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The Busy Mom’s Plan to Start a Catholic Mom’s Group (or to get ideas for your existing one!) in Five Easy Steps by Gretchen Otto Pimentel For additional resources to assist you in starting a Mothers Prayer Group at your parish, click here.
It has been said there are no new ideas in the world, just recycled old ones. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel….that takes too much precious time away from your family! By liberally borrowing from other mom’s groups and existing resources you will save yourself time and stress.
Step One: Write your church bulletin advertisement for your mom’s group. What, you ask? That’s insane! That can’t be step one….that has to be further down the line! We are not ready to advertise yet……we don’t even have a group! These are all good observations, but the trick here is that the act of writing your advertisement will help you conceive a “mission statement” of sorts. It provides an opportunity to think through your goals for the group before you begin the process, and then you will be able to funnel all your energy in an organized fashion with your goals firmly ensconced in your consciousness. It will truly organize your process of development. This statement does not have to be “set in stone.” Ours has been edited and refined to meet our needs. The original one was initially very useful, however, to remind ourselves generally in what direction we were going. In writing the statement, we freely borrowed ideas from other mom’s groups in our area by looking at their bulletin announcements. Please feel free modify ours for your use: “Motherhood is a vocation. Join us for Q of A’s Mother’s group. Our group will present informal discussion topics on the role of motherhood and faith formation for our children in a warm and supportive atmosphere. The second hour of our format will consist of informal mother-to-mother support for issues on raising children of all ages. All mothers are welcome to attend. New, expectant, and nursing mothers are especially encouraged. We also need the advice and expertise of you experienced moms! Please call Gretchen Pimentel at 703-823-4363 for further details or stop by the rectory for a schedule of upcoming topics. Meetings will occur on Tuesdays from 10 a. m. to noon in Hannan Hall.”
Step Two: Network, network, network. This step involves getting a critical mass of interest from a solid “core group” of mothers to kick things off. Do you see moms breastfeeding in the “cry room” or back of Church? Do you have regular “Donut Sundays” or Sunday Socials where you see other moms? Do you have parish “get togethers” such as Bazaars, craft fairs, or festivals? Reach out to the other moms you see! Approach them to see if they are interested in helping you start a mom’s group. You can make some preprinted cards with your name and address. (Easy to just run them off on your home computer….no special paper needed…..just simply state “If you are interested in a mom’s group at (name Church) please contact me at (your number here) with your ideas and suggestions. (Add your signature line here).” Just copy this short paragraph over a few times on a computer document and print and cut them out. Put a few in your diaper bag so you are not fumbling for a pen when you see a new mom while you exchange numbers. One person can record all your interested moms’ names in a start up folder labeled “mom’s group prospectus” so that you can give it to your pastor if he requires proof of interest. That folder will later come in handy for filing your proposed topics to show your pastor. Our original folder has expanded to a hard “kid proof” latchable file box with a carrying handle where we keep all of our ideas and handouts for the group. Other essentials in our mother’s group box include our guest book, prayer cards, magazine articles, and other resources. We also collect books of interest for our lending library. Someone volunteers to bring our administrative box and lending books to every meeting. We recommend that when you reach an interested group of six or so people, you can move onto the next step. We think it is important to have this size of group so that the busy mom can help share in the work load instead of one mom having to “do it all.” Also, when more people are “invested” in your group and it is not a “one woman show” that group will not die if that one person gets ill or moves parishes. Once your core group is established, you can all start doing some preliminary exploration of how you want your mom’s group to function. Start now attending other mom’s groups in your area and picking up their bulletins and newsletters for ideas in this regard. You can subscribe to our e-newsletter if you like (contact info under “parish groups” at (www.queenofapostles.org)). We started and continue to get most of our ideas from Couple to Couple League (www.ccli.org), Canticle magazine, www.canticlemagazine.com) and other web sites such as catholicmom.com and motheringwithgrace.com. On a personal note, I can sympathize if you are a shy person or new to your parish. I was brand new to my parish when I started seeking interest and did not know a soul. This step got MUCH easier, though, as time progressed. If you are very shy, you might pray for the strength to stretch your comfort zone and bring other mothers together to be powerful witnesses to Christ for one another. Surely the Holy Spirit will be present in your efforts and help you out in this regard. I know I got increasingly bold when I started getting some good responses. If you get some lukewarm responses, please don’t give up! It will all be worth it when someone says to you “You know, I was terribly lonely and at my wit’s end until the support I found in this group.” That comment was actually uttered in our group, and I cherish that comment in my heart.
Schedule a meeting with your pastor. (This is a requirement in our Church.) You and the core group of members should meet with your pastor to discuss space concerns, any monetary needs, to understand Church policy, learn requirements for submitting to your church bulletin, and explore ways to promote your group in your Church. We recommend that you come prepared with a four month topic list and meeting space proposal. We schedule our topics from September--December and January –May with a Christmas and a summer break. Soliciting ideas from other mothers was difficult, but when I had a “roughed out” schedule to present, people were more than happy to modify, replace, and edit ideas. Having a working rough copy (completely subject to change, of course) has worked well for us. The final copy should always be approved by the pastor. I actually sent my “working copy” to our Diocesan Office of Family Life for their feedback. As it turned out, there was a parenting program that we were going to discuss that has been condemned for use in our Diocese. We would not have known this was the case unless we had our Diocese review it.
Step Four: Decide on your format and schedule some interesting topics for discussion. We modeled our group partially on the La Leche League support group model, and by modeling other mom’s groups in our area. We meet every Tuesday morning from 10 to noon in our Parish Hall. We purchased two play rugs for the kids to play on. We arrange the chairs in a circle surrounding the rugs, so we can converse in a supportive atmosphere, always facing each other. Older kids play in the Hall on the sides, and some color at tables we set up in the peripheral area. Unfortunately, we do not have a nursery with toys so we bring our own every week. Our needs have been minimal. The rugs (with little roads painted on them) were $52 and that has been our only expense. Our meetings begin with a prayer, and mention our special intentions for friends, relatives, parishioners we know, ourselves, our expectant moms, and anyone else who asks for our prayers. We mention them all by name and then end with a Hail Mary or other prayer card devotion (sometimes with a specific intent, such as for the unborn or to end abortion). We then talk about our topic for the day. Sometimes we have a special speaker, but mostly we just have an informal discussion of a certain subject. It is often based on a book or encyclical that some of us have read and would like to recommend. The majority of our topics have a Catholic theme. We also try to have a discussion devoted to marriage once a month. It is surely tempting to neglect your marriage when you have little ones underfoot. We acknowledge that our marriage is the foundation for the Catholic family when we devote time to sharing ways we can make it even better. We also routinely offer discussions on natural family planning, as it is core to our beliefs as a group of Catholic mothers. A good family foundation flows very naturally from this important part of marital life. A good topic to start might be “Establishing Catholic Traditions in the Home.” Around holidays, our group talks about how to appropriately observe the religious traditions we share and deemphasize the materialism in the secular world. We are happy to provide our topics as examples. We obtain other moms group’s agendas for some of our ideas. I also have thumbed through the CCL catalog of books (mentioned above). We believe that if CCL has a book on a topic, it is likely to be worth our discussion.
Step Five: Continually explore ways to promote your group. Other moms may be looking for a group like yours. Please don’t forget to continue to reach out and offer your group to other moms. This work is never done! Please continue to talk to moms after Church and invite them personally. Many people are shy and will respond better to a personal invitation. If your Church has a welcome committee, have one of your moms participate. Ask your pastor if you may have the phone numbers of new parishioners to invite them personally. Do you have a “Welcome Sunday” at your Church each year? Ask that you be included. Represent your mom’s group at a table display outside of church, in the vestibule, or around the tables at Donut Sunday. Ask mothers who pass your table without stopping if they are aware that you have a mom’s group. Some people that we have approached this way have become our most devoted members, yet were unwilling to approach us. Does your church offer Baptism classes? RCIA classes? Ask your priests to promote the group at these classes and leave some schedules/brochures with them for distribution. Create a catchy brochure. If it is a trifold, you might put in big, bold letters on the front page “How to be a Good Catholic Mother*” And in smaller print under the asterisk you might add (*we don’t have all the answers but we would love to accompany you and provide fellowship on your journey!”) In the inside of the brochure, be sure to print your schedule, location, and at least one, hopefully more, contact people. Leave the brochures in the back of Church if you have racks. Leave them with the Church secretary. Leave them with the school secretary if you have a school. Send some to your Diocese. Believe me, they get inquiries! Our Church has a women’s group that is primarily comprised of seniors and retirees. Many are grandmothers. If you have such a group at your Church, it is a great group for referrals to your group. They will tell their daughters and their friends about you as they function as a support system for them. As as an added bonus to creating strong ties with this group, we have used them as discussion leaders. A member of our women’s group whose son is a priest in our Diocese led a discussion for us about encouraging vocations in your children. It is amazing the wealth of talent already in your Church that is knowledgeable about parenting subjects! When people call you about your mom’s group, please return their phone calls right away. Let them know you care about them and the awesome responsibility of raising a child. Tell them you look forward to seeing them. When a new person comes to mom’s group, ask them to sign your “guestbook.” We collect name, husband’s, name, kids’ names and ages, telephone number, and e-mail address. We are lucky that 99 % of our moms have e-mail Please USE this resource if you can. We share Internet websites, mom tips, prayer requests, and do a newsletter describing and recapping our meetings for those who can’t attend. Even if some of your moms are working and you choose not to offer evening meeting times, offer to put them on your e-mail list. Our list is nearing 50 names (we send to moms groups around the country on a separate list) and we can still share ideas when work, illnesses, geography, and other life challenges get in the way of communing together. We also keep updating our list of our favorite Internet sites and send it out regularly.
Some final thoughts: Our group is convinced that a mom’s group is one of the most important ministries we can cultivate at our Church. A foundation in Catholic faith life and tradition starts with a newborn child in the home, and the child’s mother is generally his primary teacher. Parenting and mothering is the most important function and privilege we have in life. It is daunting if we try to do it on our own, but it is manageable day by day with the grace of our Lord, and with the fellowship of other mothers. This, in turn, has resulted in our group’s efforts to reach out to others. We promote these universal values by sponsoring activities to benefit the needy, particularly those in the crisis of family poverty and crisis pregnancy. We manage to pool our resources and donate all the surplus baby items a new mother inevitably gets to people who can use them. We keep a box for this purpose at our meetings. This is just one example of the positive effect our group has on the larger society. Please consider sharing in this fantastic and exciting ministry. We can really change society with one mother, one child, and a firm foundation at a time. Gretchen Otto Pimentel is a freelance writer living in Northern Virginia. Feel free to contact her at gretchenotto@comcast.net
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