Chris Hurtubise
Director, Office of Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship

“Imagine if right now living in our diocese there were a handful of great missionary saints. Imagine if Saints Peter and Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis Xavier and the great Jesuit Missionaries, St. John Henry Newman, Venerable Fulton Sheen, and St. Teresa of Calcutta were all scattered across our 16 counties. What sort of incredible renewal would our diocesan church experience?

Now, imagine this: What if there were 50,000 missionaries living in our diocese? Brothers and sisters, that is the exact desire of the Lord. At the time of this letter’s publication, there are 53,726 registered Catholics in our diocese. None of us is called to be St. Paul or St. Mary Magdalen or any other particular canonized saint for that matter. Each of them lived their own vocation in their own time and place. And yet, each of us is without question called to be the saint that the Lord is calling us to be.” – Bishop James P. Powers, “As the Father Has Sent Me So I Send You,” Pastoral Letter on Evangelization (2023)

In the Diocese of Superior, we are immensely blessed to have received a clear and inspiring vision for renewal from our bishop. The four phases of evangelization we have been discussing in the past three issues of the Catholic Herald are the pathway for achieving that vision. So, what can our parishes do to bring it about? The last section of the Discipleship

Pathway resource gives a few first steps.

Discerning A Vision

Step 1 – Prayerfully pursue a discipleship pathway
As a group, read, study and pray together. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a clear vision of what a missional parish is going to look like for you. Be bold. Take stock of and assess everything your parish is already doing. You may already be doing some things that fit your vision well. Other things may need tweaking, while others might not fit at all.
Do not plan to start a whole bunch of new programs all at once. Do start to envision a holistic approach to mission that is intentional about all four phases. The following pages have many books, video series and apostolates that can help you pursue this process. For parishes that are new to this, this step could take a year to pursue healthily – be patient!

Step 2 – Cast a clear vision
Cast this vision of your discipleship pathway to the faithful of your parish. Make cards and signage to make this vision as simple and accessible as possible. Refer to it constantly in homilies, in parent meetings, until it’s something of which everyone around the parish is aware. The goal here is to normalize the expectation that all of us are called to ongoing conversion and apostolate. Even if you are not ready to fully implement the vision, start communicating where as a parish you are going to go – build confidence, energy and investment.

Step 3 – Take steps of implementation
Patiently and prayerfully take steps to establish the key elements of your discipleship pathway. There are different strategies you could take here, but slow growth tends to be lasting growth.
Mission Partners
In our day and age, we are blessed that a number of apostolates and ministries have sprung up to assist us in this effort. Here are just a few:

Leadership resources
Very few of us have specific training in organizational leadership. ‘Discerning a vision,’ ‘casting a vision’, ‘implementing a vision,’ ‘transforming a culture’ – these concepts are foreign to us. Luckily, there are authentically Catholic organizations you can work with to build these skills. Here are a few to check out:

* AMAZING PARISH provides coaching and resources to pastors and their teams. They focus on promoting effective leadership and healthy organizational culture, so parish leaders can pursue the mission of evangelization and discipleship.

* DIVINE RENOVATION MINISTRIES offers a wide variety of resources to parishes trying to move from Maintenance to Mission. They have a number of books on topics ranging from big-picture strategy to practical guidance on various aspects of mission. They also have many online resources, including mission coaching programs for priests.

Mission resources
As human beings, we all need real-life examples to be able to see what we are pursuing. A great benefit of working with the following partners is exposure and direct mentorship in missionary discipleship.

* EVANGELICAL CATHOLIC (EC) trains leaders at the parish to disciple parishioners into conversion and a life of missionary discipleship. They do this through formation, coaching and resources.

* FOCUS PARISH MISSIONS, an outgrowth of Fellowship of Catholic University Students, sends two missionaries to live at parishes for a term of three years, where they serve by evangelizing and discipling parishioners and working with leadership to help create a culture of discipleship. They say, “The vision is simple. It’s not a program; it’s Christ’s model of face-to-face evangelization, and of building a community of disciples who are both faithful to the church and equipped with the practical skills to share their faith with others.”

Diocesan resources
Most of the talks given in our Maintenance to Mission initiative have been recorded and are available at the Superior Evangelization & Missionary Discipleship YouTube page. Many other resources are also available at catholicdos.org/evangelization-missionary-discipleship.

Online trainings and resources

* REVIVE PARISHES offers 20 free online courses on all of the vital aspects of parish renewal: evangelization, discipleship, stewardship, leadership, the Eucharist, small groups and more. Each course is given by leading experts such as Chris Stefanick, Bishop Andrew Cozzens, Fr. Mike Schmitz and Patrick Lencioni.

* WORD ON FIRE, founded by Bishop Robert Barron, provides evangelization through a variety of resources, including podcasts, videos, books, articles, Scripture studies and Gospel meditations. The ministry also runs the Word on Fire Institute, which offers online courses to equip evangelists for the 21st century. Courses center on topics such as theology, philosophy, evangelization and culture.

Important books
* “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission,” by Msgr. James Shea
* “Divine Renovation,” by Fr. James Mallon
* “Rescued,” by Fr. John Riccardo
* “Foundations for Discipleship,” by Curtis Martin and Edward Sri
* “Making Missionary Disciples,” by Curtis Martin
* “Forming Intentional Disciples,” by Sherry Weddell
* “Fruitful Discipleship,” by Sherry Weddell