JPIC: Networking in the Ministry of JPIC

The word networking often carries negative impressions, associated with scams, profiteering, and manipulative strategies. Scholars such as Kiarah Reyshylle Ibañez Mati have studied how scammers exploit networking structures in online transactions, highlighting its misuse in deceptive practices. This misuse has tainted the term, making some wary of its application in ministry.
Yet, in the ministry of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC), networking is not a luxury—it is a necessity. Our dream of building sustainable and regenerative communities cannot be realized in isolation. The challenges of ecological degradation, social injustice, and spiritual fragmentation are too vast for any single community to bear alone. Networking provides the structure and direction by which we can create teams, patterns, and collaborative frameworks across the whole congregation, especially within the Chevalier Family.

Networking Matters in JPIC
On Shared Mission: Networking allows us to revitalize, rethink, and renew our mission so that it remains relevant and prophetic in today’s world.

On Spiritual Strengthening: Through interconnectedness, we strengthen our spiritual and prophetic witness, modeling a simple lifestyle that speaks louder than words.

On Creative Ministries: Networking opens doors to new forms of ministry, joint communities, intercultural formation, lay partnerships, and creative use of properties.

On Digital Evangelization: By embracing social and digital media, networking becomes a powerful tool for evangelization, advocacy, and ecological engagement.

On Global Solidarity: Internationality and interculturality are not abstract ideals but lived realities when communities collaborate across borders.

Creating JPIC Team Structure as a Space for New Collaboration
Creating JPIC Team Structure could be a potential developing space for fresh collaboration within the Chevalier Family communities:
· Inspired by Jules Chevalier, JPIC can be a path to step beyond our comfort zones, engage with others, and form networks of solidarity.
· While some may ask, “What can I do as an individual?”, the answer lies in collective efforts, where the burden is shared and JPIC becomes more practical and sustainable.

Properly understood, networking is far from exploitation. Reclaimed for JPIC, it becomes a prophetic instrument of evangelization, a way to weave together communities, share resources, and create patterns of collaboration that reflect the Gospel vision of unity in diversity. In this light, networking is not about manipulation but about communion; not about profit but about prophetic witness. It is about making visible the Kingdom of God in the interconnectedness of peoples, cultures, and creation.

Modern evangelization calls us to proclaim the Gospel not only in words but in structures of justice, peace, and ecological integrity. Networking is the pastoral strategy that enables this proclamation to take root in daily life. It is how JPIC becomes more than a ministry—it becomes a movement; a living network of disciples committed to healing creation and renewing society.

Richie Gomez, MSC. Philippines Province

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