This binder is meant to serve as a practical resource and guide for parishes to help pace themselves through the processes involved in putting on encounter opportunities, forming a discipleship group ministry, creating welcoming environments and establishing a parish-based intercessory prayer team. These four elements of parish life will lay the solid groundwork for the bishop’s next phase of our response to the call for a New Evangelization.
In order to better insure that these initiatives don’t get lost in the shuffle and so that the diocesan offices can aid this process as much as possible, Bishop Boyea is asking the pastor of each parish to assign oversight of this binder to one or more people on their parish team (preferably employees).
Please name them here: ____________________________________________________
This person is responsible for scheduling meetings for the pastoral team and keeping tabs on the progress of these initiatives. He or she will also serve as the liaison to the Office of New Evangelization and oversee the reporting of data related to this binder in www.doldata.com . Ideally, pastoral teams will meet once a week but no less than once a month.
Who is on the pastoral team?
Ultimately, this can only be answered by the pastor, but the team should consist of those working most closely with the pastor (the youth minister, director of religious education, deacon, secretary, etc.) It is recommended that the team comprise eight or fewer members, which will enable concise and meaningful conversation in a reasonable amount of time.
A pastoral team should have an evangelization focus. The pastoral team might be enhanced by including members of your evangelization team if you have one.
Big Picture Checklist
The goal is to have initiated all of these elements of parish life in your community by the time of the next Diocesan Assembly, Announce the Gospel 2016.
Date to be Completed:
☐ Intercessory Prayer Ministry
☐ Welcoming Environments
☐ Discipleship Groups
☐ Encounter Opportunities
The presence of these ministries in your parish will greatly support the continued work of retrieving the fallen away (lost sheep) and inviting home the unbaptized.
The US bishops, Disciples called to Witness: “The New Evangelization does not seek to invite people to experience only one moment of conversion, but rather to experience the gradual and lifelong process of conversion: to draw all people into a deeper relationship with God, to participate in the sacramental life of the Church, to develop a mature conscience… and to integrate one’s faith into all aspects of one’s life.”