Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) Involvement and its Relation to the Spiritual Growth of the Filipino Urban Youth

This research endeavors to describe the involvement of a selected group of Catholic Filipino youth in Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) and how such involvement contributes to their spiritual growth. The BEC has been integrated by some of the parishes in Metro Manila Area in their respective systems to mobilize manpower and enhance people involvement through the grassroot-level of evangelization. Utilizing the purposive sampling method, the researcher worked with the youth of Sagrada Familia Parish (Caloocan City), Sta. Quiteria Parish (Novaliches City) and San Jose Agudo Parish (Quezon City). Youth involvement was measured based on the length of membership in the BEC. Indicators of spiritual growth were incorporated in the survey questionnaires, with subscales on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The researcher-made instrument was content-validated by an expert in the BEC. It was also pre-tested and shown to have a correlation coefficient of 0.824. Results of the survey indicate that involvement of the youth in BEC has a weak correlation to their spiritual growth. Benefits gained from community involvement, areas for improvement, and recommendations were threshed out in a Focus Group Discussion conducted for the three (3) represented communities.