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By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer
ATLANTA—Parishioners of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church went
“knock, knock, knocking” on the doors of inactive Catholic neighbors
in April to invite them back to the practice of their faith.
The door-to-door evangelization by parishes is part of a yearlong
archdiocesan evangelization program.
Trained the night before, 26 volunteers gathered Saturday, April 7
for Mass, and were commissioned by Father Fred Wendel, the pastor. They set out
on the clear spring morning, and again in the afternoon, wearing smiles,
crucifix necklaces and T-shirts with images of Mary and Jesus. Going in teams
of two on assigned routes, they were “church representatives” for the
pastor and Archbishop John F. Donoghue to about 160 households, including some
Hispanic households.
Their mission was to plant seeds for the new springtime of
evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II. They carried gift bags
containing a votive “light of Easter” candle, the parish bulletin, an
audiotape of the conversion story of author Scott Hahn, a booklet on the
Catholic faith, and an invitation to come that night to a parish Holy Hour and
program for returning Catholics.
When people were not at home, the bags and a “sorry we missed
you” letter were left. Others, however, were home.
“What we tried to do is find out where they were (in their
faith),” said Tom Eckenrode, who coordinated the parish outreach at IHM.
“We wanted to get across we cared about our fellow Catholics,
be sure they understood what’s going on in the parish, and make sure they
had an invitation to come back into the parish. We tried to stress community,
with all the different ministries, rather than coming back as individuals
— to join their community and participate.”
The Parish Home Visits program in the archdiocese is modeled after
Missionary Families for the Third Millennium, founded in 1995 in response to
the pope’s call, which sponsors evangelization, medical missions and
social work. Over 20,000 missionaries in 20 countries have visited over 300,000
homes in the Americas and Western Europe.
In the archdiocese, the first door-to-door mission was held in
1999 at St. Andrew Church, Roswell, and was led by parishioner Tom Hoover.
Msgr. Paul Reynolds, then pastor, invited the group back in March 2000 to lead
another mission focusing specifically on inactive Catholics. Hoover and Pete
Lichtenwalner led 15 teams that knocked on 249 doors.
After that successful mission, Archbishop Donoghue launched the
home visitation program as part of the “Come To Me” yearlong outreach
to invite Catholics back to the church. It is being directed by Hoover and
Lichtenwalner, who are on the archbishop’s evangelization committee,
assisted by Brian Johnson. It is also a means to invite people to the
eight-week “Catholics Returning Home” program being held in many
parishes and to the “Come To Me” homecoming celebration on June 16.
Hoover and Lichtenwalner held a training workshop last October for
parish representatives to learn how to host missions and train volunteers. The
workshop attracted persons from 20 parishes, and they will hold another one as
the need arises. So far eight churches have made home visits while Hispanic
ministry members from Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta, conducted a
“mega-mission” to Latinos in Roswell throughout Holy Week.
The leaders are there to support church groups, Lichtenwalner
said, ordering supplies, determining mission routes and arranging training
speakers as needed. “Our goal is to help other people host missions. Our
focus is parish home visits . . . In these visits we’re also inviting
people to participate in these programs (Catholics Returning Home and the
“Come To Me” celebration). They’re all linked together and
we’re also extending a general invitation to invite people back to get
involved in their parishes.”
Lichtenwalner hopes parishes will make it a lasting ministry, as
there will always be more inactive Catholics to reach.
Lichtenwalner said reports from the field are good. He noted the
effectiveness of the personal invitation, as many who have drifted away have
simply never been invited back and need that catalyst. He also highly
recommends that missionaries, if possible, bring their families, as persons are
less likely to put their guard up when they see children.
“From what I hear it’s going very well. I’ve heard
a lot of success stories where they say somebody was tapping them on the
shoulder at Mass and said, ‘I hadn’t been to Mass in 10 years and I
came back and got my kid in religious education,’’’ he said.
“If anything, if they’re not interested they’ll thank you and
take the information and that’s it. And many times we actually have long
conversations with people and get invited in to talk more about the church. I
think it’s been a really positive experience for all people doing
it.”
Bob Zimmer, who helped Eckenrode coordinate the IHM mission, said
of the six houses he and his partner visited, five had people at home, opening
wide their doors to Christ. They said a prayer before each stop. Zimmer found
all were cordial and in some cases “we almost had to say, ‘Hey, we
gotta go.’”
He recalled one young Catholic couple with a four-month-old baby
who attended church infrequently but seemed appreciative of the visitors and
invited them in. Zimmer and his partner casually told the couple about Catholic
schools and relevant ministries.
“We thought they might enjoy the young families (ministry).
They showed a degree of enthusiasm. My guess is maybe we did some good,”
he said.
As they had never been really involved in church “my pitch
was, the more you get involved, the more you’ll like the church.”
Another address led Zimmer and his partner to a Protestant widow,
who invited them in and told them how her husband, a doctor, had reconciled
with the church shortly before he developed cancer and how IHM had provided his
funeral services. They talked inside for 30 minutes before she gave them a tour
of her garden where her husband used to meditate.
“Part of it was closure for her,” Zimmer said. “She
was non-Catholic. I did feel (she thought) she hadn’t properly thanked IHM
for all the good in helping them out for the funeral services.”
There are “all types of conversations. You make a friend and
keep going. You never know the effect of all that. We were accepting and
I’m sure it helped her.”
Asking on each visit for prayer requests, he received about four
new names for his list.
“You talk a little about your personal experiences . . . In
two cases we prayed together as we left, held hands and said a blessing and Our
Father, and in one case a baby was part of holding hands,” he said.
“Everybody we talked to seemed impacted in one way or another. We touched
their lives.”
If it came up, Zimmer shared his love for his faith.
“There’s a kind of self-satisfaction that we’re carrying out the
work of Christ,” he said. “I feel that the Catholic Church has a rich
tradition. I think to offer people (the chance) to come back is a tremendous
opportunity and I think it’s a good thing. It’s kind of fun and
it’s also a mission of the church and I like to carry on the mission of
the church.”
Zimmer struck out at all of his apartment stops. Either nobody was
home, people had moved or the team learned they had no apartment number. He
thinks on the next round parish teams should bypass apartments, which are more
transitory housing, and stick to houses.
After the visits, he noted, it’s important to follow up with
people according to their needs. Those who weren’t home will be called.
“We want to make sure we do as much follow-up as we can within the parish
and the overall report goes downtown.”
The team captain, Eckenrode, likely had the driest run of all,
only finding one person at home, who rejected his gift bag. He said only a few
people came for the Holy Hour. While it’s too soon to taste the fruits of
their efforts, he’s sure seeds were planted.
He said that all volunteers were encouraged to share their faith
and to listen, staying calm and letting the Holy Spirit guide them. They
reported that some they visited had just drifted away and weren’t
deep-rooted in their faith, while others had marriage-related issues and
incorrect information or left because they didn’t like something in the
church, like the choir or pastor.
“We planted seeds of faith out there,” he said. “We
encouraged our people to try and ask a lead-in type question . . . so persons
could maybe share with us where they’re at in their journey, so maybe we
could help address or give them encouragement where they are.”
A salesman in familiar territory, who quotes from a poem,
“love is not love until you give it away,” Eckenrode said the
ministry is the natural next step for him after years as a sponsor for those
becoming Catholic. “It makes your faith stronger to see the people ask,
understand and believe.”
He saw many volunteers catch on fire as they followed that Spirit.
They are hoping the ministry will continue at IHM, maybe visiting smaller
numbers monthly. But they’ll need to improve things, such as the accuracy
of their parish membership list, to be more effective, he said.
“It was a great esprit de corps after they got over their
first nervousness — it was very evident people were nervous. A number came
up and said, ‘I’m glad we did it. I’ll do it again.’ . . .
We’re really developing a new ministry we never had at the parish. We had
evangelization in name. We’re just really being pro-active about it,”
he said.
As they live their faith, these neighborhood evangelists seem to
boldly knock also on heaven’s door.
“We’ve gotten people to feel they can get out and talk
to people. It’s hard for Catholics to do. We kind of like to keep our
faith to ourselves for the most part,” Eckenrode said. “We just have
to rise up and be a little more active about the gift we’re given, the
gift of faith and the love Christ has for us. We just need to share that
message.”
For information on developing Parish Home Visits, call Tom Hoover
at (770) 752-0634, Pete Lichtenwalner at (678) 442-6724 or Brian Johnson at
(770) 338-7489. |
