“People of Praise”

October 4, 2020 Mike Zonta Leave a comment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Abbreviation	POP
Formation	1971
Founder	Kevin Ranaghan Paul DeCelles
Type	Network of ecumenical Christian intentional communities^[1]
Headquarters	South Bend, Indiana, US
Membership	About 1,700^[2]
Board of directors	Michael Coney Sr.Craig LentJoel KiblerPaul KaneMike ZusiNicholas HolovatyRobert McDonoughPhil MonacoPatrick MurphyJames MysliwiecJohn Zwerneman
Subsidiaries	LaSalle Company, Inc.Trinity SchoolsArk of the Covenant, Inc.
Endowment	US$37,602,689
Website	peopleofpraise.org

People of Praise is a network of lay Christian intentional communities.^[1]^[2] As a parachurch apostolate, membership is open to any baptized Christian who affirms the Nicene Creed, agrees to the community’s covenant, and who contributes five percent of their gross income to the organization.^[3] The majority of its members are Catholics, but Protestants can also join, reflecting the ecumenical nature of People of Praise. It has 22 branches in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, with approximately 1,700 members.^[2] It founded Trinity Schools, which are aligned with the philosophy of classical Christian education.

People of Praise was formed in 1971 by Kevin Ranaghan and Paul DeCelles. Both men were involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, in which Pentecostal religious experiences such as baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues and prophecy are practiced by Catholics. In its early history, it influenced the institutional development of the Catholic Charismatic movement in the United States and played important roles in national charismatic conferences.

People of Praise practice a form of spiritual direction that involves the supervision, also termed within the group as “heading,” of a member, either by that member’s husband, in the case of women, or by an individual the organization regards as more spiritually mature, in the case of men. Women are directed exclusively by their husbands, whilst men are directed by other members of the organization as deemed appropriate.

People of Praise maintains that members retain their freedom of conscience under such direction. The community, unlikely the mainline Catholic Church, excludes women from leadership positions. It nevertheless encourages women to pursue higher education and employment.^[4]

History

Further information: Basic ecclesial community and Word of God (community)

The founding of People of Praise by Kevin Ranaghan and Paul DeCelles in 1971 in South Bend, Indiana, while the two were graduate students,^[5] was an early and important event within the history of the overall covenant community movement. Various individuals who participated in its founding had attended Cursillo movement retreats,^[6] including another graduate student, Stephen B. Clark (who came to author Building Christian Communities in 1972).^[7] In 1963, after having attended the Archdiocesan Cursillo Center in Chicago, Clark organized a Cursillo retreat in South Bend.^[8] Influenced both by Cursillo, local prayer meetings were formed. After Bill Storey visited from Dequesne University in 1967, elements from out of as well the burgeoning Catholic charismatic renewal of the times, were incorporated into these meetings.

Eventually several Catholic covenant communities were formed. After Word of God community formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967, and the True House (1971–1974) and People of Praise communities (1971–present) were formed in South Bend.^[9] (Others formed since then include Sword of the Spirit, the Mother of God Community^[10] as well as constituent members of the North American Network of Charismatic Covenant Communities.^[11]^[12]) Such communities initially may have been influenced by the communitarianism of the 1960s counterculture.^[13]

Historical theologian Paul Thigpen writes that in general these communities “typically involved a commitment to at least some degree of sharing financial resources, regular participation in community gatherings, and submission to the direction of the group’s designated authorities.”^[14] Larger communities were often divided into “households”, which did not always mean members were living in the same house. However, members of the same household needed to live close enough to each other to share meals, prayer times and other forms of fellowship. Most households were made up of one or two families, but others might be for single men or women.^[10]

People of Praise experienced early growth recruiting from major universities and was especially closely connected to the University of Notre Dame.^[15] The group helped develop important institutions for the larger Catholic Charismatic movement. Until 1990, the South Bend community was the headquarters for the National Service Committee (a coordinating body for the various Catholic charismatic groups). It was also the headquarters of the Charismatic Renewal Services (a national distribution center for religious books and tapes) and published a magazine called New Heaven, New Earth. It also played a major role in the renewal’s annual national conferences.^[16] By 1987, People of Praise had around 3,000 members, including children.^[17] By the end of the 1980s, Catholics were 92 percent of the membership.^[15]

The charismatic catholic community typically focuses primarily on evangelical and not charitable works. However, People of Praise has been noted to engage in and compassionate or charitable efforts, while other charismatic catholic organizations do not make these activities their primary focus. For People of Praise, charitable activities comprise a fraction of their activities, with yearly tithes close to 3.8 million in 2017, salaries and other administrative expenditures comprised approximately 3.3 million for the Indiana parent organization, whilst various charitable works were allocated approximately $500,000, making those charitable efforts .Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). They have also worked ecumenically through participation in the International Charismatic Consultation,^[18] the Charismatic Concerns Committee, the Charismatic Leaders Fellowship^[19] and, more recently, in the Rome-based Gathering in the Holy Spirit.^[20] Members also served with Cardinal Josef Suenens in drafting of Malines Documents I and II,^[21] and with Father Kilian McDonnell, in the writing of Fanning the Flame.^[22] These documents have contributed to the articulation and understanding of charismatic renewal and its place in the Catholic Church. They have also contributed to an understanding of how this movement can be understood by members of Protestant denominations of Christianity.

The group has drawn media interest due to Judge Amy Coney Barrett‘s association with the group. Numerous media outlets have reported that Barrett is a member. In the wake of heightened interest in the group and its members following her nomination, People of Praise made the decision to remove some materials from its website: “Recent changes to our website were made in consultation with members and nonmembers from around the country who raised concerns about their and their families’ privacy due to heightened media attention.”^[23]^[24]^[25]

Description

People of Praise defines itself as an ecumenical, charismatic covenant community “of families and single people who seek to participate in the mission of the church in our time and to live our lives communally”.^[26] Members live in their own homes, and sometimes single people will live with an unrelated family.^[27] There are some households in which only single men or single women live together.^[13]

People of Praise is not a church. All members of the community simultaneously remain members of their local parishes.^[28] The majority of its members are Catholics, with Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals and nondenominational Christians also represented.^[29] The Spirit and Purpose of the People of Praise state that “we will live our lives together as fully as our churches permit, with the hope that we may soon attain a unity of faith in the fullness of Christ our Lord.”^[30]

Members of the People of Praise engage in weekly meetings that include religious teaching, Scripture readings, witnessing, and prayer for those with needs. Local groups may also hold charismatic prayer meetings and meet for dinner, fellowship and praise and worship. Members also meet in small groups.^[31]

Anthropologist Thomas Csordas has written that People of Praise is theologically conservative with a hierarchical leadership structure, but it is also influenced by the communitarianism of the 1960s counterculture.^[13]

Covenant

Organizational leadership

Further information: Spiritual direction

People of Praise is led by an eleven-member all-male board of governors, the chairman of which is the overall coordinator. The board’s responsibilities include electing the overall coordinator, establishing new branches, determining official teachings, approving the budget, and approving appointments made by the overall coordinator. Board members serve for six-year terms and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms.^[34]

Each location of the community is called a branch. The larger branches are led by a group of branch coordinators. These branches are divided into areas, which are each led by an area coordinator. The principal branch coordinator serves as the main leader of the branch. Smaller or newer branches are led by a team of branch leaders. All these coordinators or branch leaders are selected from among the covenanted men in a branch.^{[citation needed]} On matters of great importance, consultations involving all full or “covenanted” members of the community guide the direction of the community, including (within a branch) the selection of coordinators. Branch members nominate three people, and one is selected to be a coordinator by the overall coordinator.^[35]

Headships and laypastor–penitant relationships

One highly controversial aspect of the covenant required by People of Praise is the practice of headships or lay-pastoral counselling in which individual members are supervised in their daily lives by a person regarded within the organization as more spiritually mature. ^[36] Pastoral care is considered an important service within the community; it is believed to foster relationships of love, service and charismatic ministry.^[32]^:15. Each member’s supervisor is referred to as a head. Influenced by Ignatian spirituality (the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola),^[37]^[38]^[39] heads, in general give correction, become involved in decision-making, and give encouragement. This process is referred to as heading.

Married women are headed by their husbands. Single women and widows usually have other women as their heads. Men and women with the appropriate skills are assigned as heads by the coordinators.^{[citation needed]} Men have other men as their heads.

According to Sean Connolly, communications director for People of Praise, functions of lay-pastoral counsellors and prayer meeting leaders within the community are not authoritarian in nature: “Freedom of conscience is a key to our diversity. People of Praise members are always free to follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, experience, and the teachings of their churches.”^[29]

As a charismatic community, People of Praise recognizes prophecy as one of the spiritual gifts or charisms. Leaders of the community will consider the meaning of messages deemed prophetic when making decisions concerning group life, and sometimes will publish prophecy in community newsletters. There is no formal office of prophet, but the community does have a “word gifts” group made up of members that are considered to be gifted in prophecy on a regular basis.^[40] The list of those members is not publicly disclosed to those outside the group.

Gender roles

Further information: Complementarianism

The highest office a woman can hold in the community is “woman leader” (formerly “handmaid”). Women leaders “teach women on womanly affairs, give advice, help in troubled situations” and lead specialized women’s activities.^[4] The term handmaiden was chosen in 1971 as a reference to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who, in most English translations of the Bible, described herself as “the handmaid of the Lord” or a woman who is close to God.^[13] The community teaches that husbands are the head of the household as well as the spiritual head of their wives. While it emphasizes traditional gender roles, the organization encourages women to pursue higher education and employment.^[4]

In much of community life, men and women work together without distinction. Both men and women prophesy and exhort at community meetings, teach together in the community sponsored schools, serve together as counselors at community camps, or as members or heads of music ministries, and evangelize together in inner cities. Still, there are some significant distinctions in the roles of men and women. As noted above, women are not able to be coordinators. The community, which refers to itself as a “family of families,” sees this patriarchal tradition as following the biblical model of the family. Men and women meet separately each week in small groups called ‘men’s groups’ or ‘women’s groups.’ The purpose is to build deeper relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ by discussing their lives and other issues with the goal of gaining wisdom, deepening friendships, and encouraging one another to be faithful to God. Traditional roles are reinforced by encouraging men to do most of the heavier physical work involved when a family is moving to a new home or re-roofing a house, and when setting up for meetings and similar tasks. Women are encouraged to provide food and childcare and run an effective household. However, these distinctions are not absolute. For example, women have also labored side by side with men in the construction work involved in the community’s Allendale outreach.^[26][41]

More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_Praise

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