What do you do when an inquirer wants to get to the “nitty-gritty” about the Catholic Church and “God” and does not really want to faith share or hear other’s stories about God in their life?

In the precatechumenate, the inquirer sets the agenda. So I’d answer whatever questions he had, nitty, gritty, and otherwise. If he wants to get baptized, he will eventually need to learn to grow in and share his faith. It is a prerequisite for celebrating the Rite of Acceptance. See paragraph 42. He can remain in the precatechumenate for a long as he needs to, asking whatever questions he needs to. However, until he shows the beginnings of a spiritual life, he cannot be a candidate for the Rite of Acceptance.

One of the reasons often given for doing only a partial RCIA process is a lack of volunteers. So let’s look closely at how you can redeploy your current volunteers more efficiently. I’m going to imagine you have a team of three people, plus sponsors or godparents as needed. You may have fewer than that, but these principles will still work. Certainly if you have more than that, they will work.

Limit the inquiry process to true seekers

Let’s look at inquiry. What is the inquiry period in the first place? Flip open your RCIA text to paragraph 36 and underline this sentence:

It is a time of evangelization…. Thus those who are not yet Christians, their hearts opened by the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord.

So inquiry is not a place for Christians. Usually. It is sometimes the case that a person baptized as a child was never raised in the faith and has never “freely converted to the Lord.” That Christian could be in inquiry. But the faithful Protestants who are married to Catholics, who believe in Jesus and go to church, do not belong in inquiry. Where do they belong? That’s a subject for another post, but the short answer is, if they believe in Jesus and they are going to church, they are not our first concern.

To see what I mean, flip open another book, if you have it: the General Directory for Catechesis. (You can also read it online.) Turn to paragraph 46: Read the rest of this entry »

Was your liturgy memorable today? Chances are, there was someone in the assembly who was visiting your parish for the first time. If not this week, then next week or the week after, for sure. When they get home, will they remember your parish? Will they return?

It’s not difficult to create a lasting memory among the visitors and potential inquirers, but it does take a commitment to a consistent effort. The trick is to get everyone in the assembly thinking about what they can do to create a memorable experience. It can start with everyone on your RCIA team and gradually extend out to the rest of the parish. Take a look at this inspiring video to see what one bag boy did to transform the grocery store he worked in.

[via Your best just got better]

Whether it’s business or church, first impressions count. According to this post from “Fast Company,” a business magazine, big-time law firms and other major companies have figured out that their best strategies for success start right at the front door with the receptionist.

We in the church business can learn tons from the business world in this area of making a great first impression.

When an inquirer comes to your parish office during the week to ask, “How do I become Catholic?” what kind of response and treatment do they get? Does your parish receptionist know what to do? Are they made to feel comfortable and welcomed? Are they introduced immediately to someone on staff who welcomes them warmly? Or are they given an impersonal brochure and told to come back in September?

Read the “Fast Company” post, and see what your parish can do to improve its Ministry of First Impressions.

Here is an easy way to take the first step toward a year-round catechumenate.

Many parishes have recently celebrated their annual Rite of Acceptance. If that is your situation, you now have a brand new group of catechumens, and you will not be ready for more until next fall.

So here’s your challenge. If someone shows up in the next week or the next month or anytime before next fall asking questions about becoming Catholic, invite them to meet with your ambassador of welcome. Set up a meeting within a few days of your initial encounter. Make sure your ambassador of welcome has a significant contact with the inquirer at least once a month until it is time for your next Rite of Acceptance. (Significant is at least 45 minutes.)

The monthly meeting doesn’t have to be “catechesis.” In fact, it’s not supposed to be. It can just be conversation. When another person shows up asking questions a few weeks later, simply invite her to join the conversation. (But be sure the initial meeting takes place within a few days of the first inquiry.)

If you make that the normal practice in your parish, you will have moved to a year-round inquiry process without hardly lifting a finger.

I signed up for a new wiki an hour ago. If you don’t know what a wiki is, click here. But that’s not what I want to tell you about. I just got an e-mail from Kristine at PBwiki introducing herself as “the community evangelist” for PBwiki. Her reason for writing is to help me get involved and to provide assistance if I get stuck.

Then she gave me ten links I could click on to find out more about my wiki and the PBwiki community. She also promised to respond if I sent her a reply e-mail. (Click on the image for a little better view.)

How simple would this be to implement in our parishes? What if we made a habit of collecting e-mails from any of these folks:

• Couples who inquire about wedding preparation
• Parents who want to baptize their babies
• Anyone who calls the parish office “looking for a priest”
• Families that register for religious education
• Anyone who calls the parish school to get information
• People who call requesting a baptismal certificate
• Folks who call to ask about Mass times
• Newcomers to Mass on Sunday (or Christmas or Easter)

Then, within an hour of receiving their e-mail address, send a note similar to Kristine’s. This can be a template so you don’t have to compose it new each time. But you might have a few different templates on hand to relate more closely to the person’s needs (for example, a template for engaged couples and another for new parents).

Here’s my attempt at something for couples asking about getting married in your parish:

[PARISH LOGO]

Hi from St. Nicholas Parish,

Thanks for getting in touch.

My name is Nick, and I’m the information contact person for St. Nicholas Parish. I’m here to answer any questions you have about getting married at St. Nicholas or anything else you’d like to know about the parish. I thought I’d send you our top tips for finding your way around the parish and discovering who’s who.

If you have any questions, just reply to this e-mail.

Wedding procedures at St. Nicholas Parish

Why marriage is a sacrament

10 tips for a great wedding liturgy

Should we have a wedding with or without a Mass?

People of the parish

Meet our pastor

Other helpful staff members

Couples who were recently married at St. Nicholas

What we do around here

Young adult Mass

Theology on Tap

Parish Festival

What Do Catholics Believe? discussion group

Get help

If you need any help along the way, preparing for your wedding or participating in the parish, check out these great resources.

Our parish receptionist
(she knows everything and everybody!)

Our wedding preparation team

St. Nicholas Parish Web site

FAQs about St. Nicholas Parish

Thanks!

Nick

QDo you have any guidelines or suggestions for recruiting inquirers? After a somewhat small group this last year, we are looking to extend our reach.

AWhat your question really implies is, how do we get parishioners to be more active evangelizers? Catholics are can be a little skittish about “evangelization.” So it is always important to keep in mind what we mean by Catholic evangelization. In his booklet, The Rural Catechumenate, Michael Clay identifies six characteristics of evangelization that are particularly Catholic.

1. Catholics make every effort to foster a deep conversion to the Gospel in the one being evangelized. This means, of course, we must be deeply converted to the Gospel ourselves and be willing to share it with others.
2. Catholics don’t proselytize. We invite without manipulating.
3. Catholics think local cultures are fascinating, especially those we don’t understand very well. We can always find something in someone else’s culture that is a good starting point for talking about our faith.
4. Catholics don’t steal sheep. That is, we don’t try to get people to change Christian denominations if they are fruitful and happy where they are. Of course, we are always open to Christians of any denomination who have questions about us or an interest in us.
5. We accept people exactly where they are in life, even if their lifestyle is difficult for us. That’s what Jesus did, and that’s what we do.
6. Maybe most importantly, we become companions. We listen well, we empathize, we support, and we are loving toward everyone we encounter.

Those are the broad strokes. For more specific and programmatic steps, I suggest you get a hold of two resources. One is Pope Paul VI’s letter, “On Evangelization in the Modern World.”

The other is “Invite!”—a program from PNCEA.

Good luck with this. Please stay in touch and let us know how your year progresses.

The following is Part 1 of a brief overview by Diana Macalintal of the initiation process for adults considering becoming Catholic. Based on material originally written for the Diocese of San José website, you are welcomed to use or adapt it for your own parishes.

Click here to download a formatted handout (pdf) of this article which you can copy for free.

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How Do I Become Catholic?
Part 1: God is calling. Now what?
by Diana Macalintal

© 2007, Diana Macalintal.
All rights reserved.

Learning to Respond
God works in many different ways. Most of the time, God works through ordinary people and events—a parent, a friend, a beautiful sunset, a song, an inspiring story. Other times, we hear God’s call during crisis moments or major life-changes—a birth, an engagement, a sickness, a death. Sometimes, we just have a feeling that something is missing. No matter what your reason for thinking about becoming Catholic, our hope and prayer is that when God calls, you will respond. (If you’re reading this, you’ve already begun to respond!)

One part of the Catholic Church’s mission is to help people respond to God as best they can. For Christians, initiation and on-going participation in the life of the Church are the primary responses to God’s call. Through the process of becoming Catholic, we try to help people learn how to respond to that call not just for the moment of baptism but for everyday of their lives. The way we learn how to respond is by actually doing what Catholics do. So the process of becoming Catholic is not so much about learning things as in a classroom but learning a way of life as an apprentice learns from a master and that master’s community.

Becoming an Apprentice
Becoming Catholic is like an apprenticeship. In the art department of a university I attended, there was a “master potter” who was the teacher for all the pottery students. But his students didn’t really have classes in a classroom like you would have at a school. What they did have was a lifestyle, or a discipline, and they all agreed to live by that lifestyle. In their discipline, the master potter agreed to teach them everything he knew, and the students agreed to watch the potter and follow his example. In a way, they became his disciples.

Every so often, the potter showed them a new skill, like making a tiny tea cup, while the students watched. Then he told them, “Make 100 tea cups like this every day for the next month. When you can do that, then you’re ready to go on to the next step.”

Yet the potter wasn’t only teaching skills; he was also introducing them to the lifestyle of a being a potter. So he had them eat together (using the plates and cups they made), talk about life with each other, take walks together looking at nature for inspiration, and even chop wood together for the kiln that fired their pottery. Little by little and day by day, the students were becoming potters themselves, learning by watching the master, doing as he did, and living as he lived.

Becoming Catholic is a lot like this. There are stages to follow, benchmarks to watch for, and disciplines to be learned and lived before moving on the next step. The process is called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (often called RCIA). In Part 2: Beginning the Process of Becoming Catholic, we’ll look at the first stage of this apprenticeship into Christian life.