(OSV News) — The faithful of course expect to find heaven in their parish — but what about when Mass is over?
Trinity House Community, a Catholic ministry founded and managed by husband-and-wife team Soren and Ever Johnson, can help with that, promising a taste of “Heaven in your home” through formation and fellowship designed to help parents both live and pass on the faith.
“Evangelization begins in the home,” Soren Johnson told OSV News. “We really felt the Lord leading us to invite families into a renewed vision for their marriage and family, their domestic church.”
That inspiration — which followed a seminar in Poland where the couple met, and almost six years of offering the John Paul II Fellowship to young adult Catholics in the Washington area — came from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Paragraph 2205 to be exact.
“There’s this amazing sentence: ‘The Christian family is a communion of persons — a sign and image of the communion, of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,’” reflected Johnson, who from 2011-2019 served as the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia’s director of evangelization. “And we began to work on a model for family life that was rooted in this idea of the family receiving God’s communion, and deepening it in the relationships within the family.”
Cozy spot called Trinity House Café
In 2013, the Johnsons opened the cozy Trinity House Café in Leesburg, Virginia, less than an hour’s drive outside the District of Columbia. But they weren’t done — they next wanted to take the cheerful community of the café beyond its walls.
“We began doing what we called ‘Heaven in Your Home’ workshops around the D.C. area,” Johnson explained, “and nationally.”
They also received a Vatican invitation to the 2022 World Meeting of Families.
“We came to this moment in about 2022,” said Johnson, “when all of these couples would say to us at the end of the workshop, ‘This is what we need — but we need it in community. Not a one-off workshop. We need it year-round, in our parish.’ And that led us to launch the Trinity House groups — which we call ‘Heaven in Your Home’ gatherings.”
20% annual growth in ministry
The ministry — whose parish and parish school subscription model was first offered in the summer of 2023 — has grown 20% annually since gatherings began.
The model of a Trinity House is built on three basic precepts: Focus on one another instead of on one’s self; welcome, listen and serve; seek healing and avoid distraction and addiction.
On that foundation, there are five levels of family life, with corresponding key practices to strengthen each — which are further linked to both a place, and related principles.
A handy chart with graphics — which some participants post on their refrigerators with a magnet — makes it all visually comprehensible, and doable.
Trinity House Community groups meet about five times per year — at a parish or parish school — to share and learn. The gatherings include dinner and fellowship; Virtus-trained childcare; a short video explored through small group discussion; and fellowship and dessert.
‘Heaven in Your Home Letters & Guide’
Weekly letters and online resources from the Johnsons supplement the meetings, and two books — “Heaven in Your Home Letters & Guide: Year One” and “Heaven in Your Home Letters & Guide: Year Two” — are also available.
According to Johnson, there are currently over 60 participating parishes and parish schools in 15 states.
“The heart of the gathering is when these couples turn to one another — usually in groups of five or eight — and they share deeply,” said Johnson. “They open their hearts; they realize, ‘I’m not the only one wrestling with this issue.’ There’s laughter; there’s tears; there’s new friendships begun.”
One participating parish school, Johnson said, surveyed its parents — asking what they wanted, and needed.
“The number one thing was yearning for community. The Trinity House groups directly address this crisis of loneliness in our culture; alienation; a sense of being overwhelmed. Also,” he added, “just that hunger for community — authentic Catholic community — with other families.”
Deborah Thomas, principal of St. Louis School in Clarksville, Maryland, a preK-8 school with 560 students, implemented the ministry two years ago.
“We were looking for something that would provide us a means of family faith formation, and also help build community,” Thomas shared.
“It’s a relaxing night for our parents,” she said. “They get to spend time with other families, and share their faith. They’re part of the school community, and they build those bonds to help support each other.”
Up to 150 typically attend, and spin-off groups have blossomed — including, Thomas said, a prayer group and plans for a retreat.
“It makes it easy for families to go home and apply the things they learn,” said Regina Poncelet, who coordinates the ministry at Holy Trinity Parish in rural Goodhue, Minnesota, a small city of more than 1,200 souls. “It’s not grandiose things they have to read and study and learn. It’s just day-to-day stuff — and that’s what they liked about it.”
Big families attending the gatherings
The parish just finished its first year, with about eight families on average attending. They are, however, big families; so Poncelet estimated gatherings had 25 to 30 children in addition to parents.
“They go to Mass every week and they pray before they go to bed,” Poncelet said. “But there’s a lot of things we can do to make our families stronger that are simple little things we can apply — and just be more intentional about it.”
When the program ended in May, “parents were asking, ‘What are we doing next year?’” she added. “So that’s a good sign.”
In the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, Carrie Harkey, director of the Office of Marriage and Family Life, told OSV News, “We’re trying to really be intentional in building up the domestic church.”
Asking what that might look like, Harkey had some questions.
‘How are they praying together as a family?’
“The family, their lived experience of faith extends beyond just going to Mass on Sunday,” she reflected. “There’s worship — but also, how are they praying together as a family? How are they celebrating the faith through the sacraments of the family? How are they ordered as a family of service, and living out that mission to be a light in their communities; in their neighborhood?”
Harkey said she found answers in the cost-effectiveness and flexibility of Trinity House groups, which the archdiocese plans to launch in five parishes in fall 2026.
“Living an authentic Catholic life is becoming so countercultural that a lot of our families are feeling kind of isolated,” she said. “They’re striving to raise their children in holiness — but they need, and they’re seeking and desiring, that community of like-minded people.”
A strong Catholic family identity, Harkey noted, will help children retain their faith going into adulthood.
Ministry can help keep kids Catholic
Michael Rota, a philosophy professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, told OSV News he also thinks the ministry can help keep kids Catholic.
“There’s good reason to think that Trinity House Community meetings, and other gatherings like them, will help parents hand on the faith to their children,” he said. “Formation in community promotes most of the factors that make it more likely that kids raised Catholic will make the faith their own as adults — factors like increased religious activity, a deepening of faith-supportive peer relationships, and a sense of the importance of religious faith.”
The feedback Soren Johnson receives, he said, confirms to him that Trinity House parents feel better equipped to guide their family’s faith life.
“Parents tell us we have strengthened their confidence in leading spiritually in their homes,” he said. “We are building and strengthening relationships with other families, who share our deepest goal of leading our families heavenward.”
“And we hear the kids are reminding their parents, ‘When’s the next Heaven in Your Home?’” Johnson added. “Because they have such a fun time.”
Kimberley Heatherington is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Virginia.
The post Finding ‘heaven in your home’: Trinity community groups build faith and family first appeared on OSV News.