Resources for Soon-to-be Evangelizing Parishes

Understand, pray, and make a plan in one book.

The Four Ways Forward: Emerging Parish Evangelization Models in a Post-Christian America.

Coming Fall 2021 from Our Sunday Visitor Press. Read the preface here.

Parish Vision and Brainstorming for Mission

Thinking outside the box is harder than it sounds. The first goal is to spend some time helping discern the Lord’s vision for your parish. This is not “touchy feely”—it is your North Star that guides mission. And a good prayerful brainstorming session gets your councils or staff teams genuinely excited and invested in the mission of the Catholic Church. We have digital downloads for that, and can facilitate those meetings via Zoom for a fee.

Booklets with actionables for staff teams, groups, parishes.

101 Ways to Evangelize: Ideas for Helping Fearless, Fearful and Flummoxed Catholics Share the Good News of Jesus Christ

A brainstorming session in a book, meant to spur your own creativity. Buying the book gives you free access to the brainstorming process printable and licensing rights. Available at Gracewatch Media (incl. in bulk) and on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

Assessment that matters and drives good decisions.

How do you assess the needs of the larger community you serve? The needs of your congregation? Anecdotes masquerading as assessment will kill us if we aren’t careful.

We are called to be evangelizing parishes, outposts of the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. But how we propose God and a relationship with Jesus Christ within his Church should be shaped by those who we are trying to reach. How? Through a prayerful assessment of your parish and the community it serves. This assessment walks through three tasks:

  • Crunching attendance and registration numbers
  • Assessing the discipleship level in your parish
  • Discerning the spiritual and material needs of the wider community

Process instructions and template available on Gracewatch Media now for preview and immediate digital download.

Offering retreats and parish missions.

The Gospel Heals: Kerygma Retreats/Missions

We challenge you to do a deep dive into the proclamation before anything else, and can help you do that through a mission, a series of talks, more. “Be like Paul”: Acts 20:27.

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Teaching the why and the how of the Catholic mission in a Post-Christian America.

Teaching To See Through Mission

Susan was a college professor for 20+ years, and loves doing individual teaching sessions tailored to your group. Most people didn’t learn how to be an evangelizing parish, ever—but this is completely rooted in our Catholic tradition. A mix of information, interactions, and small groups makes it tangible, useful, and fun. She specialized in waking up 18 year old students at 7:45am and won awards for humor blogging: she can handle your group. Zoom teaching for your council or community works, as well as in person.

Possible topics:

  • How did we get here? The rise of the “nones”
  • Visualizing Joy: The Church of the Future
  • The Covid19 Church: We’re not going back to normal, and that could be good
  • Catholic theology and crafting a parish discipleship path
  • How to recognize people begging for evangelization
  • Missionary Discipleship is not a buzzword, but what is it?
  • Why Gen Z (and everyone else) needs Christ the Healer