CHRI ST IAN

CO MMUNITY

107 S. Greenlawn Avenue • South Bend, IN, 46617 • 574-234-5088

www.peopleofpraise.org
The People of Praise is a charismatic,
ecumenical, covenant community.

Our community began in South Bend, IN,

in 1971, when 29 men and women made a
promise to live their lives together in
Jesus Christ.

Today, the People of Praise includes 1,800

adults and 750 children in 22 locations in
North America and the Caribbean.
 Charismatic
The People of Praise has roots in the Pentecostal movement, also known as the charismatic renewal, a movement that
has brought new experiences of the Holy Spirit to more than 500 million people since the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury. This movement is marked by experiences of baptism in the Holy Spirit, including renewal of faith and prayer and
the exercise of charismatic gifts as described in the New Testament. Pope Francis has called the charismatic renewal
“a current of grace which is for the Church and for the world,” and asked charismatics to share “the grace of baptism in
the Holy Spirit” with everyone.

The People of Praise’s moment in this larger story began in 1967, when South Bend residents, students and faculty at
the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College began to experience baptism in the Holy Spirit and a renew-
al of Christian enthusiasm and fervor. In 1971, after praying together for several years, 29 Catholic and Protestant
Christians covenanted themselves to one another and to God as the People of Praise community, taking on the spread
of baptism in the Holy Spirit as their special mission. The People of Praise was very much involved in the growth of
charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church, a renewal that has touched millions, including more than 30 percent of
U.S. Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the People of Praise ran a series of international Catholic charismatic conferences at Notre
Dame and in Dublin, Rome and major U.S. cities. More than 250,000 people attended these conferences, coming from
dozens of denominations and countries. Pope Paul VI addressed the conference in Rome in 1975, and prominent
speakers at other conferences included Pentecostal leaders Derek Prince and Dr. Ern Baxter, Mennonite Bishop Nelson
Litwiller, and Catholics Dr. Kevin Ranaghan, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap., and Cardinal Leon Joseph Suen-
ens. Members of the People of Praise will travel to Rome in May of 2017 to celebrate with Pope Francis and Christians
from around the world the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Two other movements also influenced the formation of the People of Praise: the Cursillo movement, which had been
growing in the South Bend area since 1963, and the Roman Catholic liturgical renewal, for which the University of
Notre Dame was an international center.
 Ecumenical

The People of Praise has been ecumenical from the beginning. Our community was formed by Catholics and Prot-
estants who heard God’s call to share their lives, responding to Jesus’ prayer in the Gospel of John, “that they may all
be one” (Jn. 17:21). As Pope Francis has said, “You, Charismatics, have a special grace to pray and work for Christian
unity, so that the current of grace may pass through all Christian Churches.”

Membership in the People of Praise is open to Christians who have been baptized in their own churches and who
profess the tenets of the Nicene Creed. Community members remain members of their own parishes or congrega-
tions, where they are active participants. Ecumenism within the People of Praise is marked by mutual love and service
in Christ. The community encourages mutual understanding and personal fidelity to specific faith traditions. Members
strive to live their lives together as fully as their churches permit, longing for the day when all Christians will be one.
More than 90% of the members of the People of Praise are Roman Catholics. Other members belong to Lutheran,
Methodist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal or other churches.

The vast majority of members are lay—married couples, children and single people—but a few members are ordained
Roman Catholic and Lutheran clergy. Several single men, including three Catholic priests and one bishop, are mem-
bers of the Brotherhood of the People of Praise, an organization with official status in the Catholic Church as a private
association of the faithful.

In 1977, the People of Praise organized a conference in Kansas City, with plenary sessions in Arrowhead Stadium
attended by 45,000 people, perhaps the largest grassroots ecumenical gathering since the Reformation.
 Covenant
After a long period of prayer and participation in community life, many members of the People of Praise choose to
make a lifelong commitment to the community—a covenant. This promise is a pledge of love and service to fellow
community members and to God, resembling the permanent commitments made in Christian religious orders and in
many other covenant and intentional communities around the world. The People of Praise respects individual initia-
tive and personal freedom. Community members make this pledge freely, after a formation and instruction period that
lasts three to six years. The covenant is a permanent commitment, with the understanding that God may call a person
to another way of life.

People of Praise members participate in a weekly community gathering as well as regular men’s or women’s small
group meetings. Community life includes individual daily prayer, regular Scripture reading and study, and times of
intercessory prayer. Members normally participate in service activities such as music ministry or youth ministry.
People of Praise members agree to contribute five percent of their gross income to the community, creating a fund
that supports community outreaches, staff and charitable service to the poor. The highest authority of the community
is the board of governors. When making decisions about especially important matters, the board of governors seeks
input and opinions from all community members through a direct consultation.

Community life provides a natural support for marriages and families. Many community children grow up as close
friends, and their mothers and fathers find friendship, encouragement and insight from other community members.
Marriages in the community have a very low divorce rate. Our community life also includes households of married
couples and singles living together, as well as households of single men and of single women. Some members have
chosen a lifestyle of simplicity and poverty out of love for Jesus Christ.

Community members agree to serve other members wholeheartedly, no matter the type of need: spiritual, material
or financial. They work together, pray for one another, visit one another, share meals and offer one another gifts of
money, goods and time in situations of need. Through daily acts of kindness and by constantly forgiving one another’s
faults, they hope to live up to the simple call of the Lord Jesus, “Love one another” (Jn. 13:34).

The late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said of the People of Praise, “In my acquaintance with the People of
Praise, I have found men and women dedicated to God and eager to seek and do His divine will. They are shaped by
love of Holy Scripture, prayer and community; and the Church’s mission is richer for their presence.”
 Branches
Branches of the community are located in:

Appleton, WI
Biloxi, MS
Buffalo, NY
Colorado Springs, CO
Corvallis, OR
Grenada, West Indies.
Indianapolis, IN
Kingston, Jamaica
Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
Mobile, AL
Muncie, IN
New Orleans, LA
the northern Virginia area
Oahu, HI
Rockford, IL
Saskatoon, SK
Shreveport, LA
South Bend, IN
Tampa, FL
Portland, OR
Yakima, WA
 Outreach

Trinity Schools
In 1981, the People of Praise launched its award-winning educational program, Trinity Schools (www.trinityschools.org).
Trinity schools were founded to offer students an education based in truth, beauty and goodness as members of a
community of learners. Today there are three campuses which together annually enroll more than 600 students and
have more than 2,000 alumni:

Trinity School at Greenlawn in South Bend, IN

Trinity School at Meadow View in Falls Church, VA
Trinity School at River Ridge in Eagan, MN

These schools, serving grades seven through twelve, offer a well-rounded curriculum that emphasizes critical thinking
and includes close reading and seminar discussion of classics in philosophy, literature and poetry, a variety of challeng-
ing mathematics and science courses, in-depth Scripture study, studio art and performance-based training in music
and drama.

Trinity Schools have a national reputation for academic excellence and together have earned a total of seven Blue
Ribbon awards from the U.S. Department of Education. Trinity School at Greenlawn is one of only nine schools in the
nation to have received the Blue Ribbon award four times. Of Trinity School at Greenlawn, the political philosopher
Dr. Russell Kirk said, “I know of no better school in these United States.”

Today Trinity Schools enjoy a fruitful collaboration with two member schools, Trinity Academy in Portland, OR, and
The Wilberforce School in Princeton, NJ. Both are classical Christian schools that employ the Trinity School curric-
ulum and have their faculty trained by teachers from Trinity Schools. The Trinity Schools educational model has also
provided the foundation for more than a dozen public charter schools in Arizona, Texas and Colorado.
 Mission Work
Like Jesus, whose “heart was touched with pity for them because they seemed to him like sheep without a shepherd”
(Mk. 6:34), members yearn for the salvation of everyone in the human family. The People of Praise sends missionaries
to live in several impoverished neighborhoods in the Mississippi River Valley, striving to become neighbors who live
close enough to help when the heat gets shut off, when a child gets rushed to the ER or when an elderly person has a
fall. Members aim to spread the gospel and build community the old-fashioned way, face to face and one by one.

Today the People of Praise has missionary outreaches in three neighborhoods:

Allendale/Lakeside, a neighborhood in Shreveport, LA, where the community operates a summer day camp and a
school, Praise Academy at Lakeside.

Evansville, IN, South Side, which includes a community garden called Praise Harvest and an annual summer day camp
for neighborhood children.

Indianapolis South Side, which includes an annual summer day camp for neighborhood children and a weekly pro-
gram for girls.

Marriage in Christ
The Marriage in Christ seminar (www.marriageinchrist.com) is an outreach of the People of Praise to help married
couples renew their love and affection for each other and for the Lord, strengthen their unity as a couple and learn
how to recognize the presence of God in ordinary life.

The five-week seminar consists of a weekly group meeting for teaching and discussion, as well as an at-home compo-
nent to help spouses spend quality time with each other.
 Youth
The Action program of the People of Praise sends teams of high school students and adults to serve for a week or two
every summer in Evansville, Indianapolis and Shreveport. Action members repair homes and run summer day camps
for neighborhood children. During the rest of the year they work to develop the practical skills they need to be effec-
tive on these summer trips and to raise funds to cover their travel expenses.

The People of Praise sponsors outreaches for college students at Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis,
the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities (and other nearby colleges), the University of Notre Dame and George
Mason University in Fairfax, VA.

Businesses
Communication Center is a business in South Bend, IN, which is a ministry of the People of Praise. It supports the
church in its educational mission, by allowing allowing churches and schools to save time, headaches and hassles
by enabling them to order Bibles and religious-education materials from many different publishers through a single
source. All profits generated through its product sales go directly to support the missionary outreaches of the People
of Praise.

one:ten is a web development and consulting company based in South Bend, IN. Their name comes from Ephesians
1:10, “In Christ and under Christ, God wanted to unite . . . everything in heaven and on earth.”

More Information
News updates on the work and life of the community are available at www.peopleofpraise.org/news.
Contact
Dr. Craig Lent
Overall Coordinator
107 S. Greenlawn Ave.
South Bend, IN, 46617
lent@nd.edu

Sean Connolly
Director of Communications
107 S. Greenlawn Ave.
South Bend, IN, 46617
574-360-4273
sjconnolly@peopleofpraise.org