children with ice cream
Creative Moments

Ice-Cream Evangelization: Reaching Out During the Summer

Summer is a great time for busy families to relax and reconnect, enjoying warm weather and outdoor activities. Unfortunately, it can also be a time when many families take a vacation from faith formation. Our faith-formation programs themselves might be partly to blame: many programs run from September through May with no activity taking place during the summer. As a result, we reinforce the mistaken conception that faith formation is solely a catechetical endeavor that […]

father and son talking
Approaches/Techniques

Evangelization Is Our Deepest Identity

One of the most exciting thrusts in the world of catechesis in the past several decades has been the emergence of the importance of evangelization. In fact, catechesis and evangelization are so closely related that the General Directory for Catechesis tells us that “in pastoral practice, it is not always easy to define the boundaries of these activities.” (62) In other words, there is not only overlap between catechesis and evangelization, but there is also […]

Six Be-Attitudes for Inviting Someone to Come to Mass - text on background with flowers and butterflies
Approaches/Techniques

The Six “Be-Attitudes” for Inviting Someone to Come to Mass

People who come to Mass infrequently tend to “PACE” themselves by going to church on Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Christmas, and Easter (P-A-C-E). So how can we reach out to our friends, family members, and those we work with who are not practicing their faith? The answer is surprisingly simple. According to Lifeway Research, 51% of unchurched Americans say the most effective way to get them to visit church would be through a personal invitation […]

bored boy - intermediate grades
Approaches/Techniques

10-Year-Olds Leaving the Church?

Recently, my good friend Julianne Stanz, Director of New Evangelization for the Diocese of Green Bay, WI, wrote an excellent article in their diocesan newspaper, The Compass, in which she addressed the findings of a recent CARA study that reveals that young people around the age of 13 but as young as 10 are deciding to leave the Church. The reasons cited include: “Catholic beliefs aren’t based on fact. Everything is hearsay from back before […]

man praying with young person
Being a Catechist

The Power of Prayer: Three Ways to Model Discipleship

Peter, a director of religious education at a parish, asked Susan if prayer was interwoven into her classroom. “But I don’t have time to pray with my students and still get all of the material covered!” Susan answered, exasperated. “The most important thing,” Peter assured her, “is to model a life of discipleship grounded in prayer.” “Why?” Susan asked. “Because without the deep breath of prayer,” Peter replied, “our students will never believe that we […]

woman catechist with young person
Being a Catechist

The Six Tasks of Catechesis #6: Missionary Initiation, or Evangelizing our Faith

The last of the Six Tasks of Catechesis is missionary initiation, or in terms of the remembering phrase HELP ME, evangelizing our faith. Here’s how our bishops explain this task: “The ‘world’ thus becomes the place and the means for the lay faithful to fulfill their Christian vocation. Catechesis seeks to help the disciples of Christ to be present in society precisely as believing Christians who are able and willing to bear witness to their […]

No Picture
Catechetical Leaders

Pokémon GO: A Parish Primer

In my book, A Church on the Move: 52 Ways to Get Mission and Mercy in Motion, I propose that parishes need to continually help people find connections between the Catholic faith and daily living, including hobbies or activities that people engage in: “This approach can be a wonderful form of pre-evangelization, a way of inviting people to begin getting a flavor of the Catholic way of life without being overwhelmed by anything that smacks […]

Discipleship Pledge Cards for Pentecost
Catechetical Leaders

A Popular Pentecost Idea

With Pentecost being about a month away (May 15, 2016), I thought it would be a good idea to remind you of an idea I proposed last year: Discipleship Pledge Cards for Pentecost. This idea flows from my most recent book, A Church on the Move: 52 Ways to Get Mission and Mercy in Motion. Here’s a snippet from the post from last year: What we need is a strategy for getting people to take the […]

No Picture
Catechetical Leaders

Historical Considerations for Why Catholics Are Afraid to Evangelize

The New Evangelization calls us to reclaim and attend to the traditions and language of Catholicism. But as I discussed in my previous post, many Catholics are afraid to use the word evangelization because they are not comfortable having a personal and lived relationship with Christ. But there are also three historical considerations that may explain why Catholics might be hesitant to use the word evangelization and why they are hesitant to witness to their […]

No Picture
Catechetical Leaders

Breaking the Silence on Using the Word “Evangelization”

The word evangelize comes from the Greek word meaning “to bring the Good News.” Simple enough, right? And yet it seems that many Catholics are afraid of the word evangelization and barely use it at all. “Maybe we can call it something else,” I have often been asked, “something not quite so scary, so intimidating.” The word it in this context is the key and holds the clue to why many Catholics are afraid of […]