those in attendance was: Do people feel that they belong in your church, that it is their home and community, or do they feel that they are just “participants” or “spectators” in the church?
Harold Zimmerman attended the workshop on behalf of his parish, St. Charles Catholic Church in Nampa. The workshop reminded him how much a seemingly simple ministry like having greeters welcome people at the start of Mass can go a long way in sustaining a parish.
That initial greeting, Harold notes, can lead to deeper friendships, and the opportunity to let them know they have someone in the church they can talk to.
“To be a welcoming parish it’s important to have greeters and to follow up with people, to take notice of them. When Alice [my wife] and I were greeters, people would often say, ‘Thank you. It’s nice to be greeted’,” said Harold. “That’s the main thing: if people feel connected, they’ll be coming back to church.”
This is only an excerpt. Read the full story in the December 2024 edition of Northern Light