TeamRCIA » Evangelization

5 ways RCIA leaders can overcome “the way we’ve always done it”

Nick — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:23:12 +0000

In 1968, the best team in the upstart American Football league was led by a brash young quarterback who had thrown most of his passes that year for interceptions. Even so, they were slated to go up against the far superior National Football League champions—the Baltimore Colts—in Super Bowl III. Most people expected a crushing victory for the powerful Colts.

So the sports world was more than slightly amused when three days before the big game, Joe Namath, quarterback of the New York Jets, guaranteed that he would lead his team to victory. And, of course, he made good on his boast.

It was not only the Jets’ skill that won the game. Namath didn’t throw a single pass for a touchdown—making the Jets the only team in Super Bowl history to win without a touchdown pass. What beat the Colts was complacency. The Colts were so sure of their dominance, they didn’t realize they were losing until it was too late.

Okay, I know our RCIA teams are not football teams. But all teams, no matter what kind, tend toward complacency. In his book, Leading Change, John P. Kotter says the way to overcome complacency is to increase the urgency level. The more complacent your team or your parish, the more difficult it will be to create a sense of urgency. Kotter lists nine ways to increase urgency for business teams, and not all of them translate well to ministry teams. However, some of his action steps can give us some insight. Here are five.

Eliminate obvious examples of excess

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Excess in the business world includes things like country club memberships and executive dining rooms. What excesses do RCIA teams have? One example that comes to mind is the number of baptized candidates in our RCIA process. Unless a baptized person is truly uncatechized (as opposed to under catechized) they are not subjects of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults.

When I’ve said this at workshops, inevitably someone responds, “If we didn’t include baptized people, we wouldn’t have anyone at all in the RCIA!” Exactly. And that’s a crisis. That requires urgent action.

Set high targets so they cannot be reached by conducting business as usual

Business targets include things like profits and productivity. Initiation ministry has one target—hearts converted to Christ. Our single purpose is to find people who have not heard the good news and lead those people to Christ. Most of us are not used to thinking of finding people who need to hear about Jesus. We wait for them to find us.

If you set a target of annually finding at least two or three or five or twenty-five people who have never heard the good news, you will come closer to creating a sense of urgency
Set the goal high enough that it will shake things up in your parish
But also make it realistic enough that people don’t give up before they even try

Insist more people be held accountable for broader measures of performance

Who in your parish is responsible for finding people who have never heard the good news? I’ll tell you who it is in my parish. It’s the Holy Spirit. We wait for the Holy Spirit to send us people. And that is the only person we hold accountable. If no one shows up, well, the Spirit must not want us to initiate anyone this year. That, of course, is a terrific example of complacency.

To get past this complacent attitude and increase the urgency level, get commitments from everyone in parish leadership to reach out to those who need to hear the good news
Start with getting commitments from everyone on the RCIA team
And then schedule regular times to follow up on how everyone is doing

Use consultants to force more relevant data and honest discussion

Let’s face it. Most of are not good at evangelizing effectively. We need help. Fortunately, there is lots of help available.

More and more chanceries have staff people with expertise in evangelization. Bring someone in to talk with your team
In most dioceses, there is a priest or a youth minister or a choir director who always has great success at drawing large numbers of people. Bring that person in to consult with you
When I go to church every Sunday, I have to go through a traffic jam at what is usually a quiet neighborhood intersection. On Sunday morning, however, the local Pentecostal parish hires private cops to direct traffic in front of their church. Same neighborhood and same demographic as my Catholic parish. And we have Mass in two languages! So why are they so much more successful at attracting people? Somebody should ask them

Bombard people with information on future opportunities and rewards

What rewards do you get from initiation ministry? Here’s what it is for me. When I meet someone who really has no idea who Jesus is, and then I witness them turning their life around and experiencing, for the first time, the hope and peace I’ve known all my life—it’s like drugs. I’m addicted. When I help a faithful Protestant-married-to-a-Catholic experience his faith more deeply, that’s a thrill too. But it doesn’t compare to walking with someone who is meeting Christ for the very first time.

It is possible you have team members who have never experienced leading someone to Christ for the first time. Tell them stories. Tell them what it’s like. Increase their level of urgency to go out and share the good news with those who have never heard it.

Share what’s worked for you

I know from talking with lots of teams across the country that some of you are already good at increasing the levels of urgency in your parish. And some of you have been trying to initiate change, but you get stymied by high levels of complacency—”the way we’ve always done it.” If you’d be willing to share your stories, you can help the rest of us get better at this.

What are your successes?
What are your frustrations?
What have you tried?
What are you planning to try?

Thanks for your thoughts and for all you do to bring people to Christ.

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Wow! The universal truth RCIA teams can learn from box-office hits

Nick — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:28:00 +0000

I was once part of an RCIA team along with another catechist who had a great devotion to St. Michael. Whenever she would lead a session, somehow the conversation always got around to St. Michael. On the team I’m currently with, one member is a dedicated supporter of our parish food pantry for the poor. His examples of conversion are always connected in some way to the parish food pantry.

RCIA teams: make good news sound good to everyone

While personal devotions and ministries should absolutely be part of the conversation with RCIA participants, we have to be careful that our personal passions don’t dominant message. If our goal is to wow the catechumens and candidates with the good news of Jesus Christ, we have to communicate that good news in way that is universal.

If you look at blockbuster movies, for example, you can get a sense of this. Why was Toy Story 3 such a big hit? I personally thought The Triplets of Belleville—another animated movie with a similar message—was a much better film. But Triplets only grossed about $7 million while TS3 raked in $636 million. Clearly, Woody, Buzz, and the gang have much more universal appeal.

The top, all-time Christian hits

When we are catechizing folks who are new to the faith, look for experiences that have wowed Christians throughout the ages. What might those be? We can start with the Creed. We don’t usually think of the Creed as a “wow” experience, but break out some of the mysteries we profess to believe in every Sunday. We believe in:

An all-powerful being who made absolutely everything out of absolutely nothing
A human being who, while still human, is also the pure essence of that all-powerful being—God of God, Light of Light, completely the same nature as the source
A death that ends all death; a resurrection that definitively recreates all creation as a relationship of harmony, justice, and peace among everyone and everything
A sacred and holy Spirit that breathes in and through that creation and (wow!) makes us just as holy
A church, a place, a community of friends that accepts us just as we are; friends (brothers and sister really) who are willing to die for us; who are even willing to die for strangers to fulfill the mission of the Light of Light

These are the universal experiences every Christian shares in. Devotions to St. Michael, dedication to food pantries, and the thousands of ways all of us have found to explore these universal truths more deeply are important. But our first task as catechists to the newcomers is to wow them with the blockbuster hits of our faith.

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Wow! Do you know the secret for creating real presence for RCIA participants?

Nick — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:32:00 +0000

In the Eastern rite churches, just before Eucharist begins, the deacon chants, “Kairos tou poiesai to Kyrio” (“It is time [kairos] for the Lord to act”); indicating that the time of the liturgy is an intersection with eternity.

One icy fall away from eternity

Have you ever been to a liturgy like that? Or have you ever experienced a time like that—when the here-and-now seemed to intersect with eternity? I remember the first time I skied down a blue-diamond (medium difficulty) slope. I’m afraid of heights, so the chair lift up to the top of the mountain was not a spiritual experience. I got off the lift and shuffled over to the edge of the slope. “Slope” is a nice euphemism. “Sheer wall of vertical ice” seemed like a more appropriate description at the time.

I made the Sign of the Cross and pushed off. My skis were pointed straight down the mountain, and I was accelerating way too fast. I turned hard to the left and almost summersaulted into the snow. But I caught my balance at the last second, s-turned back to the right, and all of a sudden I was skiing! My feet and my knees seemed to know exactly what to do. As I glided downward, I looked up and saw mountains all around me, wrapped in dazzling white. The sky was crystal blue, and the high sun made everything sparkle. The Lord was acting in that moment, joining my small human time with the eternal time of creation.

How do we create kairos in the RCIA?

When we are forming the faith of RCIA participants, our goal is to bring them to that kind of time—kairos. It is the time when the Lord acts. It is the time when the Lord is present in a way that absorbs all our attention. Time seems to stop, and everything is about right here, right now. And in a mysterious way, that eternal moment is also about everything in the past and everything in the future.

All of us in this ministry have had those time-out-of-time experiences. But for me, they have most often been surprises. I didn’t get on the chair lift that day expecting kairos. If we are going to wow our catechumens and candidates, how do we create moments of kairos for them? How do we bring them to the intersection with eternity? How do we help them experience “real presence”?

Your thoughts?

(This series on creating “wow” experiences is based on the ideas of Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Books.)

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Wow! Give your RCIA participants the gift of fear

Nick — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:55:00 +0000

One of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit is fear of the Lord (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1831). The other six all seem like gifts we would want to get, but who would want to open up a brightly wrapped box of fear on Christmas Day or your birthday?

Do your RCIA candidates know fear?

Scripture is filled with passages that command us to “fear the Lord.” Sometimes it is the enemies of the Lord or enemies of the Israelites who are supposed to fear the Lord—with good reason. Often, though, the people God loves are told that they must also fear the Lord. Proverbs, for example, tells us, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7).

What’s going on here? Either God can’t tell the difference between the people he wants to smite and the people he loves, or there must be two different definitions of “fear.” And indeed there are. Most of us use the word “fear” to describe the emotion we have when we are confronted by a growling Rottweiler or when we are watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Or, if we are putting “fear” and “Lord” in the same sentence, we may be afraid of divine retribution for our sins.

Awesome, dude!

When we speak of fear as a gift, however, it has more of a sense of awe. Not just awe though. Overwhelming, knee-buckling awe. I think of the first time I stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, for example. The sense of power, beauty, and, holiness that I experienced is something I’ll never forget. It was indeed a beginning of knowledge, just as the proverb says. I began to know that God was so far beyond anything I had ever imagined or ever could imagine. “Awesome” is not quite the right word to describe the experience. “Fearsome” is not perfect, but it comes closer.

A more precise word, but less emotionally powerful, is “transcendent.” I felt transcendence.

When we are catechizing those who don’t yet know or barely know the overwhelming love of God, we can slip into a lot of language that makes God seem warm and fuzzy. At least I do. Inquirers show up with plenty of “fear” of God already—afraid of divine punishment because they haven’t been in church or haven’t prayed enough or whatever. I want to go way over to the other end of the scale and tell them they have nothing to be afraid of. That’s probably the right thing to do at the beginning.

Jesus is not my copilot

But at some point, we have to take the inquirers and catechumens to the lip of the Grand Canyon and stare down. We have to teach them to “fear the Lord” in a transcendent way. God (or Jesus) is never going to be their buddy. God is the God on High, the one beyond all imagining, the one who dwells in unapproachable light. We don’t need to be “afraid,” but we do need to bow down in worship.

Fear of the Lord is the gift that leads to true knowledge. Make sure your inquirers and catechumens discover that great gift.

How do you teach fear of the Lord?

What are your tips and techniques for helping the inquirers and catechumens experience the transcendence of God? Do you have a specific example you can share so the rest of us can learn?

(This series on creating “wow” experiences is based on the ideas of Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Books.)

See also these related articles:

Wow! Build anticipation in your RCIA process—without walking on water

Nick — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:47:00 +0000

When we set out to teach inquirers and catechumens about faith, we sometimes get caught in a worry-trap that we may not be giving them enough doctrine. When you think about how Jesus taught, you’ll notice that he delivered a lot of “doctrine,” but he didn’t worry about it too much. What he focused on instead was creating an experience of the living God. He created a spiritual “wow.”

Follow Jesus’ example

You can do the same thing with your inquirers and catechumens, and you don’t have to walk on water to do it. Take the example of how Jesus began to catechize Simon (Peter) and Andrew. Jesus was walking along the seashore when he saw the two brothers casting a net for fish. He shouted to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

The Scripture says that the two immediately left their nets—their business, their livelihood, their safety net—and followed Jesus (Mt 4:19-20). Jesus didn’t say much about what “follow me” meant, but he had successfully built up a great deal of anticipation in the hearts of Simon and Andrew about what it might mean.

Anticipation—a key teaching method in the RCIA

What we want to do is use the same teaching technique with our inquirers and the catechumens. This is the opposite of what many of us do. Often, we lay out the whole plan from the very beginning. We have our lesson plans all typed and filed. We explain to the inquires how many weeks of inquiry they will have and what they will be “studying.” We have the rituals already scheduled, and we explain them in great detail. Sometimes joining the church can seem more like mastering a complex business deal rather than having an experience of the living God.

Try to let go of some of the details and the preplanning. Or if you must, go ahead and plan, but don’t lay out all the details to the inquires or catechumens just yet. And make a vow to yourself that you will be willing to let go of your plans if the Holy Spirit is nudging your inquires or catechumens in a different direction.

What did you anticipate?

Instead of planning, focus more on building anticipation. Talk more about the the thrill and adventure of being a follower of Christ. Give them some hints of what is to come, and be a little breathless when you do. Recall your own sense of anticipation when you took your first steps away from your safety net. What were you looking forward to? What did you imagine a life of discipleship would be like? Teach your inquires or catechumens about that.

(This series on creating “wow” experiences is based on the ideas of Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Books.)

See also these related articles:

Wow! The importance of “surprise” in the RCIA

Nick — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:27:00 +0000

Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Books, has written a lot about creating “wow” experiences. I think we can learn some things from him and apply his “wow” principles to our RCIA processes. The first step, as I wrote about here, is to identify the wow experiences in our own lives. Then, Hyatt says, we need to ask what it is about those experiences that makes say, “Wow!”

Be surprising

First on his list is surprise. “A wow experience,” he writes, “always exceeds our expectations. It creates delight, amazement, wonder, or awe.”

I wonder how we can surprise inquirers when they seek us out to learn more about becoming Catholic. What are they expecting? I think some might be expecting a class, some rules to memorize, perhaps some low-level judgment about their “shameful” past. What are some things that might surprise and delight them?

Here are just a few things off the top of my head. Please add your own ideas as well.

No classes
No judgment
No expectation that they follow a lot of rules
Someone who listens to their story—and then listens some more
Church ministers (priests, deacons, catechists) who are vulnerable and share from their heart

Here are some more things I thought of. What if, as we get to know them better, we do thing like:

Send a card on their birthdays and anniversaries
Remember their children’s names
Give them free tickets to parish events and banquets
Invite them to a movie
Invite them to dinner
Ask their advice

Share your surprising ideas

Can you think of some other things? Have you done things that have surprised and delighted the folks in your process? Can you imagine doing some things you haven’t tried yet? What would make your inquirers, catechumens, and candidates say, “Wow!”?

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Wow! What RCIA teams can learn from Steve Jobs

Nick — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:08:00 +0000

If you can stand one more reference to Steve Jobs, I’d like say a word or two. Steve Jobs was great at many things, but I think what he was best at was selling stuff. He did not invent the Mac, or the iPod, or the iPhone, or the i-anything. What he did was figure out how to make that stuff cool.

A better way to say that is, Steve Jobs figured out how to make us say, “Wow!”

Steve Jobs was all about the “wow.” When he launched the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, critics said no one needs another MP3 player, cell phone, or tablet computer. Jobs agreed. What people needed (and the word is “needed”, not “wanted”) was something that would wow them.

Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has written a lot about creating “wow.” As a publisher, he often wonders why people would buy more books. Doesn’t the world have enough books? Of course they do. But there are precious few books that make us say, “Wow!”

Does anyone really need more ministry?

Those of us in ministry can ask ourselves similar questions. Do people need one more prayer? Do they need another church? Are they looking for a theological summary of salvation history? Do they have a felt need for more catechisms? Are they so bored on Sundays that Mass becomes their default activity?

These kinds of questions are especially crucial for RCIA teams to be asking. We do this ministry because we had a “wow” experience somewhere, sometime, perhaps even long ago. Whatever it was, it so wowed us that we now give our lives to bringing that wow to others. But the way we do it is often underwhelming. We have to first get back to our own wow experience before we make other people say, “Wow!”

What makes you say, “Wow!”?

So here’s a little exercise for you to try. See if you can come up with a list of ten wow experiences in your life. They don’t have to be related to church or ministry. Just whatever has wowed you. Then post some of them in the comments box. Here are mine, in no particular order:

Snorkeling in the Florida Keys when I was 14 and seeing all the amazing, multicolored life that swims there
Seeing Michelangelo’s David in Florence
The first time I kissed my wife
Reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike when I was in college
The first time I cooked Thanksgiving Dinner by myself
Getting my first bike on Christmas Day
The first time I saw the Pacific Ocean
Eating in a seaside restaurant in Costa Rica and watching the sunset
Skiing a blue diamond slope for the first time
Seeing my first published article in a real magazine

So what has made you say, “Wow!”?

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Set the stage for effective evangelization

Nick — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 18:35:01 +0000

We get a lot of questions at TeamRCIA, but one question we never get is, “How can our team be better at evangelization?” If you think about it though, shouldn’t this be the burning question for every RCIA team? The first stage of the catechumenate is named the “Period of Evangelization.” Everything else we do flows from that stage.

Like all the other ministries of the catechumenate, the ministry of evangelization belongs to the entire community. The team, however, needs to model this ministry and coach other members of the community in their role as evangelists. To do that, you are going to need a parish-wide evangelization strategy.

Do you have what it takes?

You will need to collaborate with the pastor, the religious education folks, the school, the parish council, and the liturgy committee to develop this strategy. Any one element of an evangelization strategy is not too difficult. But making evangelization the focus of all parish activities is a discipline that requires courage and perseverance. Which, I’m guessing, is exactly why the Holy Spirit led you to this ministry.

8 ways to jumpstart evangelization in your parish

Here are some elements of an evangelization strategy. I’m sure you can think of more.

Train yourselves and others in evangelization techniques. The United States Catholic Bishops list ten different national Catholic evangelization programs. One of the best among them is the Paulist Evangelization Ministries. Get one or two resources, try them out, and start to improve your skills.
Ask your pastor to tell evangelization stories. At every meeting and parish gathering, ask him to share ideas about sharing faith. His example will go a long way toward encouraging other parishioners to share their faith.
Pray more. Pray especially for those who have never heard the good news of Jesus Christ. Pray that God will lead you, today, to someone who needs to hear good news.
Hang out in bars. Or coffee shops. Or bookstores. Be out in the neighborhood more and in church less. The people who need to hear about Jesus are not coming to meetings at the parish.
Hang out in the back of church. When you are at Mass, stay near the doors and greet people as they enter. If you see someone you don’t know, use your evangelization techniques you are learning (see step one) to start getting to know them. And here’s a tip. Seekers do not come to Mass early. They come after Mass has started. Stay put at the door until after the first reading.
Already have greeters at the front door? Then greet someplace else. Are there greeters at the side doors? Out on the sidewalk? In the parking lot? If you have ever been to an evangelical megachurch, you’ve seen greeters in all these places. I once had a megachurch greeter rush to my car with an umbrella on a rainy Sunday morning.
Host monthly information events. For example:
Make up your own event. Try not to be too theological or too pious.
Fix your website. Every parish website I’ve ever seen is designed for parishioners, not for seekers. A very few have a little information for seekers, but the site as a whole is always for those who are already members. Think about this for a minute. If a car dealer had a website that spoke primarily to employees and other car dealerships, how many cars would he be likely to sell? Check out that megachurch site in your community. It is absolutely focused on seekers.

A three-month challenge for your team

These are just a few evangelization strategies. Try focusing on one or two over the next three months. Then, meet as a team and ask yourselves, “How can our team be even better at evangelization?”

Share your thoughts

Can you add any more strategies to this list? What has worked in your parish? What next steps will your team take?

See also these related articles:

“In our own languages we hear them speaking”

Rita Ferrone — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:36:47 +0000

I am the proud owner of a series of four catechumenate books in Swahili. They were given to me by a religious Sister from Congo who attended a workshop I gave a couple of years ago in the Bronx. My Swahili is basically non-existent, yet I love these books.

Part of what attracts me are the illustrations. They are simple but eloquent line drawings illustrating stories from the Gospel. Here is the one for the story of Pentecost from the Acts of the Apostles. The people do not seem inert as the Spirit falls down on them. They are being blown away!

There are many charming pictures in these books. In their simplicity, they make the gospel come to life as it must indeed come to life—within the very people who receive it.

I share this picture for two reasons. First, as a reminder that the “hearers of the word” live in all parts of the globe. In this case, Africa. Congo. The catechumenate too is not only here in the US. It belongs to Africa and Asia and Oceania as well as to the Americas and Europe. People are being “blown away” by the gospel of Jesus Christ every day, and the catechumenate is the Church’s way of joining hands and hearts with them as the Spirit lifts our sails.

Second, I post this as witness to God’s grace transcending boundaries. I do not know Swahili. But as I pore over these pages, I discover words that I understand, such as Yesu Kristu (Jesus Christ) and Mama Maria (Mother Mary) and eklezya (church). I see pictures with all African faces and clothing, and yet I recognize the people because I share their story. The gospel belongs to all of us, equally. That’s a bit of Pentecost to me.

[The book: Maamini, published by the Centre Interdiocesain de pastorale, catéchèse et liturgie B.P. 162 Bukavu, edited by the Missionary Society of Saint Paul for the diocese of Uvira. Illustration found on page 218.]

If Jesus is the answer, what is the question?

Nick — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 06:41:00 +0000

In a previous post, I said that reevangelization might be easier for us than evangelization because when we are evangelizing, we have to spend more time and energy talking about why we believe in Jesus as opposed to what we believe about Jesus. We have to say more about how Jesus answers our deepest longings and less about the church’s doctrinal teaching about who Jesus is.

What is your deepest longing?

Fr. Tony Krisak has written a very helpful post on this subject. He points out that all humans have longings. Quoting Ronal Rolheiser, he says humans long for:

love
communion
community
friendship
family
affection
wholeness
consummation
creativity
self-perpetuation
immortality
joy
delight
humor
self-transcendence

Krisak says that when we are first asking someone to turn to Christ, we are not asking them to assent to Catholic doctrine. We are asking them to consider that Jesus is the answer to what they are longing for. And we are telling them that the way to find out if Jesus is the answer is to come and see. Come with us to our community, our parish, our families, and see how we live. Experience our lifestyle. Stay with us a while and see. See if you don’t find love or community or joy or whatever it is you are seeking.

Krisak writes:

We begin not by introducing them to religious education classes that explain the tenets of the Creed but rather by helping them to explore the ways that faith responds to our deepest longings and drives.

The power of the gospel and postbaptismal PowerPoints

Reevangelization, similarly, proclaims that same message. But here is the key difference. The message is always postbaptismal. That is, it is always a reminder of what the person already knows (or once knew and has forgotten). Often, postbaptismal reevangelization does rely on effective explanations of the tenets of Catholic teaching. We are usually saying something like, “You already know that Jesus is the answer to your longing for love. Here is what the church teaches about the way in which the fullness of that love is expressed.” Once we are on that steady ground, we can create syllabuses, handouts, class schedules, and PowerPoint slides that will convey the synthesis of church teaching in ways the returning person may not have been fully aware of before.

Two reasons evangelization is hard

True evangelization is more difficult for two reasons. First, the person who is seeking the “answer” to where he or she can find love or community or joy or whatever is not in church. He or she is not calling us on the phone or e-mailing us. He or she is seeking answers out there in the world somewhere. He or she has probably already found a “false” answer and just doesn’t know yet that it is false. We are never going to find these people by running good RCIA teams. They are out there. They are not in here.

The second reason true evangelization is more difficult is that when we do come across a seeker, we don’t have a practiced way of responding to their longing. What we are practiced at is explaining the tenants of our faith. We are not always so good at explaining how our faith answers our own, similar longings.

How do you do it?

In a future post, we will look at some practical ways RCIA teams can shift into a way of operating that is more focused on initial evangelization. I’d also like to know what you think. Is evangelization easy or difficult for you? Do you have suggestions to share about how we can become more effective evangelists?

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