In August 2007, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN hosted the fifth National Joint Convocation on Small Christian Communities. The theme for the convocation was: Walking Together with Christ – Caminando Juntos con Cristo.

It was sponsored by the three principal national small Christian community organizations: Small Christian Community Connection, the National Alliance of Parishes Restructuring into Communities and the North American Forum for Small Christian Communities. For this multicultural, multilingual convocation, the Mexican American Cultural Center, San Antonio, and the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined in sponsorship. All major addresses, prayer experiences, workshops and discussions were delivered bilingually, either with simultaneous translation or individually to English-speaking and Spanish-speaking groups.

This series of collaborative periodic national gatherings began in 1990 under the auspices of Fr. Bob Pelton at the University of Notre Dame. In 1993, a second convocation was held at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN, followed by a third one in 1997 at Loyola University, New Orleans. In 2002, the fourth convocation at St. Mary's University, San Antonio was also conducted collaboratively with the Loyola/Lilly research project directed by Bernard Lee, S.M.

For the 2007 Convocation, the 275 participants from 25 states and 13 countries reflected on how to build church within its cultural diversity through small Christian communities. The final stage of the process involved identifying possible personal and communal strategies and tactics to promote SCCs for the sake of our church and world.

In November 2007, representatives from each of the sponsoring organizations gathered to discuss and set priorities for SCCs, based on data evaluations from the Joint Convocation. You can download the final report here, in either Spanish or English:

Final Report and Action Plan .pdf

Reporte Final y Plan de Acción? .pdf

You can also order the DVDs which capture the keynote speakers from the Joint Convocation. The DVDs are an excellent resource for your small group, for they take a group through the process of the convocation. The keynote talks can also be watched individually for inspiration.

2007 National Joint Convocation on Small Christian Communities - Order form for three DVDs