Reinventing Commonweal Local Communities
Reinventing Commonweal Local Communities What do you see as the potential value of Commonweal Communities? A four-year experience in the 1980s as a voluntary member of pastoral staff of a parish in Toledo formed my ideal of a small community. Most of the pastoral staff members were volunteers. We were diverse in our parish responsibilities, professional backgrounds, and spirituality. Parish responsibilities included social justice minister, youth minister, accountant, maintenance. Professional backgrounds included a Black woman with a state level award for her public-school teachings who told stories that allowed children to think about values. We had a union shop steward. A couple who gave Marriage Encounters were our RENEW program leaders. The leader of woman’s organization had lost her daughter to suicide. Several of the staff had backgrounds in the charismatic movement. We took turns leading opening prayers by sharing our spiritual diversity. We functioned as a group of equa