Ministries A future for Catholic
evangelization
By BETH DOTSON
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
Despite Pope John Pauls repeated call for a New
Evangelization, many Catholics still cringe at the term. It brings to
mind images of television preachers and door-to-door missionaries who exude
overpowering personal charisma.
But there are kinder, gentler forms of evangelizing -- a point
driven home recently by the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization
Association, which has led parishioners in six dioceses to see that they were
already evangelizing without knocking on doors or preaching on TV. When they
mailed out church bulletins, took the Eucharist to the sick or organized a
youth picnic, they were sharing the faith.
And in that realization, the programs organizers hope, may
lie the future of Catholic evangelizing efforts in the United States.
Disciples in Mission is the program designed by the
Paulist association to transform ordinary Catholics into evangelizers. The
effort is styled as a response to Go and Make Disciples, the
pastoral on evangelization written by the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops in 1992.
Six dioceses -- Lexington and Covington, Ky., Nashville, Tenn.,
Raleigh, N.C., Ogdensburg, N.Y., and Worcester, Mass., -- launched the program
this year after beginning with training in 1997. The association worked first
with diocesan leaders who then trained local parish teams to organize parishes.
The goal was to think about what kind of evangelization the parishes already do
and to strengthen their capacity through small prayer groups that met
throughout the Lenten season.
In many of the participating parishes, the experience brought
about two results after its first year: A new understanding of evangelization
and a stronger parish community from which to evangelize.
I had very negative ideas about evangelization because
Im a very a private person and couldnt see myself going out and
grabbing people, said Pat Scully, a team member from St. Paul Church in
Lexington. Since learning about it, I am much more positive about it. I
feel like its something I want to do in the format [the Paulist
association] gave me.
I still dont want to go knock on doors or grab people
on the street, but the format of sharing our faith by example and by talking
about the joy of faith [is something] Im much more willing to do,
Scully said.
It is such individual sharing that Disciples in Mission
encourages. The parish materials include prayer booklets that preview the
Sunday readings and prompt small group discussion with questions. Many who
participated had never been involved with this kind of faith-sharing
before.
In the Raleigh diocese, diocesan coordinator Terry Jackson said he
found that converts to the Catholic faith are often more eager to participate
than lifelong Catholics because theyre comfortable with the idea of
evangelization. He also found that small, rural parishes have a stronger sense
of evangelization because Catholics are often in the minority and typically rub
shoulders with people from other denominations who are evangelizers.
Mary Ann Pezzullo of the Outer Banks Catholic Parish in North
Carolina had been involved in an evangelization committee in her former parish
in New Jersey, but she had no idea what sharing the faith meant in
practical terms. Pezzullo went through the training for Disciples in Mission
and led the parish effort.
Of their approach, she said, Were evangelizing
ourselves first. ... First you have to get people comfortable talking about
their faith.
Brenda Thompson, like Scully a member of St. Pauls in
Lexington, said she thought Disciples in Mission would be good for their church
community because it is undergoing a change. Rather than having its own priest,
the parish now shares two priests with the other two parishes in downtown
Lexington. Were trying to do new things to bring the parish into a
new era, Scully said.
With the many parishes across the country facing similar changes
because of the priest shortage, Disciples in Mission sees the formation of
small faith groups as one key to building the supportive communities that will
nurture evangelizing efforts.
Franciscan Sr. Christen Shukwit is the diocesan director for
Disciples in Mission in Lexington. She said that in larger parishes where it is
difficult to establish a feeling of community, people will find a sense of
belonging in small faith-sharing groups. I think thats our
future, she said.
Though the ultimate goal of evangelization may be to introduce
Christianity to those outside the church, an equally compelling purpose seems
to be to strengthen the faith of those already connected to the church in
varying degrees of commitment.
The team at St. Pauls, for example, formed small faith
groups organized around scripture study. Promotional efforts included flyers,
posters, sign-up days and personal invitations, along with a six-week prayer
campaign and encouragement from the pulpit.
The team anticipated what might cause people to reject the
program. They guessed that some of the older people would shy away from the
faith-sharing, but would like the scripture study, so they played up that part
of the program. They didnt want people to think they had to be a
scripture scholar, so they emphasized that the discussions would be about how
the readings apply to each person in his or her life.
Out of a parish of approximately 550 families, 130 people signed
up. Throughout Lent, 17 small groups met in members homes. People joined
groups that met at a time that was convenient for them, which meant
parishioners who hadnt been acquainted before got to know one another.
Thirty-two families also used the Family Activity booklet at home. These
booklets provide childrens activities for various ages and a way for
families to participate as a small group. As people read the scriptures and
shared their thoughts and experiences, momentum built within the parish. And
the negatives were overcome. For example, even though the faith-sharing
wasnt appealing to older parishioners at first, I think thats
what they like the best, Scully said.
For Thompson, one of the benefits was how the parish seemed to
draw together through the program. I have a much greater sense of
community than before, she said. She sees people lingering over coffee
and doughnuts after Mass and has heard comments about the number of
parishioners who met new people.
Disciples in Mission has also given some people a different idea
of what parish life should be. Scully said, With so many older people,
and I consider myself one of them, our background was such that you came to
church and you knelt down and prayed. You didnt speak to everybody in
church. Thats the way we were trained. So its a matter of
continuing education to get all of us more comfortable with the fact that the
church is a place of community, not just worship.
Paulist Fr. Kenneth Boyack, director of the evangelization effort,
said that building community was a logical place to start for an evangelizing
effort. He said that Jesus trained his own disciples by first spending time
with them in a group before sending them out on their own. Drawing people
together with a common vision is a first step for a parish to reach its
own evangelization potential, he said.
As he has spoken with leaders from the six dioceses and received
reports about their first year, Boyack said, Some people are getting
involved in the small groups as participants or leaders who have never really
been involved in parish activities before.
At St. Pauls, Thompson said Disciples in Mission
participants have come forward to fill parish leadership roles. One participant
decided to start a Family Life Ministry for the parish.
As these first-year participants go into a second year of
preparation and practice, Boyack expects that their courage and conviction will
deepen so that they will go beyond the church community with their
evangelization efforts. Learning to become a truly evangelizing parish
takes time, he said.
Boyack also sees Disciples in Mission as a dynamic experience.
The Holy Spirit is bringing about a new evangelization or a new creation,
so it is an evolving process, he said.
Twelve more dioceses have signed on to the evolving program. The
original materials addressed the multicultural needs of parishes by discussing
the African-American and Hispanic communities in their training and providing
some materials in Spanish. Boyack said he has received requests from two of the
new dioceses -- Chicago and Brooklyn -- for materials in Haitian-Creole, Polish
and leaders manuals in Spanish. The association is also responding to
requests for materials for teenagers.
In the fall, leaders from the dioceses of Chicago, Brooklyn, N.Y.,
Tyler, Texas, and Pueblo, Colo., will begin training to implement Disciples in
Mission in their parishes. In the meantime, parishioners at St. Paul Church in
Lexington will continue to feed the hungry through a sandwich program, greet
people when they arrive for Mass and volunteer in the federal prison -- all
activities they have come to see as evangelization.
National Catholic Reporter, September 25,
1998
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