Registration is open for second workshop focused on reaching those who’ve left the Church
By Elizabeth Landry
Staff writer
In March of last year, the diocesan Offices of Adult and Ministerial Formation hosted a successful workshop at Holy Cross in DeWitt called “Finding the One: Rebuilding the Bridge and Welcoming Them Home.” This year, director of the Offices of Adult and Ministerial Formation Dc. Jeff Dixe and his team have organized a second “Finding the One” workshop, which will be held on March 7 at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Vestal. Dc. Jeff said that while the first workshop drew attendees from all diocesan vicariates, the decision to hold this next workshop in the Southern Tier was intentional.
“We haven’t done anything in the Southern Tier,” Dc. Jeff said. “We want to give some love to the Southern Tier, and we really want to have these experiences with them, travel down there and be able to engage with our brothers and sisters there. Our Lady of Sorrows has been so welcoming and so accommodating. It’s unbelievable.”
The focus and message of the workshop remains the same: to help address the pain and the longing of those in the Church who experience someone close to them either rejecting or refusing to embrace their faith. “You’re not going to argue somebody back to the faith; you’re going to love them back to the faith. You’re going to accompany them back. But there’s no ‘one size fits all’ because everyone’s story is unique,” explained Dc. Jeff.
The main change with this year’s workshop, besides the different location, is the participation of only two speakers, rather than last year’s five speakers, in order to provide more time for questions and interaction among attendees. Dc. Jeff said this decision stemmed from feedback the team received after the first workshop. He shared the two main pieces of feedback: “Overwhelmingly, there’s been a demand saying, ‘Can we have more?’ and ‘Can we have a chance to interact with each other and with the speakers more?’”
The two speakers will be Allison Bracht, program coordinator for the Offices of Adult and Ministerial Formation, and Tom Andino, director of the Office of Deacon Formation, both of whom also spoke at last year’s workshop. Both emphasized how the different workshop structure this time around is aimed at helping attendees come away from the day with more confidence in reaching out to those who’ve left the Church.
“Certainly if somebody attended the last workshop and they left maybe with questions or wonderings, you know – ‘How do I do this?’ or ‘Where do I start?’ or, ‘What did he say about X? What did she say about Y?’ – come back and hear it again. I know, in my presentation, I posed questions, but we didn’t have time to kind of have [attendees] talk as a group or pair share, and there wasn’t time at the end for Q and A,” Andino said.
Bracht shared that both she and Andino will have two hours each to speak with attendees. “We’re going to be able to really be more hands on, in the sense that we’re going to be able to give people that attend practical tools to walk away with and put into practice — how [they’re] going to achieve this goal. We’re kind of going to be putting them on mission,” she said. “When you leave [the workshop], you’re going to feel like you can actually do it.”
Dc. Jeff said this highly focused and highly interactive level of engagement will “give people the opportunity to engage with the speakers, with each other, and most importantly, with themselves and with the Lord.”
Sharing her hopes for this second workshop, Bracht said, “A lot of what I’m going to be sharing is an emphasis on how to share your faith story and be comfortable with your faith story. That’s a huge passion of mine, because it just personally changed my life when I realized how God had moved in my life. And then being able to share that with others — it’s like you’re filled with this joy and then you want everyone to have that joy you have. That’s the main focus for me.”
That desire to share our joy and faith with others certainly has its challenges sometimes, but when it comes to figuring out how to reach those who’ve strayed, it’s all about building relationships and trust, Andino said. “It’s on us, as individuals, one person at a time, to build a relationship with that person. That’s where it has to start. … You have to build trust first.”
“Finding the One” is free-of-charge (although donations are welcomed) and open to everyone. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 7 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Vestal. Lunch and refreshments will be served. Contact Dc. Jeff Dixe at [email protected] with questions or to register. Registration is also available by using the QR code above.
