Is The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today: Pentecost in Our Time a door-to-door home visitation? Do we have to visit every house?

The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today: Pentecost in Our Time process builds on the research that the most effective way of communicating information is face-to-face. The participating parishes are encouraged to visit as many homes as possible but are free to determine which homes in their area will be visited. Safety concerns, time, energy, number of visitors and other factors are all a part of determining how many and which homes will be visited. In the case of a parish which realizes that few if any of the parish registrations reflect addresses in a new housing development, the Parish Core Team might target that area for visitation before others in the parish boundaries.

There are other ways to eliminate and focus addresses for home visitation. The Parish Core Team has the means to get a list of every registered Catholic within a parish’s boundaries regardless of the parish where they are registered. The Team might also work with the local ministerial association to eliminate registered members of other congregations. “Passover” signs will be provided by the Diocese for pastors/pastoral leaders to give to cooperating ministers.

How do we verify or clean up our own parish registrations?

Parish Core Teams and pastors have used various means including

• mailing a copy of the parish registration to each household asking them to made necessary changes
• sending the registration form by e-mail
• inviting people to pick up personalized registration forms after Mass and return them the next week
• providing a space on the registration form for someone to “unregister”
• calling each household (smaller parishes) to verify information
• following up with a phone call for households that do not return information
• having “registration Sundays” for those who attend but have not registered (table staffed by at least one parish staff member who can answer questions)

We are one of several parishes in a small geographic area. Can we work with other parishes to implement The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today: Pentecost in Our Time?

Groupings of parishes or even entire deaneries may find it helpful to collaborate on some or all of the evangelization initiative. Whatever helps to get the Good News spread to as many people as possible.

Is every parish in the Diocese participating in The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today: Pentecost in Our Time evangelization initiative?

When Bishop Blair decided that The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today home visitation initiative would be a diocesan-wide, parish- based program, he recognized that some parishes and pastoral leadership may already be engaged in or have planned a local program of evangelization. He encourages all of the parishes to participate but has given each parish the chance to choose. If a parish is not participating in The Spirit of Jesus Alive Today the pastor/pastoral leader was asked to send a description of the evangelization program being implemented in the parish to the Bishop.

When will we get the materials provided by the Diocese of Toledo?

Diocesan materials are in the process of being developed and produced. Order forms will be made available to the Parish Core Teams several months before the October 2009 home visitation period.

Parishes can use this time period to develop local materials that could be included in the folder that will be provided.

What kinds of materials from our parish should we include in the folder?

Your parish could include any information that would help someone unfamiliar with the Catholic Church or your particular parish to know you better. Information could be about parish events such as hospitality nights, times of prayer services, inquiry programs, links to the parish website, names of staff members to contact if there are questions, listings of ministries or outreach services offered by the parish, and anything else that lets the person know why the parish exists and that someone is there for them.

What are home visitors expected to do?

Home visitors make a “first contact” with a household, a short “meet and greet”. It is a chance to say they are from the local Catholic parish. They offer the folder of materials and invite the person to look them over after the visitors leave and to further consider if the parish responds to any needs they are experiencing. The home visitors also invite them to contact anyone listed for more information.

The specially designed folder will contain a DVD of personal faith stories of individuals from the Diocese of Toledo as well as other materials from the parish that explain more about the parish and the faith. Home visitors are not expected to try to convert or convince the individuals they visit to become Catholic nor to answer questions they may have about the faith or anything else. The materials they leave will have contact information so those visited can follow up locally or online for more information.

Home visitors will also be asked to report back to the Parish Core Team about their experiences. This information may assist the parish in determining further any needed follow-up.

It’s hard to find parishioners to visit homes. Are you going to give us something to help them?

Several aspects of the program help to identify the expectations of what the home visitors are to do and, hopefully make it easier to invite and recruit visitors:

• parishioners go in teams of two to visit
• the diocesan visitation is targeted to take place only during the month of October
• visitor teams are encouraged to go on Saturdays and Sundays and only during the daylight hours
• visitor teams will be given a limited number of addresses to visit
• visits are recommended to take only 2-5 minutes
• visitor teams are not expected to answer questions people might ask them, but rather to provide the person with contact information for staff or trained people who can follow up.

Training will be provided. Parishes will be provided with a program designed to give parishioners skills to visit the homes in a friendly and non-threatening manner. Each participating parish will be asked to send two people to a regional meeting where a team will “train the trainers.” The parishioners who attend these meetings will be given materials to take back to their parishes in order to coach the home visitors so that they feel comfortable and confident when visiting.