Evangelization Teams
Evangelization teams can work, and they can be sustained, with the right attitude, organization, and-most of all-spirituality.

The spirituality of evangelization is an outward expansion in the Spirit of Jesus toward others with a burning desire to make God's love known and bring people into the Kingdom of God.

Spirituality for Evangelization Teams

E-team members have to pray to have the heart of Jesus, to know the burdens that others carry, the sense the profound absence in hearts, to feel the drifting of folks from one trivial idea to another, to see the glimmers of the start of faith in others' longings for wholeness, to burn with the same desire of Jesus to bring the Kingdom to the world. 

 

Team members have to make the cause of mission and evangelization part of their daily spiritual routine. They need to start, support, and end each day with thanks for their faith, and with consciousness of those who do not have explicit faith. They need to focus on the Jesus who strains himself to reach out, who lives with astonishing urgency, whose whole purpose is to wrap humankind in a renewed love of his Father and passion of his Spirit. 

 

Team members need to consciously have a particular person in mind to focus the needs of evangelization-someone struggling, someone floating, someone disconnected-and use that person as an icon, or avatar, of the whole range of people who are not involved in communities of faith. 

 

They also need to appreciate their Catholic faith anew each day-the wonder of our Catholic way of life-but with two cautions. It is never the task of evangelization ministers to put down or dismiss the faith of another. Ecumenism is not an enemy of evangelization; it is a partner-for we are all geared toward the fulfillment of the wonder promise of one Church, one Body, united in the One Jesus. The second caution involves triumphalism. Nothing in our appreciation of Catholicism should make us naive as if we were a community free from imperfections. The way we love a spouse or a child even with their blemishes, so we love the Church, aware of the blemishes-and aware of how Jesus upholds us in spite of those.
 


Paulist Comprehensive Evangelization Training
PCET DVD
PCET includes a set of three DVD's with all twelve video sessions that include the foundations of parish evangelization, the theory and practice of reaching inactive Catholics and seekers, and practical parish strategies for evangelization.


PCET Modules
  1. An Overview of Catholic Evangelization
  2. The Reason for Mission
  3. Parish and Mission
  4. Evangelizing Active Catholics
  5. Approaches to Inactive Catholics, Part 1: Serving Absent Catholics
  6. Approaches to Inactive Catholics, Part 2: Serving Absent Catholics
  7. Dynamics of Welcome and Invitation in the Parish
  8. Engaging Seekers Today - What Your Parish Does and Can Do
  9. Parish Public Relations: Techniques for the Parish
  10. Parish Organization and Evangelization Teams
  11. Home Visitation: A Direct Ministry for Reaching Out
  12. Parish Planning: Key to Active Ministry