The Search for Community

One of my more recent projects is to figure out the best direction for a Catholic homeschool group that has reached the point in growth that something has to change. It truely is a great problem to have, but it is still concerning to try and find the best solution for everyone involved. Since the group has been around for 20 years, there are those who have graduated their kids or are almost done and their children are now starting to homeschool their own children as part of the group (and both want to remain part of the group even when not homeschooling). Plus the majority who found the group as the only Catholic homeschool group here and are somewhere in between. The biggest problem in having so many members is that it leads to what feels like too few people who are actually involved - becoming volunteers, coming to functions and meetings, etc. If you have 131 families (meaning a total membership closer to 700) in the group and only 15-20 come to the monthly support meetings and it is a struggle to get 30 kids to service projects, it feels like something is off.

When I worked in Youth Ministry, one of the things that stuck with me most was the idea that it isn't the numbers that matter, but the quality that the kids are getting. Having a program that is just "fun" will draw in many teens, but they never move forward in their faith nor as a community. Thus it is far more important to mix fun with learning and community-building, even at the expense of those greater numbers. The goal of the Church (based upon my certificate training) is to build community and call those young people into that Catholicism - to help them understand their faith and embrace it however God is calling them.

All these thoughts and more have been floating around in my head for a while with no real direction or connection. I have an idea of where I think the group should be headed, and even some thoughts on how to get there, but nothing that has felt complete.

Then, over the last few days I found myself re-reading "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto and I came across some interesting passages that make me think I've found another piece of the puzzle that is the solution for our group.

"An important difference between communities and institutions is that communities have natural limits; they stop growing or they die. There's a good reason for this: in the best communities everyone is a special person who sooner or later impinges on everyone else's consciousness. The effects of this constant attention make all, rich or poor, feel important, because the only way importance is perceived is by having other folks pay attention to you."

Gatto's focus is on "forced schooling" as an institution, and in the chapter I quote above he was pointing out the differences between networking, family and community. Institutions aka networks must continue growing or they die. Also, as networks grow they tend to replace the family (or at least try to by taking up all the time that should be spent together as a family), whereas communities support families, and families must be the foundation of a healthy society. The distiction between networks and communities is the key.

In many ways we have a community, but as we continue to grow, those personal connections are becoming more difficult to attain. However, that connection is what everyone seems to crave. It is what they are searching for and why they joined the group in the first place. So, now to start putting the pieces together to create something unique that can offer the kind of community we are all searching for...