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Salisbury Catholic Churches Evangelisation Team
Salisbury Catholic Churches
Evangelisation Team
What missions/events are we working on currently?
Evangelisation is the process of preaching the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, with the goal of inviting listeners to trust him.
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In preaching the Gospel, they were to communicate the gifts of God to all men. This Gospel was to be the source of all saving truth and moral discipline… |
| Catechism of the Catholic Church (Burns & Oates, 2008), 75 |
Following the above remit, the evangelisation team meet every 6 weeks to work on ideas for evangelisation.
This task has three main areas:
- Preaching the Gospel to the un-churched or those of different faith, with the hope of welcoming them into our community.
- Finding and invigorating the faith of those Catholics who are ‘resting’ or lapsed.
- Helping practising members of the Catholic community to deepen their faith and come into a closer relationship with God.
Our aim is to reach out to as many people in the Salisbury area as possible, not only to evangelise, but to give help and support to those who are most vulnerable. This is done through prayer and through encouraging members of our parish to engage with the local community, so that we can spread the Gospel by faith and by example.
We meet every 6 weeks to discuss ideas and to plan our current missions. See the Parish Newsletter for the next meeting.
If you would like to be involved in any way, or simply have a question about what we do, do not hesitate to contact Fr Tom or Ellie Hughes on prayer[at]salisburycatholics.org.
What missions/events are we working on currently?
- Come home for Christmas
- Youth Easter Event
A Gift of Prayer for Advent
What is the mission?
The mission is called “A Gift of Prayer for Advent". It is all about reaching out to those around us through prayer. We can help those who are disadvantaged not just through our actions, good works or by example, but through our gift of prayer.
For more info contact Ellie Hughes on prayer[at]salisburycatholics.org.
What will we do?
At the end of all the Masses on November 22nd, we will be handing out prayer cards. We invite you to give them to everyone you know: friends, neighbours, members of the local community or even the person in the pew next to you.
They will need to fill in information about a prayer intention we can make for them. This could include details such as: The stresses in their life at the moment, any problems or worries, or even if they just feel that they need a little something extra in their life. These forms are filled in anonymously, and we collect them all in by the beginning of Advent.
Then we make them into a personal prayer intention card, one will be given to each parisioner to become a prayer giver. Then this one individual becomes your personal prayer intention for the whole of Advent. The prayer card has lots of suggestions for how you can pray for this person, it can be as little as bringing the card with you to Mass each week, or remembering them for 30s when you get up in the morning, or even make your own prayer!
Why is this mission so important?
This mission is important for two reasons:
1) Prayer is powerful and life changing, both for those being prayed for and those practising prayer. The "prayer gift" (person receiving prayer) is given help through the intercession of someone else. We have no idea whether this will be something direct like some of those saintly miracles, or the gentle movement of the Holy Spirit in their heart, like Elijah when he heard the sound of the gentle breeze on Mount Horeb.
The "prayer giver" will grow in their prayer, even just by having the right intention. They might feel God more closely in prayer; or even just learn to appreciate and trust some of that dryness we can get while praying as a good thing, and that we shouldn't give up.
2) This is an amazing way of imitating the unconditional love of Christ had when he died for us. We can't do the same as him, but we can pray to God for someone else, we can sacrifice our time for the good of others and because we love God, not because that one person is someone who makes us want to pray for them, but because God asks us to.
How can you be involved?
There are many people out there suffering in their life, and whatever that life may be, God wants you to help them. This mission is all about how we can give help to those who are most in need, especially when we are prevented from directly helping through our actions and good works. We can help them through our prayer gift. If you would like to be involved email prayer[at]salisburycatholics.org.
What Next?
We will be holding a prayer event in St Osmund's Church on the 10th December at 7.30pm. This event is open to both the Prayer Givers and those being prayed for (Our Prayer Gifts). All are welcome!
This will be a short service where we will again explain the details of the mission, but mostly we will have some simple prayers, reflections, readings and music which will help all of us to pray together for our Prayer Gift and to get a good start to the mission.
We will be serving wine and nibbles afterwards, please bring friends even if they are not taking part in the mission this will be a special night!
For more details contact Fr Tom or prayer[at]salisburycatholics.org.
- We aim to give the completed cards out in time for the PRAYER EVENT happening on the 10th December at 7.30pm in St Osmund's church.
- This means we need to have the prayer gifts from you by the 29th November.
- We will then issue your prayer intention for Advent on Sunday the 6th December.
- Give to Ellie Hughes, Fr Tom or one of the evangelisation team in person, or there will be boxes you can post them into anonymously in all the churches. Please try your best to get them to us by the 29th November so we have them all ready for Advent.