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What is CFM?<\/p>\n
CFM stands for Christian Family Movement, though it\u2019s specifically a Catholic group.\u00a0 I can\u2019t find a history of the group on the CFM website<\/a>, but Wikipedia has an entry<\/a> which explains that they were founded in the 1940s.\u00a0 The idealized CFM group is a group of families at a parish who meet regularly to discuss Christian teaching and social topics, then engage in group \u201cactions\u201d in response.\u00a0 In many respects, it\u2019s a form of \u201csmall groups\u201d that existed before \u201csmall groups\u201d became popular, though with couples rather than a men\u2019s group or a women\u2019s group.\u00a0 At my parish, it has become \u201chow we do small groups,\u201d has historically been the largest way that people get involved in the parish and get to know other people, and has not changed in years and years except for shrinking:\u00a0 groups meet in members\u2019 homes once a month on Friday nights, and on a monthly or bimonthly basis there are activities with all groups combined \u2014 though it used to be, seems to me, a dozen group and now there are half that many, and likewise, there used to be significantly more all-group activities than now as a result.\u00a0 Oh, and the attendance at the groups is much shrunken, as if increasing numbers of nominal members think they\u2019re doing a good deed by joining but aren\u2019t actually interested in attending meetings.\u00a0 In particular, the groups are getting greyer, with relatively fewer younger couples participating, and I\u2019ve been trying to think through what can be done to either \u201cfix CFM\u201d or replace it, and have had some conversations to that effect.<\/p>\n Now, I know your response is to say, \u201cJane, you should step up, if things have gone off the rails.\u201d<\/p>\n But I know the reality of what I can and can\u2019t do.\u00a0 I can think through and try to tackle a problem.\u00a0 I can put together an excel file calculating pension liabilities.\u00a0 I can remember to submit a donut order (most of the time) and scrape together enough people to serve Sunday morning donuts.\u00a0 I am terrible at organization, in a way that, yes, increasingly worries me, because I am now realizing that I have to fix this about myself before old age sets in, and instead I seem to be getting more scatter-brained.\u00a0 I am also introverted and really not a fan of social gatherings, or at least the part of them that consists of mingling and trying to find people to talk to when everyone else already knows each other and is engaged in conversations with each other and I identify with people On The Spectrum, as they say, though I am not one myself (yes, it takes more than \u201cnot fitting in\u201d to have an actual autism diagnosis).<\/p>\n So the best I can do, at least for the moment, is try to think through what could be done.<\/p>\n Why has participation in CFM declined?\u00a0 I would put it at some combination of the following:<\/p>\n Declining numbers of parishioners in general<\/strong>.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have counts, but Sunday attendance and weekly collections are both way down, as are the number of kids in the parish school as well as those who participate in religious ed.\u00a0 Why that is, is probably a combination of overall trends, as well as general weaknesses in the parish leadership, both professional and volunteer.\u00a0 Even though the parishes in town are supposed to be working together, it\u2019s my understanding that the parish just to the north of us is, well, kicking our butts.\u00a0 Used to be, they were very progressive (small church building which when they grew with suburbanization they supplemented and eventually mostly replaced with mass-in-the-gym, entirely contemporary music, laypeople giving homilies labelled \u201creflections,\u201d changes in the liturgical text, etc.) so we had a comparative advantage in being more traditional, but now they have a new pastor, they have perpetual adoration, they are actually expanding their church building so as to actually worship in a church,<\/p>\n Organizational weaknesses.<\/strong>\u00a0 There have been good intentions to promote CFM that have fallen by the wayside.\u00a0 The all-group events have been disorganized, both in terms of the events themselves and the planning and communication around them.\u00a0 \u201cActions\u201d \u2014 that is, service projects, collections of goods for donation, and what-not, have diminished substantially relative to what was the case early on in our years in the group, mostly, I assume, due to lack of people able and willing to take on the coordination.\u00a0 It\u2019s tempting to say, \u201chey, [person holding this role], you shouldn\u2019t have taken on this job if you weren\u2019t willing to do the work!\u201d but I suspect that at least in some cases, they\u2019d respond with not, \u201chey, I just wanted all the recognition that comes with taking on this job without putting in any effort\u201d but \u201cI know I\u2019m not a great fit but at least I stepped up when no one else would.\u201d And, really, if the group is half the size, your talent pool has shrunk, too.<\/p>\n Declining interest in CFM as it functions now<\/strong> among those families who continue to attend mass or would otherwise be receptive.\u00a0 This is where I\u2019m asking myself more general questions, like:<\/p>\n What do people really want from CFM?<\/p>\n What would make it a meaningful experience for them?<\/p>\n How many people do it because they get a lot out of it, vs. participating out of a sense of obligation?<\/p>\n What logistical barriers are there, and how many people would like to participate if logistical barriers could be removed?<\/p>\n To start with the last of these first, whenever over the past several years I have raised concerns about barriers to participation, I get nowhere.\u00a0 It\u2019s a combination of \u201cthat\u2019s how we\u2019ve always done it\u201d paired with \u201cthis is the Right Way to do it and people should be willing to make this sacrifice.\u201d\u00a0 Some examples:\u00a0 as practiced at our parish, CFM groups intentionally mix together people of all ages and life stages (as opposed, say, to a Young Moms\u2019 group or a senior group or whatever), but, as far as I can tell, this just doesn\u2019t seem to work any longer, because there are so few young couples that they feel out of place.\u00a0 I suggested some years ago that some consideration be given to offering a \u201cyoung couples only\u201d group for those who would feel more comfortable with this format and it was totally rebuffed.\u00a0 Another time, I suggested that if Friday nights just don\u2019t work for parishioners who would otherwise be interested in participating, that people could be offered the choice of an alternate time, say, for instance, Sundays after the late-morning mass, perhaps paired with pizza and a babysitter\/babysitting room.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Maybe the group I was talking to didn\u2019t understand that my suggestion was for an alternative time for those interested, rather than wholly changing all the groups, but I was left with the impression that there was a general unwillingness coming from an attitude that \u201cpart of what makes use as CFM participants so great is that we sacrifice our Friday nights when we\u2019d otherwise rather be going out or staying in and curled up on the couch after a long week, so we can\u2019t change that.\u201d\u00a0 It reminds me a bit of when the Society of Actuaries changed the structure of its exams a while back (after I had finished the exams already) and there was some resistance along the lines of \u201cI struggled and took years more than it was supposed to take, to pass the exams, so the next generation shouldn\u2019t have it any easier.\u201d\u00a0 (FYI:\u00a0 I took years longer than it should have, but I had babies and morning sickness in the way.)<\/p>\n The booklets which are used to structure the meeting (which are published by the national organization) also have simply changed in style.\u00a0 The general structure is a combination of scripture and \u201csocial inquiry\u201d-type readings with discussion questions, which is fine and actually fairly suitable for this sort of group insofar as it enables discussion without requiring that any one member of the group be an expert as might be the case, say, for a Bible study in which a leader is expected to be able to provide guidance.\u00a0 (Maybe this isn\u2019t really the case and Bible studies the world over use discussion guides which circumvent this just as well.)\u00a0 But the chapters are just not as well written as they used to be, and maybe that\u2019s simply a matter of having lost a few members with that skill set having left for whatever reason and the new volunteer writers and editors lacking that skill.\u00a0 The latest batch of authors like to use the \u201cwhat word or phrase spoke to you?\u201d type of discussion-starter, which I always cringe at.\u00a0 The \u201caction\u201d part also used to list suggestions for activities one might do as an individual, couple, or family, but lately these have been much more specific and prescriptive for the entire group, which just isn\u2019t in keeping with the way it works at our parish at all. (Maybe it should be, and maybe the groups should, as individual groups, concretely plan outreach activities, but that\u2019s not what happens.)<\/p>\n Now, there are a lot of elements to CFM that are valuable, but I think what people appreciate most is the way it offers a means of getting \u201chooked into\u201d the parish, and there are other structures to accomplish that.\u00a0 To be honest, I\u2019d also prefer something that involved less small talk, even if it\u2019s a couples\u2019 euchre group or the like (and even an idealized CFM group might be something I\u2019d want to take a break from as I\u2019m becoming less and less willing to repeatedly be on the fringes of someone else\u2019s conversation or to offer the same statements of how my son is liking college).\u00a0 If the parish tradition of \u201cwe do CFM\u201d prevents the parish from offering experiences to (prospective) participants that are meaningful to them, that\u2019s a problem, yet my core assumption is that it would be an absolute non-starter to say \u201cwe need to jettison CFM\u201d because so many of the people who control decisionmaking take such pride in its history at our parish.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s my sort of long and rambling effort to sort through the issue, and, as usual, comments are great but I do this sort of thing because it helps me to think through it even though I don\u2019t have any next-steps figured out.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Image: \u00a0https:\/\/pixnio.com\/people\/people-in-small-discussion-group-meeting<\/p>\n This is not actually a CFM meeting.\u00a0 We don\u2019t use whiteboards, we don\u2019t meet in lounge areas of larger buildings, we sit as couples and generally have snacks and wine glasses.\u00a0 But it\u2019s close enough.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is CFM? CFM stands for Christian Family Movement, though it\u2019s specifically a Catholic group.\u00a0 I can\u2019t find a history of the group on the CFM website, but Wikipedia has an entry which explains that they were founded in the 1940s.\u00a0 The idealized CFM group is a group of families at a parish who meet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1219,1216],"class_list":["post-13477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cfm","tag-parish-life"],"yoast_head":"\n