History of Journey and Koinonia Catholic Community

In 1989 a group of people who had been worshiping together for many years in a campus ministry house found themselves without a church home in which they could sing and pray and live their lives as Catholic people in a way that made sense to them. A few of these people gathered and reviewed the possibilities, then sent a letter inviting others to discuss the creation of an intentional Eucharistic community.

Journey began in September 1989, after a meeting of interested people affirmed the idea and called Rev. Gary McInnis as Pastor. The hospitality of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church provided a place, and a small group of volunteers prepared the celebration. The new Pastor ended his first homily by saying that "The journey will give us a name." The following week mail was received addressed to, "The Journey Will Name Us Catholic Community." The name has remained prophetic.

The Journey Preaching Team at that time included the Pastor, Tom Conry (Director of Music), Anne Ryan and Nancy Bannister. Additional people were added to the Team as years passed. In 1990, Nancy Bannister was called as Associate Pastor. Since 1990 Regina Pirruccello has served as Director of Music. The preaching team continues to evolve.

In 1995, family requirements called Gary back to Michigan for several months. To prepare for his absence the Journey community completed a discernment process and created a team of presiders to work with him, and also to serve in his absence.

During Lent of 1997, Gary resigned as Pastor in order to move back to Michigan to satisfy family responsibilities. Nancy Bannister was called as Pastor and until 2001, Laurie Volk served as Associate Pastor.

At the same time that Journey was experiencing all of this history, Koinonia Catholic Community was living their community life in equally interesting and challenging ways. When their life at Koinonia Campus Ministry ended, there were four or more additional places that they called "home" up through most of 2005.

Peggy Friedl-Yee served as Koinonia pastor during all of those years, and many varying ways of celebrating their Eucharists were enjoyed, including priests who joined them by invitation. Koinonia began to choose to celebrate Eucharist as blessed by the gathered community, and enjoyed many years of community life.

In 2005 Peggy contacted Journey leadership people, and a series of meetings were held to explore what the two communities might do together. Out of these discussions a question arose about whether to join the two communities together.

A small committee was formed, and these creative folks tried to anticipate all the questions that might face us if Journey and Koinonia joined communities together. During these months of discussion we each canceled our own masses and went to the celebration of the other community, two times each. We began to know one another and to realize how rich the joining of our communities might become.

On September 4, 2005, we celebrated our first Mass together as Journey and Koinonia Catholic Community. We continue to work in smaller groups (the Emmaus Committee) to keep the Feasts and Seasons alive in our celebrations, and to continue to face the questions of joining together two different community histories. The rich truth of our lives together continues to unfold, and we are raising our voices in sung prayer, hearing the Word, and breaking bread together every Sunday at St. Stephens.

Beginning April 15, 2007, A.C. Caldwell and Sam Gioia serve as copastors of Journey-Koinonia Catholic Community. Nancy Bannister died in October 2006 after a brief illness.