Lineamenta on Organizing

GKK, A NEW WAY OF BEING CHURCH

GKK (Gagmayng or Galagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban, Basic Ecclesial Communities or Basic Christian Communities) is a new way of being Church which gives new life and dynamism to the visible Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. As a community of Christ’s faithful who are greatly inspired by the Gospel in their faith, it is sincerely worshipping, prophetically witnessing, generously serving, compassionately caring, progressively consolidating, joyfully radiating to the young and journeying with those in their golden years of life and service. God calls us to participate in His life not merely as individuals but more so as a community as a people of God, who though composed of many members is one, united in faith in Christ and in the service of one another (I Cor 12; Rom 12). In order to nurture constant growth of this community, our Lord instituted a variety of ministries which work for the good of the whole body. He sends forth apostles to proclaim the Good News and willed that their successors, the bishops, should be shepherds of the Church who are one and undivided under the successor of Peter, the Pope. A bishop emulates Jesus the Good Shepherd who did not come “to be served but to serve” (Mk 10:45). A portion of God’s Community is called a Diocese which is to be shepherded by the episcopate with the cooperation of the priests in the parishes and Mission areas. The bishop exercises the legislative, executive and judicial power as an ordinary (Canon 391). To ensure concerted pastoral action under the care of the episcopate, the Diocese is subdivided into Vicariates, and Vicariates into parishes to effectively promote the principle of subsidiarity and equitable distribution of Ministry (Christus Dominus, 30). The parish is subdivided into small groups for effective apostolate and ministry called the GKK (Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban) or BEC (Basic ecclesial Communities) or BCC (Basic Christian Communities). This is the “community of disciples” or small communities of disciples of Jesus Christ that effectively brings the work of evangelization up to grassroots level. This new emergent way of being Church encourages participatory pastoral administration as well as renewal and revitalization of the Church at the base level.
GKK as a new way of being church in the Diocese of San Carlos faces the complex reality of our times and manifest herself as the base of the people of God who is both divine and human, transcending social and political limitations but at the same time quietly adapting herself to the dominant socio-political patterns of Negros Island. As a small Church she has on the one hand the character of being supernatural and standing above the passing structures of politics as vanguard of Christian virtues. On the other hand, she is the people of God at the grassroots, in the community of men and women who are social beings and greatly affected by the concrete socio-economic problems like poverty and exploitation and by harsh political situation that sometimes erode the moral fiber of the people living at the base communities. GKK provides the liberating expression of a popular Church that realizes the emergence of a Church that is communitarian and relevant, yet faith-based communities with prophetic stand that responds to the societal problem in the light of Christian teaching. As local, self-governing, self-nourishing, self-supporting and self-extending base communities are federated into a parish, faith-witnessing becomes more alive and the Church truly expresses the action of the Spirit of Christ in our times.

Questions for Small Group Discussion

1. Is your parish actively building GKK at the grassroots level to evangelize the people down to the base level?
2. What are the basic problems encountered by the GKK in your parish? How do you respond to them?
3. How far is your Parish Organizing Committee helping your parish in the building a Church of the poor?
4. What are your education and organizing programs and activities to enrich the small communities of the lay faithful?