When Max Putier uses the words "trust" and "freedom" you get the idea he is being anything but rhetorical. For him it is what he hopes people are getting out of membership in Small Christian Communities: the trust of the other members, the freedom to express how they honestly feel about their faith.

He gives the example of the Small Christian Community he belongs to, which meets every other week. Sure - they put on a spaghetti supper for the parish, and they adopt a family at Christmas. These are a couple of the tangible ways they live their faith, ways they reach out to others. But when they get together the focus is on Jesus and the scripture, and together they go to levels of understanding they as individuals would not likely reach.

In addition to his own group, Max serves on the core team which meets to provide direction to all the Small Christian Communities. Max describes this as a "delicate balance" - to provide groups material for discussion without spoiling the freedom they all enjoy in setting their own agenda, deciding their own focus. The structure provided by the core team includes a book of suggestions. Some groups benefit from following the suggestions; some proceed in diverse directions.

The core team also plans a half dozen functions a year - some social, some reflective - where all the Small Christian Communities get together. At these functions an attempt is made to intermingle members of the different Small Christian Communities. But here too there is a question of balance - members are asked to temporarily give up the familiar trust circle of their own group and become part of the whole; the hope is that the cross-fertilization is a benefit to all.

Max has been a member of St. Lucy parish since 1986. But although baptized as an infant, he didn’t receive the rest of the sacraments until he participated in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) in 1998. A few members of his RCIA group then joined a Small Christian Community. A year later when Anne Burns called and asked him to be part of the core team he accepted.

Outside the parish Max volunteers for Samaritans, the suicide-prevention organization. He has spent time on the suicide hot-line, and now spends his time with "Safe Place," a support group for people who have lost someone to suicide. During the days he works as a case manager for South Shore Mental Health Center from an office in Wakefield, working with children and families at risk.

Max’s parents came here from France in 1964. He was born a year later. After working in several locations around New England, his parents finally settled in Rhode Island in 1974. They founded the restaurant La Petite Auberge in Newport in 1976 and ran it until selling it only recently. Meanwhile Max attended Linden School, Gaudet School, and Middletown High School. Then he got a degree in Photography and Art History from University of Bridgeport. He has three children - Giselle, Danielle, and Nathan - "of whom I am very proud," says Max.