Evangelisation

Social Cohesion - Different parts of society functioning well together

Persecuted - Treated cruelly often due to religion or belief

Preach - To spread the Good new of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. To deliver a religious sermon to a group of people

Secular - Not religious

Locally 

A parish is a local community of Catholic believers, usually centred around one church, led by a parish priest. It’s where Catholics worship, receive the sacraments, and live out their faith day-to-day.

The best way to evangalise is to focus on the local parishes as this is where the basic message of God’s love can be passed through Parish life, notably through the celebration of the Mass, participating in the sacraments, engaging in bible studies and becoming involved in charitable and outreach events such as food banks. Pope Francis talks a lot about the parish and says that the Parish ‘possess great flexibility’, which means there are many ways they can spread Gods message.

In the Evangelii Gaudium, which means ‘joy of the Gospel’. Pope Francis said he wants the Church to have a special love and care:

‘for all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked’

EG 48

This means that the Pope want us to focus on the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves and to care for them. This links to the bible teaching of:

‘treating our neighbours as we would like to be treated’

This message is best expressed through Catholic and primary schools (linked to parishes) as an important way of spreading Jesus’ message of loving others.

This will influence Catholics to attend Mass every Sunday in order to be part of the Catholic community and become member of the charitable projects that take place. They can also become catechists for holy communion and confirmation programs as ways of evangelising the youth of the Parish along with sending their children to Catholic schools.

Nationally

The best way to evangalise is to focus nationally. The Bishops Conference helps Catholics through the country to know and share the Gospel. This will bring the message of the Gospel to a wider audience rather than focusing on a local area and hence bringing more people to share in Christ’s salvation.

In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis said:

‘we must care for the homeless, the addicted, elderly and abandoned’

These views are echoed through Bishop Vincent Nichols’ Proclaim 15 initiative, which looks at all the projects the church was doing well nationally and shared these initiatives with the wider Catholic community.

This means that by working together on a national level, parishes can share what they are doing to help the vulnerable groups identified by Pope Francis and work collectively to support them. These ideas and initiatives can be shared in Catholics publication such as the Tablet so that all Catholics can support the Church’s vision and mission in order to reach more people.

This will influence Catholics to work together to support the vulnerable groups and share their ideas with the wider Catholic community in order to spread the Catholic faith to all people. It will also influence them to buy the Catholic publications in order to find out how evangelism occurs through the country and adopt initiatives for their local areas.

Globally

The best way to evangalise is to focus globally. The global message of the church means that it can share the message of the Gospel with the whole world through World Youth days and global charities such as ‘Missio’ and ‘CAFOD’. Jesus said:

‘Go out and make disciples of all nations’

Mathew

This means that Jesus wants us to spread his message to all the countries so that they can share in his life, death and resurrection; leading to salvation. Indeed, the early Christian followers started in Jerusalem and spread throughout the entire Roman empire resulting in the entire Roman Empire converting to Christianity.

This will influence Catholics to participate and support global Catholic charities such as CAFOD, who work to support the vulnerable groups in the world. This is also the message of Pope Francis who said we must care for the poor. It will also influence Catholics to support Missio who work to evangalise towns and villages across the world by building churches and training priest to bring the sacraments to the people and evangelising to future generations so they may know Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and lead us to God.