Welcome back to a new Starting Conversations article. These articles are designed for parish staff, councils, small groups, and online sharing. to break open new conversations on how to become missional parishes. Enjoy!

Here’s a question: Your parish has a significant number of people who have not returned from Covid, or something happened in the past few years, and they no longer practice the faith. At the same time, you have many people in your geographic boundaries who do not know God at all. Who do you evangelize first? Which way do you turn, so to speak?

It’s really tempting to answer “all of the above.” And the Lord does want all people to be invited to come and see (or return and see again!). Certainly there are enough baptized people in our parishes to reach both the drifted away and those who do not know Jesus.

Yet…if your parish is starting from a humble spot in becoming an evangelizing parish, trying to do it all at once feels overwhelming. And evangelizing those who do not know Jesus at all is very different from evangelizing those who know Jesus but have drifted away out of frustration or perceived slights. I often advise one building block at a time. So while I encourage parishes to evangelize to all as quickly as possible, it does make sense to start with one group. Even Jesus started with calling the apostles first, and the gospel message spread from there.

The problem is…maybe parishes too often choose the wrong group to start with evangelization: that is, the ones who have left. I suspect some parishes play it safe in the name of doing the doable–isn’t this the low hanging fruit? They say we’re going to “go after our own.” (I have literally heard that phrase more than once.)

Let me be clear: this isn’t necessarily the wrong place to start. These are human beings God loves, and especially if they have been hurt by the Church, it is important we reach out and reconnect, attempt reconciliation, and re-invite them to full communion with God through his Church. I think we can understand the attraction to begin here, with people with whom we have shared space at the Lord’s table.

If you have actually discerned this is the group with which to start, that is well and good. Go! Make those calls! Empower those attending to do outreach! Do some deliberate inviting and listening and shared meals with those who are missing in action. The thing is, I don’t think most churches discern who to evangelize first. They just think “former parishioner recovery mode” is easier–so they’ll do that.

The first problem is, recovery mode evangelization is NOT necessarily easier. While some people who have left have just fallen out of the habit of religious practice, and need encouragement and reconnection to return, other people are like wooing a ex-lover who believes you have gone off the deep end and hates your guts. And you don’t know until you connect with that person. So it is important to do, but people who don’t discern may be discouraged when they choose it as the easy path, and it’s not so easy.

And the second problem with starting with the drifted away: I’m afraid if you start there and have success (praise God!), parish evangelization often will end there. We’re back to one happy known family of faith–no strangers here! This really doesn’t evoke “go and make disciples of all nations.” It can be interpreted as evangelization is just for “our own people”–which means your people don’t know what evangelization is about: bringing people who don’t know God to meet him in his Church. 

All this can be resolved if a parish is asking the Lord himself where to start first, and working with a “start to finish” full discipleship path with the resolve to continue unpacking what being an evangelizing parish means for people who are at very different stages of the journey. Pray about who the Lord wants you to focus on inviting first, and pray for the perseverance to know when to build on that first step. Don’t be lured by how easy or doable a focus may be. Be lured by what the Lord wants your focus to be.

If you are lured by God, you cannot make the wrong step.

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Questions for reflection and discussion:

1. Has your parish had a discussion about which group of people to focus on first in evangelization?
2. Has your parish prayed about which group of people to focus on first in evangelization? If not, what would that look like?
3. What are some potential “first groups” to focus upon for evangelization who are not mentioned in this article? Young families? Teens? Those on the margins? People in the pew? Name a few other possibilities.
4. How could this kind of strategic thinking be a help to fulfill the missional call to go and make disciples of all nations?