• Seton Hall University

For the past 13 years, ICSST has collaborated with St. Paul Inside the Walls, the Catholic Center for Evangelization of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ, to offer a graduate-level certificate in Catholic Evangelization (CCE). It has produced faithful lay agents of change, ready to communicate their faith at the personal, parochial, and diocesan levels. The program includes unique features such as its graduate or non-credit options and Saturday sessions of formation addressing such topics as dealing with mental health issues, interreligious relationships, the compatibility of science and faith, discernment of spiritual gifts, and individual evangelization planning.

Continuing this collaboration with St. Paul Inside the Walls (SPIW) Evangelization Center (Diocese of Paterson), we launched the Pioneering Leadership Conference at SPIW in October 2022.  The conference centered on a key challenge to parish leaders, and ultimately to us, issued by our keynote speaker, Bishop Michael A. Saporito: “Perhaps, it is time to let go of what you are currently doing and embrace what you were originally called to do.”

This year, with even more enthusiasm driven by Pathways 4:12, we continued our collaboration with SPIW, to administer a graduate-level certificate program in Catholic Evangelization (CCE) and to address key needs:

1. Identifying, promoting, and equipping lay leaders of integrity and ability for parish ministry.
2. Involving parish clergy and staffs in the creation, recruitment, formation, and placement of lay evangelizing leaders, including broader reflection on cultural groups served.

Last year’s highlight was the Pioneering Leadership Conference, designed to facilitate conversation and to identify needs. Parish leaders were invited to a day-long event with a twofold purpose:

• Reflecting on the role evangelization plays in their parish and how to call and form leaders.

• Renewing, or, in some cases, beginning to forge a relationship between SPIW and parishes within the Diocese of Paterson and the Archdiocese of Newark to assist their efforts.

Priests and parish staff members of 15 different parishes and diocesan offices from the Diocese of Paterson and Archdiocese of Newark. Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney (Diocese of Paterson) opened the day with prayer, thanks and a message reinforcing the importance of lay evangelization.

There were short, instructional, thought-provoking setup talks including defining personal characteristics of a lay evangelist, how to structure a program including identifying, engaging, and developing potential targets, and implication of multi-year planning—all followed by exercises in small groups organized by parish to reinforce learnings and start the formal development of a plan. A break at lunch allowed for an uplifting keynote from Bishop Saporito, who challenged parishes to rethink their approach and to reach out beyond the “regular churchgoers.”

The unwritten mission statement of a healthy parish, Bishop Saporito said, is: “to bring people in, to build people up, and to send people out.”