In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients. The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries”, but rather that we are always “missionary disciples”. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel)
Recommended books:
Alpha--a excellent resource for parish evangelization
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We have a crisis in the Church. - Only 17% of Catholics attend Mass weekly. (1)
- There are 6.5 former Catholics in the U.S. for every convert to the faith (2) - Catholicism has lost more people to other religions or to no religion than any other religious group. (2) - Most former Catholics say the primary reason they left was that they "gradually drifted" away. (2) (1) 2021 CARA study; (2) 2018 Pew Research study What can our parish do?The Office of Evangelization offers this online toolkit
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