Our mission is to produce and share resources that assist parishes, Christian communities, and individual Catholics in discipleship.
The salvation of souls is urgent!
LOVING STONES is our response to parish needs and to Christ’s call for the Church, as a practical blueprint for the modern Church to build the Kingdom of God in our midst. Our plan is to provide the resources necessary to fulfill this mission, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Our two focus areas are discipleship and apostleship.
Discipleship
FOLLOW & GROW
Disciples FOLLOW Jesus in word and deed and GROW closer to Christ by living what we have listed as the 12 Habits of a Disciple. In discipleship, one learns to receive God’s love and share it with others, as Christ taught. See the Pathways to Discipleship three-part study series for more details.
Apostleship
SHARE & LEAD
Apostles are disciples who SHARE the Gospel and LEAD others to Christ for the salvation of souls. As leaders of missions and ministries, apostles place the souls of others ahead of ministry goals and live what we refer to as the 12 Gifts of an Apostle.
Following Christ’s teachings and examples in the Gospels, we discerned three elements to building up the Church.
Spiritual Growth Points
While everyone has a unique spiritual growth journey, we observed a pattern in the way Jesus led others in spiritual growth. This pattern includes four elements, which we call Spiritual Growth Points (encounter, conversion, discipleship, and apostleship). When someone encounters Christ, they may be moved to conversion to life as a disciple. By following Christ’s teachings and examples, disciples grow closer to him and more like him. As they grow into apostleship, they share the Gospel and lead others to Christ.
A community focused on growing God’s Kingdom is one that forms loving disciples that grow into apostleship through cooperation with the Holy Spirit. As followers of Christ, we worship and celebrate the Sacraments, serve others and form communities, grow spiritually, and are sent into the parish and surrounding communities to share the Gospel and lead others to Jesus. LOVING STONES resources help with spiritual growth.
Spirit-Filled Virtues
We envision parishes, ministries, and other Christian communities as places to encounter God's love and be fed spiritually. We propose nurturing a culture of encounter by embracing the Spirit-Filled Virtues of being Prayerful, Welcoming, Encouraging, and Generous. We have consistently observed these four Biblical attributes working together to create a culture that encourages individual spiritual growth and growth in a community. LOVING STONES resources help disciples and apostles embrace these Spirit-Filled Virtues in their lives, ministries, and parishes.
Co-Missions of the Church
In following our Lord’s teaching on the Great Commandment (Mk 12:30-31) and his Great Commission (Mt 28:19 and Mk 16:15), we refer to the Four Co-Missions of the Church as Worship & Sacraments (Love God), Service & Community (Love Neighbor), Spiritual Growth (Make Disciples), and Evangelization (Send Apostles). LOVING STONES resources help disciples and apostles live out the Four Co-Missions of the Church and encourage others to do likewise. Parishes and communities may be organized around the Four Co-Missions.
Our Story
In 2017, four of us were a part of our parish’s Commission for Evangelization and Discipleship. We were asked to discern what our parish might do to improve how we evangelize and form disciples.
Quickly realizing that none of us were experts, we began our research by reading materials on these topics, focusing on how evangelization and discipleship help parishes thrive. We discovered many opinions and successes but did not find an overarching blueprint that helped our parish to act. This led us to return to the Scriptures in search of how Jesus Christ intends the Church to operate.
We discovered that Jesus does have a plan for his Church. He teaches that the Kingdom of God is present where we live the Great Commandment, to love God and love neighbor (Lk 10:27). In the Great Commission, Jesus empowers the apostles to “preach the Gospel” (Mk 16:15) and sends them to “make disciples” (Mt 28:19) who themselves grow to be apostles, starting the cycle anew, growing the Church.
We discerned a system for parishes and Christian communities that conforms with Christ’s call. A thriving parish is one whose ministries and individual parishioners are all working to build the Kingdom of God. Like the work and effort needed to build a physical building out of stones, we are the loving disciples (Jn 13:35) who are the “living stones” that form the spiritual Body of Christ, the Church. As disciples grow in the Lord, they share in building the Church and God’s Kingdom on earth becoming the spiritual structure of the living Church, cooperating with and being built up by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love.
“Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house” (1 Pt 2:5), “…building itself up in love.” (Eph 4:16)
St. Francis Xavier and St. Therese of Lisieux, patrons of missionaries, pray for us!
If you would like to learn more about LOVING STONES, please visit
our resources page and blog or contact us at info@lovingstones.org.