Recently I was able to offer a breakout session at a diocesan gathering on creating an invitation culture to OCIA–that is, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, the process of becoming Catholic.

As far as the Great Commission goes, this seems to be Job #1, right…? Invite someone to come and see, to consider meeting the Lord through our community, and following Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church? OCIA is a thoughtful and thorough process that is offered in nearly every Catholic parish. Shouldn’t we naturally be inviting people to it?

Alas, we largely do not. Too often we think people are inviting, but they don’t. We put a posting in the bulletin, but those readers are already Catholic!

Inviting to OCIA is going for the low-hanging fruit…and people out there are waiting to be invited in. How do we make a create an invitation campaign for OCIA that gets all the people in the pew involved?

The Three Principles of a Strong Invitation Campaign to OCIA

*Clarify and amplify your communication channels

1. Consider your bulletins:
   • Don’t just do a bulletin blurb that OCIA starts next week–consider a bulletin insert that invites people to come and see, and what the process involves. Draw attention to it, do some education, and tell people to be brave and give it to someone who may want to know about it.
   • Make your announcement BIG: not just a calendar notice but “Do you want to change someone’s life for the better?”
   • As for the internal announcements within the bulletin, run them well in advance–say, most of the summer for a Fall start. People need time for this to sink in, think about who to invite, etc.
2. Hit the local papers. Write an announcement/invitation article to consider OCIA and submit it.
3. Social media: Post it and encourage people to share the post with their social media connections.
   • Don’t post “OCIA starts next week”–post “Have you ever thought about becoming a Catholic Christian? We have a process for learning more about that, coming soon!” 
   • Better yet–if you have someone who became Catholic last year, ask if he or she would be willing to offer some testimony on facebook for this use. They may not be comfortable, so don’t push–but you could ask!
   • If you get some nasty comments–bless them and delete them.
4. Clean up your parish website. People who see one of these options above will likely go there next. How can you make becoming Catholic front and center?

*Make it easy for parishioners to invite people to “dip their toes” in and explore

1. It often helps to have a Fall event that is not the Mass to invite people:
   • Host an open house: “Calling all curious: What does it mean to become Catholic?” It often helps to have a Fall event that is not the Mass to invite people:
     • Alpha or Discovering Christ (ChristLife)–this can also be substituted for the inquiry phase
     • A Parish Mission that is angled toward a broad audience, including the curious. It could be on a common challenge, like dealing with worry, or money, or caregiving, or faith and work.
2. If your parish engages in a service project, invite people outside the faith to participate. People want to do good for the community, and service can be a path into exploring the God who calls us to serve!
3. A well placed workshop

*Empower nervous people to invite

Most people come and see when they are personally invited. Thankfully, we have all these baptized people in the pews called to invite! They need encouragement, opportunity, and a charge.

• Overcome the passive mentality that it is someone else’s job through constant communication: your baptism empowers you to share and invite!
• You could offer a Saturday invitation training (through Saint Paul Evangelization Institute, or The Mark 5:19 Project)
• Finally, you can set up prime conditions for doing this as a group: for example, Parishioners Invite the Town to Come and See!

How does this work? At Mass, 3-4 weeks before your opening event or the start of OCIA:

1. The pastor talks about the gift of faith through the Sunday homily, how it makes a difference
2. A convert in the parish gives his/her testimony on the importance of inviting people to come and see (after communion)
3. Invitation postcards are already in the pews. Ask each adult to pick one up, and hold it up.
4. The pastor announces: We are giving you a challenge. We need each of you to invite someone to come and see the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. And we’re making it easy–just hand this card to someone who could be interested, or if need be, mail it to them. If they say no, it’s okay–all you need to do is invite them and see what happens. I strongly suggest you do it in the next 24 hours.
5. The pastor or deacon then blesses these cards, and prays for the people who are inviting and the people who will receive the invitation.

This charge to personal invitation is a challenge for many, but this process makes it as easy as it will get. I received this method from Bobby Vidal, the Director of Evangelization for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and he says it really works–it helps parishes become invitational through practical, spiritual, and peer support. And people do come and see!

It’s worth it

This may seem like a lot…but honestly, it is about being intention with our invitation. It’s about being deliberate, and not being sloppy. This is entirely doable.

I will always remember when Barbara Heil, a Catholic convert and speaker, shared her conversion story. She had not known that God was real, but through twisted, God-infused events, she found herself in a church and encountered the Holy Spirit. She went around on cloud nine the next week, telling people “Jesus is REAL! Like really really real! And he loves me! It’s unbelievable!” She was shocked, though, when friend after friend told her, “well, I knew Jesus was real.” And she just looked at them and said “Why didn’t you TELL me?”

Inviting a person to encounter the living God is the best gift we can offer, the deepest truth we live, and entirely worth it.

Go and invite the town to come and see through OCIA!