Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s invitation to form parish-based small groups for community and evangelization might be stated another way, said Gizella “Gizzy” Miko.
“It’s a way of being parish,” said Miko, facilitator of small groups through the archdiocese’s Office of Discipleship and Evangelization. “The parish is really the family of God.”
Implementing the archbishop’s 2022 pastoral letter, “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room” includes a fruitful way chosen by the archbishop for parishioners to share their lives, their faith and their service through small groups. Called the Parish Evangelization Cells System (PECS), there are seven moments for praising God with songs and prayers; sharing recent experiences of God and participants’ responses to him; a teaching element; discussion, with content depending on a group’s focus; parish announcements; intercessory prayer for people in and outside the group; and prayers for one another’s petitions within the groups.
In the following conversation, Miko dives into some of the dynamics.
Q) Archbishop Hebda and Deacon (Joseph) Michalak (pastoral letter and formation advisor in the Office of Discipleship and Evangelization) have tried to make clear this is not just a program; it’s a way of “being parish.” Can you get into that a little bit?
A) The parish is really the family of God. We don’t interact with family like a program, but through relationships, through authentic excitement and care.
That’s really what we hope to see in small groups, that authentic care. It’s more than a signup or a program or an end goal of numbers of participants. It’s about relationships and growing in a relationship toward Christ together. And really, what we hope to see within a parish is the family of God, and we encounter our fellow parishioners as brothers and sisters in Christ. We don’t approach our family like a program. Why would we approach our family of God as a program?
Q) Why is (it) that small groups are the way to that; and then, why PECS?
A) One of the founding members of PECS encountered in his parish that it was too big and too anonymous. Small groups provided a vehicle by which there could be intimacy. Knowing each other was really a vehicle for healing, too.
I think we’re in an epidemic of loneliness, and small groups help prevent parishes from being places of isolation. They can become places of community, and not just community for the sake of community, but community for the sake of discipleship and evangelization. Because any group can have community. But is it a Christ-centered community?
Small groups help make that space where I can be known, I can share my struggles, my joys, my walk with God, rather than being anonymous within the pews of the parish. I think that’s something our lay faithful realized because this (the need for small groups) was a number one topic from the 2022 Archdiocesan Synod. The people have shown the need. It wasn’t just the archbishop saying, “All right, let’s do small groups.”
Q) What makes PECS different?
A) I’ve been part of many groups that don’t really have an objective. Some groups are dumping sessions or a group therapy session, or strictly theological study. I was always frustrated because I was never clear on what our purpose was and if I was in the right place or not.
But PECS has a direction. PECS is there to evangelize others, to help me grow as a missionary disciple, so much so that I’m bringing other people in. I haven’t encountered other small groups that have that concrete of a path.
I was talking with someone last week about an analogy I love to use (about) the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee has hundreds of species of fish. It’s thriving, it’s alive, it’s where trade happens. That same water is in the Dead Sea. It’s the same water, but the Dead Sea is dead because there is no outlet. The water just goes in and stays there, and all the salt is there, and nothing can thrive. If we have a small group that doesn’t have an outlet, it’s enclosed. Versus a small group that has an outlet, it has a way to be bigger than itself. That’s what gives it life.
Q) What is the way to make that happen? What is that outlet? How does that work?
A) First and foremost, it’s through prayer. The Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization. I’m not the evangelizer. It’s the Holy Spirit. He is leading me. Take time to listen. God, who are you calling me to walk with? Who in my life might need that? And pray for that person. And over the course of maybe years or maybe one year –– it’s not a math equation. It’s not just do X, Y and Z and you get whatever solution. You might be praying for one person for the next 20 years. And that might be how you are called to evangelize them, slowly, gently. With other people, it might be at a different pace; but it’s being attentive to God’s call. Who in my life is open right now to hearing the good news? And can I walk with them in such a way that that this small group would help expose them to the good things of God?
INTERNATIONAL PECS
The Parish Evangelization Cells System (PECS) originated in 1987 in Italy, when the late Father Piergiorgio Perini, known as Father PiGi, called 40 men and women to share the commitment to transform the parish of Sant’Eustorgio in Milan into an ardent community of faith that was dedicated to evangelization.
The first cell, or PECS small group, was born. The movement grew, first throughout the parish of Sant’Eustorgio and then to many other parishes in Europe.
On May 29, 2008, the International Service Organization of the Parish Evangelization Cells System was established, which recognized Father Perini as founder and president. On April 2, 2009, the Pontifical Council, signed by Msgr. Josef Clemens, then-secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican, approved the purpose and statutes of the International Service Organization of the Parish System of Evangelization, as a structure that aims to enhance, develop and spread the parish cells system of evangelization.
In 2023, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis became the first diocese in the world to shape parish life diocesan-wide through small groups formed under the PECS model of relational evangelization.
