Training The Average Parishioner to Evangelize

The call of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations was not just given to the institutional Church but the the individual disciple. For years, faithful Catholics have sat in the pews and viewed their roll in the church as to attend Mass faithfully, contribute money and be good people.

Some would hear and respond to the call for help and become a volunteer in the various church ministries. Unfortunately, next to none of our faithful would ever see themselves as people who would (or could) evangelize directly. “That was done by the Priests, Nuns and Lay Professionals.” And yet, that is precisely what the Church needs today. In these days when programming has been all but shut down because of a lack of attendance to programs, the church sitting in the pews must pick up its mantle and go out and evangelize.

There is a very good reason why people in the pew were satisfied to remain the “silent faithful”. Talking about their faith is a very frightening activity and they didn’t have to do it. In addition to this fear was the simple fact that the average parishioner didn’t want to suffer the cost of time it would take to prepare and actually engage in the work of leading others into a viable relationship with Jesus Christ.

With the landscape dramatically changing and the Church loosing more and more relevance in the current culture, both the institutional Church and the Church in the pew are almost ready to engage in the work of preparing the saints to lead hearts to Christ. The Church is now struggling to regain its evangelistic mission. Some preachers are finally focusing attention on this need and slowly instructing the faithful on their true role as evangelists – to become missionary disciples.

At the very beginning of our inception (New Evangelization Ministries), was the call to go and train people to evangelize. But we found a church that was not ready to be trained because many needed to be evangelized themselves. Fourteen years into our mission we have begun to see the signs that the Church almost ready for this type of vision and training.

While in this holding pattern of waiting for the Church, we have been recognizing key roadblocks to this training. Obstacles like fear – people will only go as far as their fears allow them. They can be trained all weekend long on how to evangelize but if they are not trained to overcome the fear, they will not act.

Using various forms and venues, we started developing not only a very user friendly content for one on one (1 person leading 1 person) evangelization process but also a methodology to deal with the fear. Parts of the method have been tested on audiences ranging from a dozen to twenty three hundred. The results have been extremely encouraging.

The other key component in this training methodology is learning how to co-operate with the Holy Spirit. We can’t change hearts, that is the job of the Spirit. However, when we learn how to listen and discern what the Spirit is guiding us to say, we learn how to operate in the “current of grace” that the Spirit moves in. Understanding what is our role and what is the role of Spirit gives us great confidence and faith that God will move mountains.

Gather your key movers and shakers (staff and core) together for a weekend training. We will not only teach them how to do it, we will model for them how to teach others to lead hearts to encounter Christ. We will leave you with the training materials so you can pass it on.

What Else Does NEM Have to Offer Your Parish?

Eradicating Parish Lethargy
It seems that every year parish missions come and go with little to no real intention, other than leadership saying, “this is what we do every year.” How would you like to have a mission that accomplishes more than to have parishioners saying that it was good or bad? How would you like to have a mission that is combined with a process that will evangelize, train, and provide resolute vision?

Read More »

Parish Leadership Training on Vision
One of the major obstacles for parish implementation of the New Evangelization is the absence of a unified vision. Most members of a parish staff have never had any serious training on evangelization or discipleship. They are a group of individuals who come from different backgrounds, different home parishes, and different ministry experiences. Each has his or her own view or understanding of what evangelization and discipleship are, but often they work only within their own ministry and agenda…

Read More »

Pastoral Plan Development
One of the vital elements needed to provide for the spiritual needs of the parish is an infrastructure within which to do so. These systems are most often found within programs that parishes purchase from publishers or ministries. For example, a youth ministry program might use Life Teen, which provides the “how-to” (structure or infrastructure) to distribute the catechetical material to teens. Parishes like these programs because they are user-friendly. While this makes perfect sense in one way, it often causes problems as well…

Read More »

Volunteer Training
Because parishes come in distinctive sizes and with different needs, NEM also provides various forms of volunteer training. With almost 30 years of parish ministry experience, we can train volunteers in the relational ministry methods used for discipleship development. We are equipped to help form your volunteers in youth ministry, catechist training, and adult small group facilitation…

Read More »

Parish Staff Retreats
Very often one of the ways the enemy attacks the parish staffs today is to make them so busy “doing ministry” that they do not have time to pray. Reminding a parish staff of the call to pray always and attending to this critical discipline can help ministers revitalize their strength, avoid burnout, and continue to lead them into deeper Holy Spirit-led ministry…

Read More »

Parent Training
Parents today are a part of the “Lost Generations” that were formed post-Vatican II. The results of their formation lead them to make decisions for their children’s religious formation that are not meeting their real desire—to bring them up in the faith. Providing training for parents is an excellent way to help them to become the sound primary catechist the Church desires them to be. However, they cannot give what they do not have…

Read More »

Take Our Parish Evaluation: Click Here »