Parishes prepare to launch door-to-door evangelization effort |
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Written by ANGELA KESSLER, Chronicle Editor
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Friday, 06 February 2009 01:00 |
This fall, a cadre of volunteers is making door-to-door visits in a diocesan-wide evangelization effort.
Called "The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today: Pentecost in Our Time," the program’s purpose is twofold: to introduce Jesus Christ to people who are not active in a faith and to invite non-practicing Catholics to return to the church.
Armed with materials prepared both at the diocesan and parish levels, trained volunteers are to make door-to-door visits within their communities in October.
"This is initial contact evangelization. It is not proselytizing," says Precious Blood Sister Joyce Lehman, leader of the diocesan Secretariat for Pastoral Leadership, who is organizing the initiative. She explains volunteers are not making home visits to sell the Catholic Church, but to introduce people to Jesus Christ and to talk about how He made a difference in their lives in the Catholic tradition.
"We are not there for a particular religious denomination," Sr. Lehman says. "We are, however, Catholic and we will represent the Catholic Church, but we are not there to convince people they should become Catholic."
Volunteers can also provide referrals to non-practicing Catholics for any questions they may have about the church.
"If a person has an issue," Sr. Lehman explains, "the home visitors are not the people to address that issue, but they know who at the parish to give them as a contact."
Each visit is intended to last three to five minutes, and materials are being developed to leave at the homes, including a presentation on DVD. The DVD is to contain brief testimonies from people about their lives both before and after becoming Catholic and why they became interested in the Catholic Church. Other features may include interviews with Catholics who left and later returned to their faith and a message from Bishop Leonard P. Blair. The entire DVD is expected to be no longer than 15 minutes and will be supported with other printed material, Sr. Lehman says.
While the home visitors represent the Catholic faith tradition, the program is to also have an ecumenical component because the intention is not to, as Sr. Lehman terms it, "poach sheep." Instead, parish teams are encouraged to work through local ministerial associations to eliminate active members of other faiths from the visitation program. Alternatively, some communities may choose to provide a card for people registered in other churches to display in their windows during the visitation period. Those homes with cards displayed would be skipped.
"If we find someone is practicing [another faith] but not registered, we would ask if we can give their name to the local pastor," Sr. Lehman says, "so there would be an openness and a graciousness."
While the diocese is spearheading the program by creating many of the materials, providing training and developing ideas, the work in each community is being done by local parishes. This allows the evangelization program to be customized.
"Parishes are only responsible for their parish boundary area," Sr. Lehman says, but in some instances, she adds, deaneries and clusters of parishes may work together and collaborate on the project.
"We’re providing them with resources and information and a possible model for doing it," Sr. Lehman explains. "They may add things or subtract things ... so it will look different from parish to parish." What the diocese is encouraging, though, is for no one under the age of 18 to make visits and for visitors to travel in groups of two.
In addition to hand-out materials, the diocese is providing support through sample press releases, bulletin announcements, homily hints and training sessions for parish volunteers.
The idea for the evangelization program morphed over the past few years from the initial thought of conducting a diocesan-wide census, Sr. Lehman says.
"After parish closures ... in 2005, one of the things we discovered when doing statistical work on that was that many parishes did not have a really good sense if their registration list was up-to-date and active," she says. "We realized it had been 20 years since we had done a diocesan census."
When the idea was brought to the Priests’ Council, deanery meetings and the Diocesan Pastoral Advisory Council, it was not received well. Many priests remember the 1987 census as a bad experience, she says. However, Sr. Lehman recalls many positive outcomes of the census, such as increased numbers of people participating in RCIA classes, more youth involvement and new programs being initiated.
"There were all kinds of things that were positive about that, but the downside was that a lot of the priests felt it was a negative experience and they didn’t want to go through it again," she says. "The evangelization piece they had real energy about."
With an evangelization program in mind, a five-person diocesan core team was developed to look at the different components that would be required.
"One of the things we realized is that pastors are overburdened anyway," she explains, so the team decided to organize the project like the RENEW program of the ’70s where a parish core team administers the project along with the pastor.
More than 200 people were trained to be parish core team members in October 2008. A section of the diocesan Web site is devoted to the home visitation program to help team members share resources.
Two diocesan subcommittees have been formed to help parish teams to administer the program and to help parishes to be prepared for follow-up programs.
"Train the trainer" sessions are being developed and are expected to be offered in August and September so those making the visits are adequately prepared.
The follow-up subcommittee has been trying to anticipate all of the possible ramifications of the evangelization program and what parishes should be ready for. For example, parishes may need to be ready to have an influx of young people desiring to complete their religious education through Rite of Christian Initiation for Children or they may find more people wanting annulments. They may also want to be prepared for welcoming programs or basic Catholic beliefs classes.
"One of the downfalls the last time was that people did not anticipate and prepare to have services ready for what might come up," Sr. Lehman says.
While one expected outcome of the program is to reinvigorate parish life, Sr. Lehman says she also hopes it will re-energize Catholics throughout the diocese as it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2010.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 March 2009 15:12 |
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