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Friends,

Does anyone think that Evangelism will ever become a serious priority of the Archeparchy? Does it need their leadership for the local Churches to get on the stick? I.e., Are there Churches that will act in this area, outside the one I know about, without Archeparchical leadership? Are there Churches who are really serious about evangelism and not just survival?

Dan L

Hi Dan,

as Christians we have a charge by virtue of the Mysteries of Initiation to evangelize. Hopefully, we evangelize in our own spheres of influence. Perhaps you can state more clearly what it is each one of us needs to be doing to evangelize.

Deacon,

Perhaps I've been around too long but it's difficult to watch the wasting away of so many of our congregations and the virtual silence from the archiparchical leadership. I know what Annunciation is doing but I hear little else. Perhaps it's just me. Are we meant to die out?

Perhaps the place to start is to ask the question "Why are we wasting away?" From that we might get some answers as to our privileges to evangelize. One place to ask that question is at an annual planning retreat. How many Churches have one?

Dan L

Dan:

The bishops will not holding the parish priests accountable on evangelization or education! They don't want to make anyone feel bad! Yes, maintenance or survival is the main theme, unfortunately.

Three priests (this includes bishops) come to mind that even have a clue. The first is Father Elias O'Brien from St. George (Archeparchy), the second is a newly ordained priest, Father Terry Farmer from St. Emilians (Parma), the third is second to none and you can see him when you attend Sunday Divine Liturgy!

Smar

Smargiassi,

I quite agree with your third choice. Sadly, I don't know the other two, but would love to meet them. I probably could if I were going on the Pilgrimage this year. My son's getting married on Sept. 4 and will sadly miss it.

If it weren't for Annunciation and Father Tom...well, I don't know.

Dan L

Dan:

Write a letter or fax to His Grace, Bishop John Kudrick and express your concerns. Better yet, I would urge you to corner Father John Kachuba this Sunday. In fact, I'll bring the duct tape! Seriously, they both need encouragement!

Yes, Annunciation remains the Light of the East for many parishes!

Smar

Father John will be here this Sunday? He's coming as part of the Pilgrimage I gather. Do you think that this exchange is part of a larger plan for evangelism? I.e., is it a conscious attempt to expose other Churches to Annunciation without seeming too obvious?

Dan L

Wow! Taking the mysteries of initiation seriously. What a great place to start evangelization!!

Dragani posted an evangelization plan some time ago. Lots of evangelization ideas have been put forth on this Forum, but they are just ideas, not a complete plan.

Do Eastern Churches have what Latins call missions? By that I mean bring in a priest (a chrysostomos preacher) to give a series of Catholic teachings to charge up the faithful and ask parishioners to bring a friend to the mission. I find missions a good time to receive a new look at the gospel.

Paul

Dan:

This topic is probably the most important on this forum! Primarily because it has to do with the life or death of the Byzantine Church.

I believe we need to be as obvious as can be!Success with evangelization and education should be widely published and discussed.

In fact, on the subject of education, Father John Kachuba is the director of education for the Eparchy of Parma. Like I said earlier, I'll bring the duct tape!

Smar

When you do, I'll know who you are.

Dan L

I have been working in evangelization for many years in the Roman Church, and a few things I have learned:

The most important thing, IMO, is that we remember that the best evangelization is person-to-person. I'm very supportive of advertising ideas, but they never can replace person-to-person contact; only supplement it.

Another key is that we must be able to "close the sale". What I mean by that is that we must get over our reluctance to actually ask "would you like to attend our Divine Liturgy? How about this Sunday?". Of course it is important to lay the groundwork as much as possible by establishing a relationship, and of course we must witness for Christ with our whole lives, but in the end, we need to actually ask the person to come experience our Church. I find that many are hesitant to take this final step, for fear of making the person uncomfortable. The worst that will happen is that they will say "no". A good example of this is parish festivals. They are very nice to have and a great outreach, but you must make sure that you actually advertise prominantly your service times, and make sure that you have a team of people at the festival whose job is to mingle and invite people to attend the following Sunday.

Along with reaching out to those outside our community, we must also look inside and strengthen the faith of those inside the community. On average, each person in the parish probably runs into 30-40 people each week - at work, at the grocery store, etc.. If you have a parish of just 100 people, think about how many potential people that is that you can reach directly. If your parishoners are on-fire for the Lord and your parish, then they will necessarily tell others about it. In addition, giving evangelization "training" to the parishoners would be helpful as well (teaching them to "close the sale", etc.).

Finally, try to find one thing about your parish that makes it unique, and make that the basis of your evangelization efforts. It seems to me that for an Eastern Church this would almost always be the beauty of the Liturgy. Use this as the basis to draw people in, then let the Lord (and good coffee and donuts after Liturgy!) do the rest. Of course, if someone attends the Liturgy and no one from the parish introduces themself to them, they probably will not return. As beautiful as the Liturgy is, most people in today's world are looking for a community above all else.

And of course, above all - pray, pray, pray!!!

Francis,

thank you for your post. Evangelism is certainly a "grass roots" effort. Nothing is ever accomplished from the top down. Even our salvation was accomplished by the Son's becoming flesh and dwelling among his people. Churches are developed one soul at a time by the members. This was a major realization of Vatican II- that the faithful are to answer their baptismal call of personal holiness and evangelism. Perhaps, what Don perceives as lacking is this charge as an orchestrated effort from the hierarchy...? The message has been presented, but it up to the faithful in the pews to act upon it.

Dan,

Don't despair... there are more parishes all the time who are interested in serious evangelization efforts. Twice I have given evangelization talks at St. George in Aliquippa, PA, where Father Elias O'Brien has done a FABULOUS job at bringing in new members.

In September I have been asked to help with a Church Information Night at Holy Protection of Mary in Homer City, PA, where Father Cuthbert Jack is taking evangelization very seriously.

Also, as you know, there is something big in the works not too far from your neck of the woods, which may change the dynamics of everything. I was there for the planning meeting a couple of weeks ago, and good things are happening.

This being said, I share your frustration with the seeming lack of emphasis on evangelization by our bishops. To be fair, Metropolitan Basil came out with a strong statement on the importance of evangelization about a year and a half ago, and it was heralded in our archeparchial newspaper. He announced that they were coming up with a major plan for serious evangelization throughout the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything about this since. I don't know what happened...

I also suspect that part of the problem is that eparchial evangelization offices tend to be placed in the hands of priests. Priests who are more often than not running two (or three) parishes and are already stretched too thin and don't have enough time to seriously undertake such a big enterprise. Perhaps deacons or (gasp) laypeople could be placed in charge of the evangelization effort?

In any case, bishops have some many people and priorities pulling at them that they can lose track of things such as the importance of evangelization. It is our responsibility to remind them of this priority.

Can I make a suggestion? Perhaps you should make an appointment to meet with Bishop John and share your frustration with him directly? Also, tell him of your extensive experience in this field and offer your services. Perhaps he would welcome your help. Who knows, he may even get you involved in the eparchial evangelization office in some sort of officiall capacity?

Another possibility: organizing a letter to all four of our bishops letting them know of our desire for a serious evangelization effort and our willingness to help. You could try and get as many signers as possible, so that the bishops will see that we are serious about this. I'm sure a lot of people would sign, and it may help the bishops to recognize that this is a major priority among the laity.

Anthony

Pardon me for being blunt but it appears to me that there is an apparent attempt to reinvent the wheel.

The USCCB has an entire department devoted to evangelization in the U.S. and the Melkite Bishop of Newton, representing the Eastern Catholic Churches, is a member of the USCCB's Evangelization Committee.

Read first the Bishops' plan(s) and, if unsatisfied, then by all means go ahead and execute your own plan:

http://www.usccb.org/evangelization/index.htm

Without the USCCB's assistance (financial or otherwise) and its guidelines, yours might just be a waste of valuable time and resources.

I thought it is in this one area that we should, and could, be cooperating.

Amado

Dan, this is a bigger issue than just one Eparchy. Much bigger.

In fact, being provincial about it in terms of only speaking about this or that Eparchy's initiatives only subdivides the minority, so to speak. We, united as Greek Catholics of whatever church sui iuris, need to get on the stick with this together.

As Amado wisely points out, there are national guidelines and policies for this, which have Greek Catholic participation at the national level.

In spite of clergy problems, [which are being worked out in many dioceses such as our local Roman] the RCs continue to grow. Very rapidly in some places.

We can learn something there.