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St. Cecelia's hopes to bring back Catholics with Faith Chat

By KARA KOCZUR, Globe staff reporter
(Email Kara)

ALGONA – Twenty-six adults gathered May 15 in the back room at Sister Sarah’s Restaurant. They came for Faith Chat, an event sponsored by St. Cecelia’s Parish for Catholics to learn more about their faith and to ask questions.

“Father Ed [Girres] is our new pastor and he’s just trying to get some inactive people back and to give those who are active a different opportunity,” said Lorri Larsen, pastoral associate at St. Cecelia’s. “We’ve never had an opportunity outside the institutional involvement and we just thought a casual situation would be nice to have for anybody who wanted to ask questions.”

While it was geared toward young adults, any age was welcome, she said.

Why Church?
The topic was “Why Church?” and was led by Father Girres and Deacon Bob Larsen. The talk covered issues such as: Why do we need the institutional church? Why do we need to come together? What strengths does that give us? What happens when we don’t? Does our faith get weaker?

The topic idea came about at a meeting between the pastor, the deacon, Lorri and the musician, Scott Larsen, who also played live music at Faith Chat, Lorri said.

“We were just throwing around topics about what we thought they would connect with,” she said. “One of the things we were hoping is that the people who weren’t going to church would say, ‘Well, I have a chance to say why should I go to church?’ So we just thought ‘Why Church?’ would be something that would catch their attention and then give them an opportunity to ask questions.”

The attendees made good use of their opportunity. They had questions regarding the role of women in the church, Mass rubrics and priestly celibacy, said Megan Klemm, 26, a St. Cecelia’s parishioner who attended the event.

The discussion was interesting, Klemm said, adding that Faith Chat provided her with an outlet she didn’t know she was hungering for.

“At Faith Chat we all got to chat at the end and share our thoughts,” she said. “It’s a good way for people who are questioning parts of their faith to ask these questions and [be surrounded by] other people who might feel the same way as they do and not feel so intimidated by asking a priest on their own.”

Faith Chat also gave Klemm the chance to get to know others from her parish, as well as from the surrounding area, including West Bend and Fort Dodge.

“There were some people I knew just out and about around town who I didn’t even realize were members of my church,” she said, adding that as a parent it can be difficult to get out and meet new people.

The biggest thing Klemm said she took away from the event was an example given by Father Girres of a youth group discussion about church that took place around a camp fire. As the group was talking, the youth minister went and pulled a log out of the fire and let it burn out. The same thing happens with the church and her members.

“For the fire to burn we all have to be in it together and not trying to all go off on our separate ways,” she said.
Although the planning committee was happy with the turnout, Lorri said, they would like to see more people attend.

“We were more than half full and we thought that was good,” she said. “There was wonderful dialogue afterwards and questions and comments. We could have gone on longer than we did, but we did set a time limit.”

The future
Plans are already underway for a second Faith Chat that will hopefully take place sometime this summer.

Participants were able to give their input on topic ideas by selecting from a list the committee compiled. The top two vote getters were “Why celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation?” and “Sin and Grace.”

While the next Faith Chat is a little ways off, participants don’t have to wait that long to interact with one another. Instead, they can contact each other through a Facebook page Klemm set up.

“I figure that it’s a good way to get the word out about it and it’s a good way for us to network in between meetings,” she said. “That way if we all want to talk together in between times or have questions we can communicate about it there and people can get updates if they miss a Faith Chat.”

The attendees were very thankful for the opportunity and were excited to do it again, Lorri said.

“We’re just excited about getting this started,” she said. “It went really well. We were pleased with the turnout and really pleased with their enthusiasm to [continue]. They felt it was worthwhile to have more.”