Friends, The Mission Ignite Toolkit: Building an Evangelizing Parish, Together is available for review and purchase, and the connected but optional “precision tools” will be available November 1, 2026. This is a resource and workbook, so it isn’t overwhelmed with narrative–it’s a how-to, practical resource for EVERY parish (or parish cluster). But there is a handy introduction that lays out what this resource is about! Enjoy the sneak peek below, and feel free to purchase it at online retailers as a paperback (Amazon, Bookshop), or at Gracewatch Media as a PDF with a printing license for your parish team (Gracewatch).–Susan Windley-Daoust

Introduction: How to Use This Kit

Welcome to your new toolkit.

This is not a program or a promotion for a particular process of evangelization (because let’s be honest: we all have our favorites). Instead, these are the tools you need to do what Francis of Assisi heard the Lord tell him: “Rebuild my Church.”

Like Francis, you may have thought “then let’s get out the bricks and build!”—as he did with the San Damiano Church. (And sometimes a physical building truly helps.)

But like him, you may have realized: the church is “built” with the hearts of the people of God. They need to know the Lord is good and he has come to save us, and that he sends us to share that good news with others. Every parish is the same, in that its people are called to be the local center of the evangelical call to be his witnesses.

But every parish is different, in that the people attending have different gifts, and are on different points of the discipleship path. Every parish that exists has different geographical boundaries and people who live within those boundaries. Finally, God himself has a distinctive and specific vision of your parish, fully alive in the Holy Spirit and his mission.

Finally, almost every parish in North America has a common problem: your parish culture—the inherited habits in which you live out the great story of salvation—does not know how to handle the prevailing culture outside of Sunday Mass. This larger culture is where all the people they are supposed to “go and tell” actually live. In fact, it is where the parishioners themselves live. Values are muddled. Mission is confused. A lack of identity causes drift. Drift yields to people hopping off the boat.

However, there is only one way to re-focus on a mission: pray, make a plan, and implement.

What makes this process different? 

A combination of things:

1. We take spiritual discernment seriously. We pray before and through this process, and fully expect that God wants this parish to thrive in its mission more than we do. We begin with discerning what God’s vision is for your parish, and build to that ideal.
2. We set up structures for strength in leadership and communication. We work with a shared leadership model that takes some burden off the pastor, but also acknowledges that the pastor is the chosen leader by the bishop, and makes final decisions. We also awaken new awareness of baptismal leadership within laypeople involved in this process.
3. We unleash the evangelical power of the laity. The leash may be one of the laity’s own making, but everyone is called to evangelize through their baptism–and they have been given the grace to do so. No one is evangelizing for you. You need to do it yourselves, and you can.
4. We aim for a parish culture shift. Your parish culture supports and enables mission focus and activity—or the culture prevents it. Through focus on mission values, language, and relationships, the culture will shift to an eager expectation of sharing God’s goodness.
5. We remember this is God’s parish. Humility is a companion and outcome of this critical work. Although we cooperate with God as fully as we can, this work is ultimately the Lord’s, not ours. And if it is not bearing fruit, we know God’s will is perfect—so we need to be humble and see if we can improve how we offer God’s light in a darkened world.

In short, this toolkit answers the question every parish asks: how do we become a mission-shaped parish in our current reality? This resource booklet is relentlessly practical and meant to be used, just like your everyday tools.

How do we build this evangelizing parish?

We build an evangelizing parish one discerned step at a time.

As a peek into what is to come, let’s look at the core process, which we call IGNITE:

I — Invite God’s Vision: Prayerfully inviting the Lord to reveal his vision for this parish and this moment.

1. Invite the Lord’s Vision for your Parish
2. Invite People into their Baptismal Leadership: Choosing a short-term parish discipleship team

G — Go to the Mission Field: Discovering the real people, places, and relationships the parish is sent to serve.

3. Go and Discover your Parish’s Mission Field: the geographic boundaries

N — Name the Discipleship Reality: Honestly assessing where parishioners are in belonging, faith, and practice.

4. Name your Parish’s Discipleship Level

I — Illuminate the Way Forward: Clarifying evangelization models and shaping a clear, lifelong path of discipleship.

5. Illuminate the Way: Adopting a common discipleship path
6. Illuminate the Way: Exploring and discerning the four evangelization models for ministry

T — Turn Toward Fruitfulness: Reorienting ministries, energy, and leadership toward what gives life and bears fruit.

7. Turn your Ministries to the Mission and Discipleship Path

E — Establish a Mission-Shaped Parish: Setting up in a steady, sustainable direction for the long haul.

8. Establish a one-year evangelization plan and a three-year intention

Work through these eight movements, with prayer, discernment, exploration, and study. At the end, you have an implementation plan for the future based on the Lord’s vision for your parish.

These eight movements are part of our apostolate’s ten month process. While it is a packed ten months, the time frame allows for momentum, and encourages action. This is a significant difference from most multi-year strategic planning processes that set goals: there is intentionality and planning built-in, but also spiritual conviction, and decisions for implementation.  While you can stretch this to a year, we hold that parishes embrace change best by doing–rather than thinking (and thinking, and thinking) about doing. We think a focused year gives you everything you need. In order to simplify the process, we propose a “connect the letters” system… spelled I-G-N-I-T-E.

All the extra tools

This toolkit also alludes to multiple optional projects that fall under one of the IGNITE core steps: perhaps a specialized church ministry, or directed to a target community. You may look at one or more of these and realize you need this badly in your parish. Others you may have in hand. Others are irrelevant, and still others are critical. Choose the ones you need to work through, and determine whether you have the need–and bandwidth–to address them immediately. Otherwise, some could serve as follow up work.

Here’s the thing with all the extras. This is a toolbox! Do you use every tool in your home toolbox? Not usually. Are some tools more used than others? Of course. But do they each have a particular job to accomplish? Yes. You never know when you will need what. The book contains the essential tools. But we refer you to precision tools, and connect them to the most relevant core step.

These “precision tools” are available on Gracewatch Media for download at gracewatchmedia.org/MissionIgnite .

1a Fostering a Prayer-Driven Staff and Councils

1b Brainstorming for Evangelization

1c 101 Ways to Evangelize 

2a Working through Joined Parishes

3a Recentering OCIA as the Reason for the Parish

3b When should a parish take on social mission work within a broader evangelization renewal?

3c Becoming an Other-Focused Parish through Service

3d Evangelizing Those Living with Disabilities: Inclusion, Participation, and Invitation

4a Making the Parish a “School of Prayer”

4b Creating a Community of Christ-Centered Friends

4c Better Ways to “Find Volunteers”: Invite According to Gifts

4d Helping your Parishioners Resist Social Media

4e Strengthening your Giving through Tithing

4f Link your Parish School to Parish Mission by Prioritizing the Parental Vocations

5a Making a Clear Communications Plan in a Distracted World

5b Mission Language Immersion 101

6a Creating an Invitation Culture

6b Creating a Parish Culture of Radical Hospitality

6c Creating a Witness-Forward, Story-Sharing Parish

7a Implementation Planning 101 

7b Evaluating Individual Ministries for Mission Template

Do you need a facilitator to use these tools?

In short, a seasoned facilitator makes it all easier–people can focus on the discernment rather than the process. But this book was written in part for parishes that cannot access a facilitator. Study it, read The Four Ways Forward: Becoming an Apostolic Parish in a Post-Christian World, and consider rotating the facilitator role between a couple of people who are strong at keeping a group on task while making room for prayerful discussion. Pastors, encourage laypeople to share what their prayer is revealing to them.

Otherwise, The Mark 5:19 Project offers Mission Ignite facilitator training, or can personally  facilitate this process for your parish. Consider that investment for the future of your parish. You can reach out to learn more anytime at mark519project.org/contact/ .

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You can purchase the full Mission Ignite Toolkit at online retailers as a paperback (Amazon, Bookshop), or at Gracewatch Media as a PDF with a printing license for your parish team (Gracewatch). Reviews especially appreciated at Amazon!