DCPP 6: Authentic Community

Domestic Church Project Podcast

Hi! We are Bill and Nancy, and we run a ministry for Catholic Parents that you can learn all about right here: https://www.domesticchurchproject.com

We'd also LOVE for you to join our new app for Catholic Parents! Enrollment will be open from Jan 1-6th! More details here: https://www.domesticchurchproject.com

Today we are talking about Community, but before you tune us out, I want to challenge you to really evaluate the role community plays in your life. And I bet you are actually starving for real community.

But first, a little background:

As you might know, we were spurred on to created the Domestic Church Project Bootcamp through the utterly transformative experience of competing for and winning the Our Sunday Visitor Catholic Innovators Challenge. Through that challenge mentors really pushed us to investigate what Catholic Families REALLY needed. So many things exist, and yet the Catholic Faith is not being transmitted to the next generation. So, what was missing?

Through prayer, research, conversation and lots of hard work, we realized that parents need the HOW. We need to stop talking about teaching the Faith at home, and start showing parents HOW to teach. They need a program that trains them “on the job, at the speed of life” and that is what we created through the Domestic Church Project Bootcamp.

In order to validate the Bootcamp, however, we decided to test it. And so, 100 families signed up and went through the whole program. Overall, it was a great success…but it was missing something: a community.

Now, for the Beta testers were offered a FB group, but we soon learned that this just wasn’t enough. And lots of people didn’t want to be on FB (including me!)

So, while I was scratching my head, Bill and the fathers were busy teaching us an important lesson. You see, the men started to meet each week for a “Happy Hour.” They simply jumped on a zoom call and shared how the Bootcamp was going in their home. And guess what, that simple element of community, authentic sharing and accountability was pivotal for the men that joined.

And so, in the end that was our MAJOR learning from the Beta test: Catholic Parents need community.

But, there is an even deeper problem here. Most of us have completely forgotten what community is!

Community is not a 10,000 member Facebook group.

Community is not scrolling on IG.

Community is a group of people who share a goal and share the truth of their experiences openly.

Therefore, half way through building the app we turned everything on its head. We abandoned our original plan and (through the grace of the Holy Spirit) found a must better platform that is private and an beautiful place to build this community for Catholic Parents.

Listen to hear more about it.

And, as always, thanks for being here!

In Christ,

Bill and Nancy