| CaFE at St Margaret's
Angie Keane, a parishoner at St Margaret's in Twickenham, shares how the Catholic Faith Exploration process, popularly known as CaFE, works and has helped in the ongoing renewal process of their West London parish
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A group of us in the parish were praying about which renewal course to run for our fellow parishioners. We became aware of CaFE early in 2002 and felt that this was something different and could be just what we were looking for. A number of us attended the Celebrate conference at Easter and went to a CaFE workshop which we found to be very inspiring giving us the vision to see renewal and evangelisation at the heart of our parish. We returned full of zeal and spoke to our PP who amazingly shared our enthusiasm especially after seeing the excellent publicity materials. Getting started Six from our parish attended a CaFE training day which we thoroughly enjoyed and which helped to motivate us. It was a blessing to meet people from other parishes from around the country who were also eager to evangelise. It was at about lunch time when we first realised that we had only 3 weeks till the recommended start date for the first module, "Knowing God Better". A mild panic set in. Thank God for mobile phones! We quickly wrote a short sentence for Fr John to read out at each Mass that weekend announcing that we would be running CaFE in three weeks time and to watch out next week for more details - or something along those lines! We took away a bundle of videos from the training day including the simple to use training materials. We already had our core group and invited others to join us - one agreed to organise the set up of the hall and soon transformed it into a most attractive CaFE style environment with tablecloths, flowers and candles. Thinking we may get more guests than could watch a TV, we borrowed a projector and screen from one of our team's work place. Others produced a parish prayer card and overprinted the CaFE publicity with details of our upcoming event. We very quickly realised that to run "Knowing God Better" was indeed very easy - all we had to do was have a few people who could get there early and set out the tables, serve coffee, and welcome people warmly at the door. After a brief introduction and notices we were away!! The videos did the hard work leaving us free to serve a glass of wine at the end which was very well received indeed! Not just the usual suspects! To our surprise and delight 80 people turned up which, considering the rushed launch, was fantastic. They were seated round tables of 6 - 8 people and when we looked round the room, to our surprise not only were there people from many of the various groups within St M's but there were people whom we did not know too well - so not just the 'usual suspects'. We were impressed. We had Fr John start the evening with a prayer and encouragement - his words still remain - he shared that when he was given the video of "Knowing God Better" to check it out he sat down with only one eye on the TV as he had "seen in my time a number of such 'videos'" however soon he said he was watching eagerly with both eyes and told our group that they were "in for a real treat". We could ask for no more. Fruits in the parish have been immense The first module seemed to fly by and we have since moved onto "Exploring the Catholic Church" (91 attendees) and are currently running Catholics making a Difference. These have been equally successful in slightly different ways. "Knowing God Better" acted as a kind of mini mission, drawing people very gently into an experience of growth and community. The next module started to form small group communities around the tables and the sharing was often passionate and stimulating (we had trouble kicking them out of the hall at the end of many evenings!). The third module is developing this but has added the extra challenge of action, both individually and as a group, in the areas of social action, human rights and witness. At each stage and throughout, Fr John has been behind and supported us knowing that the fruits of having CaFE in our parish are immense. Our core group has grown with new budding leaders. Our parish has taken CaFE to heart and is supporting it in many different ways. We had one person join our RCIA group who was received into full communion with the Church at Easter. Another person is now, as a result, working in Sri Lanka in a Catholic Children's home. There are many people who are now actively 'doing' more in the parish than they did and people who were on the fringes are coming in to be part of the community. You feel the speaker is talking to you
The fourth recommended module is designed to help the guests respond to the challenge of sharing their faith with others in the parish or even beyond. This concept would have terrified many before doing CaFE but many are now considering running "Knowing God Better" (KGB) themselves to reach others. We are also running one of the pilot schemes for Youth KGB (for the much needed 13-15 age group) and new leaders are coming forward for this too. Others who have enjoyed the process are now talking of continuing in their small groups to share Scripture together, to help and encourage each other in the challenges of life and to find new ways of serving and witnessing. This is very exciting as our Cardinal has said that small groups are a hope for the Church today. Not for everyone It sounds as though it was all plain sailing and that there were no problems which was not quite the case. Some people didn't gell in their groups and others felt the style was not for them. However, the majority gave us extremely positive feedback and the fruit of CaFE has been really amazing and has made all the hard work very rewarding. For further information about CaFE and the material needed for running a course contact Catholic Evangelisation Services, PO Box 333, St Albans, Herts AL2 1EL Tel 01727 822837 CaFE NEWS
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One
of the great strengths of CaFE are the videos which are all stimulating,
professionally made and enjoyable. One of our group facilitators has
said that when you sit down to watch the videos you soon forget that
it's a video as you feel that the speaker is talking to you, you are
so caught up in what is being said. People were able to relax very
quickly and enjoyed the very non threatening way that small groups
seemed to naturally develop over the weeks. Many felt confident to
go onto invite friends and family to the other evenings as well. 
