Sign Me Up! aims for everyone to
become an evangelist
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published March 24, 2006
Detroit Making every Catholic an evangelist is the goal of the Archdiocese of Detroit's revamped Sign Me Up! program.
"What we want to do is turn the entire parish from the pastor to the ushers into an evangelizing parish," Deacon Alex Jones told Archdiocesan Pastoral Council members March 14.
He said the archdiocesan Office of Evangelization would be seeking meetings with pastors and parish leaders to promote the program, which involves a series of eight training sessions.
But Jones emphasized that pastors would have to be involved, because evangelization efforts are unlikely to be fully implemented without the pastor's active involvement.
"We're not going to let them push us off into a corner with three people," he said.
Sign Me Up! was launched in 1997 for inner-city parishes. It has since been revised and adapted for use by all parishes.
The plan mirrors the U.S. bishops' national evangelization plan, with such goals as: "To bring about in all Catholics such an enthusiasm for their faith that, in living their faith in Jesus, they freely share it with others."
Evangelization
Evangelization is not just about winning converts, but reinvigorating the faithful, say the U.S. Catholic bishops in setting the following goals:
Spiritual growth for faithful Catholics
Re-evangelize the Catholic-in-name-only
Reconciliation with those estranged from the Church
Invite other Christians to fullness of the faith in the Church
Good catechesis of children, and
Call the unchurched to conversion. | Sign Me Up! used door-to-door campaigns in the neighborhoods of inner-city Catholic parishes, but Deacon Jones acknowledged that in someplaces a telephone campaign might work better.
And he said some parishes might have success in "bringing people in by the side door" that is, holding activities that attract people in the community to come to the church for an event, so they get to know the parish before they are invited to come for worship.
"No one plan fits all," Deacon Jones said.
Sign Me Up! is also about preparing every member of the parish to be an evangelist among business associates, co-workers and friends, he explained.
By helping to strengthen Catholics in their faith, the hope is they will feel more comfortable and confident about sharing it with others, he said.
"There is no silver bullet this is the work of the Lord," Deacon Jones said.
Several APC members asked what could be done to persuade pastors whom they feared might be reluctant to support the program in their parishes.
Auxiliary Bishop Francis Reiss said he doubted there was any way to compel pastors, but suggested that the enthusiasm of lay people would probably persuade most pastors to get involved.
"Pastors are human, and many of them are not so young anymore. I think if a pastor feels he's not going to be alone is this, he's going to go with you," he said.
The bishop reminded APC members that many priests spent much of their ministry in solidly Catholic ethnic areas in which evangelization was not an issue. "But now, we're living in a new world," he said.
Bishop Reiss stressed that Sign Me Up! "is not just another program from the diocese."
"It is a challenge to live differently, a challenge to look at life differently, and a challenge to look at our parishes differently," he said.
And Bishop Reiss said people need not worry whether they are up to the task of converting others: "I like to think of evangelization as gardening, because you can't convert anyone God does that but what you do is prepare the earth for it."
Cardinal Adam Maida joined the APC members for the final segment of the meeting. He thanked them for their support for the Together in Faith process to develop a strategic plan for the archdiocese.
"It's been a wonderful experience, and you've been part of that," he said.
He said the deliberations which seek to utilize the archdiocese's available clergy and other resources to best serve the people of the archdiocese had developed into "a wonderful dialogue."
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