Effective Reunion Group Tips

1. Be regular. The group meeting must take place on a regular, periodic basis and everyone should be there - otherwise, it will likely not develop and may soon fail.
2. Prepare ahead of time what you will say. Bring something to share.
3. The leader role should rotate through the members from meeting to meeting.
4. Take each section of the Order of Reunion Group and have everyone contribute their share to that section; then move on to the next section.
5. Be aware that Christ is working in the world through YOU! Take the reunion group seriously - be serious, be honest, be careful to keep secrets. Be concerned for others.
6. The group should get together for occasions other than the reunion, otherwise it is difficult to develop a deep friendship in the group. The group activity can be a meal, a party, as well as visits to a hospital, making of agape, creating a banner, or other projects. Occasionally, as a group activity, review the success of your reunion group and ask how it can be improved.

We are called to the Great Banquet and Awakening weekends to make reunion groups. As Eduardo Bonin, one of the founders of the Cursillo movement said, "We must bear in mind that reunion groups are not held so that there may be people to attend the Great Banquet and Awakening weekends, but the Great Banquet and Awakening weekends are held so that there may be people to make reunion groups. The Great Banquet and Awakening are the best means we know for putting the soul at the necessary level to begin to make a reunion group." The reunion group is the main aid the Great Banquet and Awakening gives us to keep our Christian lives, our life in Christ, conscious and growing and more effective.

If reunion groups get mechanical and formal, and if we are not getting out of them what we should, it is a sure sign that we are not putting forth the effort required for maintaining them. Reunion groups take the same idealism, dedication, and spirit of charity called for in the Great Banquet and Awakening. If the reunion groups get tiresome and seem of little worth, it is a sure sign that we should believe in them more, work at them more intensely, and love our brothers and and sisters more.

Christ said, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am..." The reunion groups are something done for His sake that He takes seriously. He is present at them and they should be done prayerfully with a dedication to Him that we may know, love, and serve Him better.