Have you ever watched a plant grow, from seed to sapling, then bloom from flower to fruit? This was the experience my mom and I had as we watched our at-home young-adult ministry grow from strength to strength. It was our plant, entrusted to us to nurture, but we knew all along that it was the Holy Spirit that watered it and gave it the sunlight to thrive all along. We just had to do our part and keep asking the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Over the last three years, we have seen our group grow in ways we never could have imagined, producing fruits that only the Holy Spirit could have managed: members who didn’t believe in God’s mercy but now pray the rosary daily; those who didn’t attend Mass for years and returned; another who grew up protestant and decided to convert to Catholicism. The fruits are too many to count, but I hope to share some of them with you here.
This April marks three years since my mom and I first started this at-home young-adult ministry, called Friday Night Limes. In Trinidad and Tobago, where I’m from, to lime is to hang out casually with friends. So, Friday Night Limes was our way of creating a casual yet structured space for conversations about God, faith and life. My mother always had a dream of creating such a space, and when she dreams… let’s just say that God makes them reality.
How it started: The vision for Friday Night Limes
During the Divine Mercy Conference, an annual conference in T&T themed around the Divine Mercy images and promises received by Sister Faustina, my mother received a Word from one of the visiting priests, Fr. Jim Blount: “Mama, full speed ahead.”
At that time, the idea for Friday Night Limes had been percolating in her brain, but the timing didn’t feel right.
Then, I went to a prayer retreat later that month and returned home fired up. I felt such a love and passion for our faith that I wanted to share it with the world; I wanted our friends and family to understand God, to build their relationships, to walk the path to salvation. And I felt personally responsible for being part of their journey. If God had been so good to me, the natural next step was to share that goodness with others.
I got home and told my mom that we needed to start our young-adult group immediately. That’s when the planning began. We started writing down our ideas, our goals, our objectives, how we would frame the group, who we would invite, how we would structure it to be engaging.
We decided on our mission: to share what is true, good and beautiful about the Catholic faith.
We outlined our objectives to achieve that mission:
- Create a space for open conversations about God, faith and life
- Form a community to share, grow and learn together
- Validate the Church’s relevance in the lives of young people in today’s culture.
And we came up with a basic structure to frame the group:
1. Sharing of a light meal
2. Opening Prayer
3. Icebreaker and introductions
4. Introduction to the theme
5. Presentation/Conversation
6. Closing prayer and meditation
I’m blessed to have a big family with lots of cousins, so our initial invitees of just family members included about 10 people. I sent the text message, inviting them to join us for our first session on Friday 14th April, 2023, and the rest is history.
We also set up an intercessory prayer group, asking friends and family to pray for us especially during the times that we meet. Our patron saint is Saint Michael the Archangel. And we set up group norms and expectations which we shared at the beginning and with each new member that joins.
Every Friday since then, with breaks for holidays and busy periods, we’ve welcomed a small group of family and friends, aged 25 to 40 years old, into our home, sharing a light meal, before diving into faith-based discussions.
How it’s going: the growth of Friday Night Limes
It’s safe to say that Friday Night Limes continues to be a resounding success, in that we continue to have consistent attendance and have seen members grow in openness and depth on their faith journeys. Even on those nights when only three or four people show up, we know that the Holy Spirit is present no matter what. Those who need to attend will attend.
Our discussions run the gamut from exploring open-ended questions like “What is love?” to debating topics like “What is a man?” We’ve touched on concrete concepts like “Types of Prayer” and “Catholic social teaching” and explored abstract ideas like truth, beauty, freedom and conscience. We’ve presented scripture passages for reflection, and shared videos and quotes to inspire discussion.
We also invite guests from time to time, to share their testimonies, experiences, knowledge and perspectives on various themes. We’ve had priests, deacons, members of religious community, discerning seminarians and even my parents were guests at one session, sharing about marriage. Once, we invited my 103-year-old great-aunt who was visiting from abroad to share her wisdom as a centenarian, a special session which we recorded for posterity.
What makes the group unique and engaging is that every Friday is different – we don’t tell our group the topic or the guest. Instead, we keep them guessing, anticipating what the next session will bring. Some sessions are quieter and reflective; some are filled with passionate but respectful debate; some are interactive where we do an activity together to explore the theme. Others are mesmerizing, where we sit listening, enthralled by the story of one of our guests. Occasionally, we go to events as a group, such as Adoration/Holy Hour at a local church, archdiocesan festivals and activities, Marian Devotions or Lenten retreats.
One of the underlying messages of the group is that everyone has a voice, there are no dumb questions, and we’re here to learn and grow together.
My mom and I don’t pretend to know everything. We’ll admit when there’s something we can’t answer or need to research more. We’ll bring in guests to discuss concepts that are difficult for us to cover on our own. We’ve had some very special guests, including our parish priest and the Archbishop of Port of Spain, the Most Reverend Charles Jason Gordon. The Holy Spirit works in amazing ways: the night we invited the Archbishop, we decided on the theme, “The voice of God.” When we spoke to the Archbishop ahead of his visit, he told us that he had been reading Matthew Kelly’s book, “The Three Ordinary Voices of God”, one of many confirmations from the Holy Spirit that God was always in our midst, guiding and directing every idea and every session.
Personally, I’ve grown so much from leading this group with my mom that I’ve started using and consulting my catechism and the Bible even more. I feel a responsibility to understand our faith in order to share it with others. In a beautiful way, the more I learn about the faith, the more convicted I become, because I see that every church teaching is robust, backed by scripture and logic, and inspired by the Holy Spirit.
I’ll end by sharing something that I’ll never forget. During our session on “What is love?”, we shared various definitions of love according to science, psychology and philosophy, followed by definitions of love by saints, theologians and from the Catechism. Even before knowing the sources of the definitions, our group found a greater appreciation for the deeper, theological definitions of love, which move away from “love as a feeling” and move towards “love as a choice”, to will the good of the other. The church, in her wisdom, guides us on how to live and how to love others the way Jesus did.
That’s when I first learned these words from the prologue of the Catechism, which stayed with me ever since:
“The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 25)
In the end, what binds our group and keeps us going is the spirit of community, openness and love.
If you’re contemplating starting your young adult ministry – or any ministry for that matter – I encourage you to take the leap and do it. With careful prayer, planning and a spirit of love, God can make all things work for his good.
Image: Photo by Conikal on Unsplash
