How to Throw a Great Synodal Discernment Party: A Discerning Deacons Recipe

Preheat your Gathering
Turn up the heat in your space by turning up your turn out efforts to personally invite the people you most want in the room. In Philly, team members identified two to three people they were responsible for turning out and tracked progress, including contact info, on a shared spreadsheet. This made reminder and follow up emails easy peasy. Folks in the Twin Cities tabled after Masses. Philly crafted announcements for the bulletin and commissioned people to extend the invitation from the pulpit – see templates in the Philadelphia team’s turnout resources. 

Beautify your Tent
Communicate to your participants the significance of the event and their contributions to it by transforming the space you gather with subtle expressions of beauty. The Minnesota team used table cloths and simple centerpieces. You could use holy cards or fresh flowers or candles. Philly and Chicago ensured that an icon of St. Phoebe graced the space. Build an altar using sacred objects from among your team or participants. The Chicago team hung four large butcher rolls of paper on one wall with prompts to which participants were invited to add their own responses:
– Share a hope, prayer or dream that you have for our church
– What is something that fills your heart about the church? What breaks your heart?
– Fill in the blank … I feel like I belong in the church when …
– How would women deacons impact your faith?

Pray!
Ground your people in prayer, create a sense of the whole with ritual, mobilize them with a rousing commissioning. Here is Philadelphia’s simple prayer service to open the session, which included a praise dance and reflection on Romans 2:1-16. Consider building in quiet moments of reflection in between rounds of synodal conversation -the Twin Cities included space for journaling in their Participants’ Guide. Pray people out the door with a commissioning that fortifies them.

Become a People
Build up a sense of collective protagonism in the room – a sense that participants are part of an unfolding movement in our Church at every level, that what they bring is valid and necessary, and that they are not alone on this journey! Start the session with a roll call: “What institutions are in the room?!” In Philadelphia, a lightning round of introductions – name, parish, and 10–word answer to “Why did you say yes to the invitation to come today?” – resulted in more than 40 prophetic testimonies that built group trust in under seven minutes! If you’re hosting an event that will include people from multiple parishes and other organizations, consider framing participants as “delegations” from those institutions. The Minnesota team discovered that doing so helped participants see themselves as “delegates” who would return to their own communities prepared to create similar experiences for their people! Chicago added a dose of fun to their gathering – enjoying some Rainbow Cone© ice cream helped people experience the joy of becoming a people on the synodal path. Chicago concluded their gathering by singing Happy Birthday to Sr. Pat, who was turning 94 the next day (and whom you might recognize from Band of Sisters) – a visible reminder that this is a generational endeavor, to be part of renewing our living tradition!

Share four things we believe every Catholic should know:
–  We are in Synod! The global Synod on Synodality is underway and there is a major assembly of bishops happening in Rome this coming October. Pope Francis extends to us a radical invitation to become a synodal Church; but becoming such a Church is not a given and its outcome is uncertain – our participation and leadership is needed! 
– “Rethinking Women’s Participation” has emerged through synodal listening sessions with millions of Catholics from around the world as a major theme for deliberation and discernment for our Universal Church as part of the Global Synod.
– St Phoebe, the deacon, was a real person (Romans 16:1-2). We can help restore her memory. We can help to renew the diaconate today to accompany people at the peripheries – wherever the light of Christ is needed most in our communities.
– The headline only you can write:   Write & share a paragraph or two about the impact it would have for you or your loved ones if our Universal Church moves forward these proposals and calls to action lifted up in Enlarge the Space of your Tent.

Give people a taste of synod!
When designing your session, privilege this component with time and care. Create an experience of Church in which we receive and reflect on what millions of Catholics around the world have already contributed to global the synod process. Give some thought to how your participants will hear and pray with the six paragraphs on rethinking women’s participation in the Church. The team in Minnesota selected specific members of the community to read those selections, knowing that certain voices would amplify particular messages. In Philadelphia volunteers read the paragraphs in English and Spanish. In terms of shaping your synodal conversations, Chicago crafted prompts designed to help participants share from their stories in order to illuminate themes from around the world: “What is something that fills your heart about the church? What breaks your heart?”; “What is one image you have of a church that gives you hope or inspires you?” They also tried a fill-in-the-blank approach: I feel like I belong in the church when …I feel welcome in the church when …  Be creative with how participants share out the graces of their conversations: one-word popcorning, a post-it note art installation, a gallery walk with large 3-M sheets capturing group insights. 

Get People Jazzed for the Next Strategic Step
To ensure that your people continue becoming a people after the session, to invite them to reflect on what they just experienced and to take some next steps together as a community. The last page of Twin Cities’ Participant Guide was designed as a tear off to capture how people were leaving the space. Here’s Philly’s next steps form. Encourage delegations to agree on a date for their own follow up meeting before leaving your gathering. Consider a follow up email to all participants – and to those who were interested but could not attend – that contains those learnings and commitments. Channel the energy you’ve created into collective strategic action  by inviting people to a concrete next step, such as joining a St. Phoebe Prayer service or committing to another meeting with those interested walking together to help.  

Make a Memory!
Take a group photo and share it with participants! Share your gathering and its fruits with Discerning Deacons. Consider a write up for your parish bulletin or local Catholic news source. 

Check out resources shared here and others in our Resources for Discerning with DCS Paragraphs 60-65 folder. Want some coaching? Sign up for “office hours” with Maureen O’Connell, Director of Synod and Higher Education Engagement, on Thursday, May 4th from 3 to 4 pm ET (Register) and Monday, May 8th from 7 to 8 pm ET (Register).