Here at Paulist Evangelization Ministries, we are committed to a vision of every parish having an evangelization team. We believe that parishes simply cannot pay due attention to the people who are not present unless a team is thinking, all the time, about who our mission is missing. Even the most successful parishes are missing almost 60% of Catholics (not to mention people hungering for faith). There is no greater resource for evangelization ministry than an Evangelization Team, E-Team for short. Check out the pages we have to help orient parish leaders to recruiting a team, forming a team, and sustaining one. You can download these and present them at a Parish Staff meeting. If we are going to think “evangelization” then we need to think “e-team” as well!
One of the many unfulfilled visions of Go and Make Disciples concerns the failure of most parishes and dioceses to develop effective evangelization teams. “Each parish should have an evangelization team trained and prepared to help the whole parish implement the goals and objectives of this plan. These teams could help train Catholics in evangelization and provide resources to individuals, families, and parish groups. Parishes might even consider designating a trained persona as a full-time coordinator of evangelization.” So said Go and Make Disciples. Why then haven’t evangelization teams taken off? The simple answer seems to be that it’s hard to get teams started, and even harder to keep them resourced and sustained.
In this overview of evangelization teams we’ll discuss: