Door to door

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ArthurQArch

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Our pastor has asked our men’s group to initiate a new apostolate going door to door to every household in the parish. I was wondering if anyone knew of a program/format that people has used with any success. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Wayne.
 
Our parish has an Inquiry Class that’s every Monday evening that a small group (8) have put together that runs in conjunction with the RCIA program. It’s for those investigators who want to ask questions but don’t have a desire to be a part of the RCIA program. Of that small group of 8, there’s about 4 of them who go out door-to-door on Saturday mornings along with a couple of Legion of Mary members (which I’m one of those). The ultimate goal in going door-to-door if we find someone interested in investigating the church is to invite them to the Inquiry Class. This setup seems to work for our parish and maximizes some of the other programs that already existed in using the RCIA and LOM members.

Best of Luck
 
this is something the Legion of Mary does on a regular basis - going in pairs door to door. We explain that we are from the local Catholic church, and are calling on all the homes in the neighbourhood. We usually bring church bulletins, information about the Church, Miraculous Medals, prayer cards, that sort of thing. Once we’ve introduced ourselves, we take the cue from the person - if they’re not interested, we thank them for their time and leave. The key is to listen respectfully to whatever they say.
You will meet a whole range of people, from devout Catholics to defiant atheists, evangelicals and muslims - treat all as God’s children and you won’t go far wrong.

Does your parish have a Legion of Mary? They’re the experts at this type of apostolate!
 
ArthurQArch said:
Our pastor has asked our men’s group to initiate a new apostolate going door to door to every household in the parish. I was wondering if anyone knew of a program/format that people has used with any success. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Wayne.
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you might begin with the prescribed rules in your diocese for conducting a parish census.

for a full evangelization program our diocese uses Disciples in Mission
 
Thanks for all your (name removed by moderator)ut. I was aware of the Legion of Mary (and was an axillary member at one time). A friend suggested the Family & Youth Mission, a Regnum Christi program that is effective as well. I will look into both.
 
ArthurQArch said:
Our pastor has asked our men’s group to initiate a new apostolate going door to door to every household in the parish. I was wondering if anyone knew of a program/format that people has used with any success. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Wayne.
Click to expand...
We did door to door from June to August this year. We have a new Religious Director, her emphasis, besides education, is evangelization.

We had two teams going door to door, two of us prayed in the church (sometimes joined by our pastor, when his schedule permitted), while the teams were out and about.

Our teams would ask politely for help, saying we were trying out the presentation, and wanted their opinions. They’d give a general brief presentation on what we believe as Catholics, emphasis on brief, then a survey on the presentation. It takes about 20 minutes total without interruptions.

Our success varied from open hostility, curt refusal, to polite curiosity. We had two people express interest, however, when our team went back the next week, they were unavailable.

We called a halt to the door to door for the season. We’ll be back at it next summer.

I hope this helps.
 
Our Parish is currently doing a door-to-door ministry. We had a group of nuns come to our Parish this summer to go through a training workshop. I can’t remember exactly what their group was called, but they were from upstate New York. Their group focuses on everyone, but our Monsignor has asked that we start with first “bringing home the Catholics” meaning that we focus on finding Catholic homes and not necessarily force an evangelization on non-Catholics. We have a map of the Parish, and one Saturday a month we go out in pairs and go to each home on the map. We’ve started with one street. We take the Parish Bulletin, prayer cards, a ministry booklet, and other things with us. We knock on a door, introduce ourselves, explain that we are coming at the request of the Monsignor from our Parish. We then ask if there are any baptized Catholics currently living in their home. If they say yes, then we try to see if they are practicing Catholics or if they are in need of any of the sacraments or any other type of information that we can help them with. If they say no (and are quasi willing to continue with the conversation) we ask them what faith they belong to. Based on their response and their willingness to continue the conversation, we determine if we should stay or go. Often times for the non-Catholics, we leave them a prayer card with the Beatitudes and say God Bless you and move on. We try to stress that we are Catholics looking for Catholics to help those who are non-Catholics to kind of put their guard down a little. If they think you are Mormon or Jehovah’s witness, they immediately tell you no thank you and shut the door. For some reason, when they hear we are Catholics, they let us stay on the porch a little longer. hahah

As we go to each home, we mark down if someone was home, whether or not they were Catholic (and what faith they were if not). We make a note if they were perceptive so that we know if we should go again soon to follow up or wait until we’ve gone through the whole parish. For homes where there are no answer, we try again the next month before moving on to the next set of homes. It’s really neat to see how the Holy Spirit has been working through this group already.
 
ArthurQArch said:
Our pastor has asked our men’s group to initiate a new apostolate going door to door to every household in the parish. I was wondering if anyone knew of a program/format that people has used with any success. Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Wayne.
Click to expand...
:D:D

Hey! I got a great idea. I am now listening to Hahn’s CD program on the book of Romans and another set of CDs responding to the typical Protestant Salvation message coupled with that I have read a great response from Peter Kreeft regarding Protestant’s salvation theory.

Well, what I am going to do is get the track that I memorized as a protestant “The Roman Road” and write a response to it on a 8"X4" card. The front of it will say
“The Roman Road; if you were to die today do you know if you would go to heaven?” Then from the inside I will go down the real Roman Road.

The purpose is to get a meeting with an interested soul and sit down and go into detail about how we are really saved, what justification really means, how the sacraments effect our sanctification , etc.

I plan on spending some time putting it together but the outline is nearly completed. When it is done I will get a friend to publish it and we will go out to Protestant churches and hand them out after their meetings.

I will do all I can to be loving in this effort. If you are interested in getting a look at what the final version of this publication let me know. My number is 561 732 5434
 
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