Encuentro y Esperanza | Encountering Hope: A JustFaith Bilingual Experience
How does our faith call us to live differently, love more deeply, and help bring healing to our world? How does encountering Christ in one another lead us to becoming people of hope in difficult times?
Program Summary
This JustFaith program invites your small group to immerse yourselves in the foundational teachings of your Christian faith and discern how it calls you to transform your life and our world. Along the way, the program materials highlight the unique and diverse gifts that Spanish-speaking communities bring to the Church, celebrating a few of the many teachings, traditions, and faith leaders that help all of us to see God a little more clearly.
Encuentro y Esperanza includes eight sessions and an encuentro, or encounter, in the local community. Each session explores a key Christian principle based on seven themes of social teaching. Opportunities to include your own denomination’s specific teachings regarding the week’s topic are provided each session, with specific options provided from Roman Catholic, UMC, PCUSA, ELCA, UCC, and Episcopal traditions. Sessions include an interactive Scripture study, a celebration of a tradition from a Spanish-speaking community or witness for faith-rooted justice, and a guided discernment of action steps based on the day’s learnings. Throughout each week, participants will engage in reflections and spiritual practices around the upcoming session’s theme.
Session Content
Session 1 | Dignity of the Human Person: Through community guidelines and an activity around active listening, participants practice recognizing and honoring the image of God in one another – even when they disagree.
Session 2: Holy Ground (1 hour): With Jesus and modern-day truth-tellers as guides, how do we honestly express ourselves in a context where honest expression isn’t valued?
Session 3: From Rot to Richness (1 hour): Explores our kinship with God and each other and how we practice accountability with one another.
Session 4: Prodigal People (1 hour): Through the parable of the prodigal son, explore the relationship between repentance and forgiveness. What can accountability look like for social injustice?
Session 5: Redemption in Reciprocity (1 hour): Explores the vastness of God’s forgiveness and mercy and invites us to grow our own capacity for forgiveness.
Session 6: Repair. Restore. Rise! (1 hour): How can we follow Jesus’ example: “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” This session expands the understanding of forgiveness as both individual and collective practices.
He Is Risen! We Are Rising! (optional, 1-3 hours) – Participants discern how they can live out the invitation to be resurrection-keepers.
Who Is This For?
This series was designed primarily for in-person use in churches of all denominations. However, it could also be adapted for the following uses:
- Individually (instead of answering discussion questions, participants would journal or reflect silently)
- With a spouse, roommate, friend, or partner
- With a group of friends or coworkers
- With virtual groups
- As material for a sermon series
Ideas for church-based use:
- As a small group or Bible study offering
- Sunday School series
- Gathering time before or after worship/mass
- Women’s groups, men’s groups, young adult groups
- Campus ministries
- Wednesday night programming
- As a parent activity during children or youth programming
- Intergenerational ministry with high schoolers and their parents
This one time registration fee allows you unlimited access to the materials. (For example, you could conduct one small group, 35 small groups, or a large group of 500 people – the cost is the same).
Want to know more? Need help inviting people to your small group?
An overview and sample session are available for free download. Just fill out the form below.