LINCOLN (SNR) - For eight weeks, more than 30 members of St. Michael Parish in Lincoln came together to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
In an initiative entitled “Come Alive,” missionaries from the International Missionary Foundation (IMF) facilitated a series of activities for parishioners to discern the action of the Spirit in their lives. The two-month seminar brought about profound encounters for parishioners to deepen encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Father Kenneth Borowiak, pastor, said the seminar supported the pastoral plan of the parish.
“Almost four years ago, we committed to becoming a parish of missionary disciples,” he said. “We saw the Come Alive seminar as an opportunity to ignite a fire in the hearts of our parishioners so as to truly know the Lord and his love and to kindle a desire among us to share that love with others.”
Planning conversations for the seminar began in early fall 2020 when Joseph Williams, executive director of the IMF and his family joined St. Michael Parish.
“There are many people out there who desire a deeper interior renewal, or who want to have an encounter with Christ, but they don’t know how,” Williams said. “There are certain time-tested ways that we can experience this grace of renewal. Come Alive is one of them.”
The seminar, which began in late 2020, consisted of eight weekly sessions which included praise and worship music, talks from guest speakers, small group discussions, a question-and-answer period and intercessory prayer. Participants also prayed with Scripture passages and reflections daily to cultivate the discipline of personal prayer.
At the end of the eight weeks, the seminar concluded with a half-day Saturday retreat with the opportunity for confessions and healing prayer with prayer teams. Guest speakers throughout the seminar included Father Alec Sasse, Sister Serena Deters M.S., Father Craig Doty, Matthew Simmons, Father Christopher Goodwin, and Father Benjamin Holdren.
The sequence of the sessions moved participants along a natural journey of faith, beginning with an understanding of who God is and recognizing humanity’s often distorted image of Him. Participants then explored the unmerited salvation He won for humanity, the new life in Christ to which all are called, true conversion and repentance, healing and forgiveness and spiritual warfare, the spiritual gifts, prayer for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and identifying and growing in graces received.
Joy Martin, pastoral administrator at St. Michael, called the seminar “an answer to many prayers,” as the parish’s evangelization team regularly prays for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the parish.
“The group of participants became a community of people hungry for more, and many participants came to know the Holy Spirit in a new way,” she said.
A prayer team—made up of International Missionary Foundation missionaries, members of the Lincoln Equipping Team, and St. Michael parishioners—prayed and fasted for the spiritual renewal of the seminar participants. Their intercessory prayer efforts at their weekly prayer meetings and night-time prayer vigils were offered for participants as a means of “standing in the gap” to obtain graces of conversion, reparation, and spiritual growth.
Bringing the two-month, in-person seminar to a successful completion during the COVID-19 pandemic as various participants, speakers, and team leaders experienced quarantine and sickness, was nothing short of “miraculous,” said Williams.
At the Jan. 16 conclusion of the seminar, participants shared their powerful experiences of receiving greater peace, more freedom through forgiveness and healing, and deeper desires for prayer.
The parish’s Lenten focus will be discipleship training to build upon the graces received through the seminar.
“We want all parishioners to encounter the Person of Jesus Christ, surrender their lives to Him, and come alive in the Spirit,” noted Father Borowiak.
For more information about the International Missionary Foundation, a Catholic apostolate in the Diocese of Lincoln dedicated to parish renewal and serving Christ in the poor, contact Joseph Williams at imfmission.org.
