CLC Models: Network of Local Communities and Gatherings

 

Network of Local Communities and Gatherings

We are members of multiple communities: households, families, neighborhoods, parishes, workplaces, professions, civic associations, etc. Some of these communities may be strongly Catholic, others nominally Catholic or Christian, and some may have members who are of little or no faith.  “Critical conversations on issues that matter most” will vary widely depending upon the nature of community and the faith of its members.  The resources gatherings may use in addition to Commonweal will also vary. Some may use mostly Catholic resources, others mostly biblical resources, and others mostly secular resources. Therefore, there is no one size fits all model for a Commonweal local gathering. 

Anyone who is a subscriber to Commonweal can start their a CLC in their home, neighborhood, parish, workplace, public library, etc. Commonweal's generous five articles a month will provide an article a week making possible even weekly meetings. The whole archive of one hundred years is available on-line from which subscribers may choose articles then email up to five links a month to non-subscribers. 

What a subscriber chooses to call their meetings depends upon the nature of the local community. I would suggest if participation is limited to one’s household or family, friends, neighborhood, or parish, then it is probably better to call these events Commonweal gatherings rather than CLCs to denote the primary nature of the community is elsewhere  On the other hand if one’s home or parish is merely a location for forming a community whose primary purpose is recruiting other people to read and discuss Commonweal, then CLC is more appropriate.   

Depending upon the “missionary spirit” of the Commonweal subscriber, gatherings may be focused upon the “issues that matter most” to families, to a network of friends of a particular household, to a parish, a city, a county, a workplace, profession, or to particular political, economic, or environment issues, etc.  The key element that should make them Commonweal local communities or gatherings is the practice of reading articles and/or other materials with a spirituality centered on belief in the common good.