Evangelization Supplement

A man on a mission: Jim Seebeck helps bring renewal process to parishes

Men lay hands on each other at a Christ Renews His Parish weekend retreat at St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis. Christ Renews His Parish is a nearly 40-year-old parish renewal process where separate groups of men and women participate in weekend retreats that are facilitated by other men or women of the parish.

By Sean Gallagher

In 1990, Jim Seebeck was a benchwarmer at St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis. He went to Mass and helped with the parish’s liturgical music, but not much else.

Father Clem Davis, his pastor at the time, recently said Seebeck was at that time “one of those invisible people.”

Then Seebeck participated in a Christ Renews His Parish renewal weekend, and his life has not been the same.

For nearly 15 years, Seebeck, who is currently a member of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Noblesville, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese, has been helping parishes across the archdiocese begin their own Christ Renews process.

“It’s hard to tell how many of our parishes Jim and Tina [his wife] have influenced because of the spiral nature of the program’s growth,” said John Valenti, archdiocesan evangelization coordinator.

“He has had a hand in dozens of [Christ Renews] outreach programs, sustainability efforts and pastoral care of more Christ Renews leaders than I can count,” Valenti said.

Yet as important a role as he has played in the renewal of the faith of many Catholics and parish communities in the archdiocese, Seebeck said his own experience of Christ Renews is much like what has happened in the lives of many men and women who have gone on their own renewal weekend.

He likened himself and many others before the retreat weekend as living the minimum life of faith that the Church requires—going up to a line, but no further.

“Before, you didn’t know there was more stuff out there,” Seebeck said. “Then you get across that line and you think, ‘Wow. I can go anywhere I want with this.’ And then you want to share it with everybody. That’s what Christ Renews does.”

One place Seebeck went with his renewed faith after his Christ Renews weekend was his workplace.

The simple action of placing a crucifix in his cubicle created moments of evangelization when his co-workers would ask him about his faith.

“The power of that crucifix took down those barriers that most people have up around their faith most of the time,” Seebeck said. “I think by my experience of finding Christ and making him such a part of my life, that [crucifix became] a symbol of love for him that other people picked up on.”

Christ Renews His Parish is a nearly 40-year-old parish renewal process where separate groups of men and women participate in weekend retreats that are facilitated by other men or women of the parish.

These leaders usually would have had their own retreat six months earlier then worked through a formation process to help them prepare to be retreat leaders.

But when a parish is starting its participation in Christ Renews, separate outreach teams of men and women from other parishes who have been on and led the retreats elsewhere come in to lead the first weekend.

Seebeck and his wife, Tina, have helped organize or lead such outreach teams at parishes in Indiana and Kentucky for nearly 15 years.

Although Seebeck has lost count of the number of archdiocesan parishes he has worked with, 47 parishes—nearly a third of all the Catholic faith communities in central and southern Indiana—have begun Christ Renews since 1995.

Now Seebeck, in tandem with Valenti, has formed the archdiocesan Christ Renews His Parish Committee, a subcommittee of the archdiocesan Evangelization Commission, of which Seebeck is also a member.

The committee is planning new training seminars to help parish leaders make their Christ Renews process more effective.

One way that the information to be shared at these seminars will be gathered will be through the committee’s Web site. To view it, log on to www.archindy.org/evangelization and click on “Christ Renews His Parish.”

The committee eventually hopes to establish message boards on its site that would allow people who have gone through Christ Renews to share what they think can make the process go more smoothly or what aspects they think might need to be improved.

“Right now, there is no outlet for that kind of communication,” Seebeck said, “and that’s what we want to be.”

Father Davis, who so long ago saw Seebeck in the background at St. Monica Parish, recently observed him at an Evangelization Commission meeting speaking articulately about Christ Renews and the impact it can make on the life of faith of individuals and parish communities.

“It was exciting,” Father Davis said. “I got to see where the Lord works powerfully in the life of this man. His life is very different from what it would have been without the experience [of Christ Renews].”

Seebeck, whose own life was so dramatically changed by Christ Renews and who, in turn, strengthened the faith of so many others, has high hopes for the archdiocesan Christ Renews His Parish Committee.

“Our hope and prayer is that we can bring Christ Renews to every single parish in the archdiocese some day,” he said, “and evangelize as many people as we can in the process, and just support it in whatever way that we can.”

(To learn more about Christ Renews His Parish, log on to www.archindy.org/evangelization and click on “Christ Renews His Parish.”) †