Intentional Disciples

“My name is Christy Sikorski. My husband Chris and I have been parishioners here at St. Francis for six years. We have two boys who attend the parish school.
When our older son was in second grade and preparing for his sacraments, I encountered several other moms of second graders who wanted to support each other in the special time of preparing our children for First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion. We all agreed to sign up for our parish’s BUILD adult formation together.
We were blessed to have another young mom who had taught preschool at St. Francis as our leader. Stephanie Tanner is a wonderful, caring, and welcoming person. She has a deep faith and can articulately and patiently speak about her strong and personal relationship with Jesus.
Stephanie shared openly and willingly, allowed conversations to occasionally flow to our boys’ baseball games, and always had wonderful insights from Scripture as she accompanied us on our journey to be intentional disciples. We spent particular time talking about how to journey with our children, from kids’ appropriate Bibles (and Bible tabs!) to baby-sized rosary beads that could also be used to help a teething infant in a pinch.
There was a lot of laughter, but never judgment. Stephanie accompanied all of us, wherever we were in our faith journey – folks who were cradle Catholics and folks born to another faith. Folks who had family members in the religious orders and folks who were still hesitant to discuss their faith out loud, even among friends.
When I think of our small group, I am reminded of one of my parents’ favorite prayers, placed prominently in my childhood home – “Footprints in the Sand” – which ends with Jesus saying that He always walks with us, and in the most challenging times of our lives, He carries us.
Through our small group, we were lifted up and carried by dear friends who became even dearer. We grew closer to each other and closer to Jesus.
After our official class was done, we continued to meet once a month to check in, be together, and pray and share our fellowship. When the world changed at the start of the pandemic, we met over Zoom to pray, with each family’s children taking turns to lead our group in praying the rosary.
Thankfully Stephanie was trained and mentored in accompaniment during college…. some of us wish we had this same training. If you’d like to learn more about leading others into relationship with Jesus, to help lift them up with laughter and without judging, join us for accompaniment training with Dc. Keith Strohm in our Ministry Center Thursday nights, July 8-August 12 from 7-8:30pm.”