Susan Windley-Daoust, Ph.D.
My talks are designed to help…
- parishes regroup, refocus, and re-enculturate in a post-Christian world to become confident, missional parishes.
- dioceses and parishes embrace apostolic missional strategy across all ministries
- Catholics understand what is possible in this Eucharistic Revival, and what that means for your parish.
- Catholics recognize we are called to apostolic leadership in a secular age, and how to embrace that form of leadership
- parishes and schools recognize Christ the Healer’s evangelization of Gen Z, so they know how to express God’s message of love and hope to this generation.
- Catholic universities and schools recognize that the mission of God is not an enemy of strong education
Full keynote, Diocese of Buffalo’s Road to Renewal Conference, March 2024
Talks
Knowing the Next Move: Engaging the Year of Mission
Knowing the Next Move: Engaging the Year of Mission (for priests, parish staffs, dioceses; keynote or workshop)
Parishes are dying. Parishes don’t know how to live the Great Commission in a secular culture. The number of practicing Catholics in the past 15 years has dropped by 25-30%, and in many places by half. And now–providentially?–there is a “year of mission” in the Eucharistic Revival.
But under such stress, how do we engage that year life of mission? How do we evangelize those who have left, those who are still coming, and the quickly growing number of people who have never heard of Christ? How do we change our parish values and practices to embrace evangelization within life-long discipleship, deliberately and immediately?
God has called us to this moment, and shown us the way. In her award winning book, The Four Ways Forward, Susan offers a “3 + 1” solution that follows God’s leading and Church teaching within the past 50 years. Adopt three of the four emergent models of evangelization in your parish, and you will inherently adopt a vision and practical mission that equips the baptized to share the story of God with peace and confidence. If you do this–and it is relatively simple, if not “easy”–you will crack both the maintenance subculture and the broader secular influence. More positively, you will foster a community of joyful disciples that recognizes that Jesus Christ is Lord, the one who sends us to his lost with astounding news–and the people will go and share it.
*The talk could come with Susan’s award winning book for each participant, The Four Ways Forward: Becoming an Apostolic Parish in a Post-Christian World, or books available at a discount.
You Are SENT: Apostolic Leadership for a Secular Age
You Are SENT: Apostolic Leadership for ___________ (for universities, presbyterates, parish directors, lay leaders, service and professional organizations)
Many of the leaders with whom we grew up–pastors, CEOs, orders’ leaders, principals, directors, and more–were leading us in a different culture. What does strong, effective leadership look like in Catholic parishes, organizations, and families when we are sent to share the gospel with secular people? First, they embrace their apostolic nature: they are SENT. They share good news, they cast vision, they empower the people in their trust to holy risk, and they foster a culture of hospitality for the lost.
This talk can be shaped and angled toward these specific groups: university professors, student convocation, diocesan ministry gatherings, Catholic Charities employees, men’s or women’s service organizations, Catholic professional groups.
How the Eucharistic Revival Can Save Your Spiritual Life, Your Parish, and Your World
How the Eucharistic Revival Can Save Your Spiritual Life, Your Parish, and Your World (for lay groups, women’s conferences, parish missions, priests; keynote, workshop, or mission talk)
Many in the Church still haven’t heard of the Eucharistic revival, and those who have aren’t sure what it means. This inspirational talk does a deep dive on what it means to undergo religious “revival” (or a “great move of God”) and what has happened with other revivals historically. The second part focuses on how to be open to God’s intentions for revival. Finally, Susan gives witness to the power of the Eucharistic Lord in her own life, the potential for the parish, and the potential for the world. The talk ends with a call to prayer (ideally with adoration of the Blessed sacrament and/or Mass, if arranged).
*This talk could come with supplied copies of Susan’s book, 101 Ways to Evangelize: Ideas for Helping Fearless, Fearful, and Flummoxed Catholics Share the Good News of Jesus Christ, or could be offered onsite to participants at a discount.
Cracking the Shell: How Your Story Breaks Open the Universe for the Power of God
Cracking the Shell: How Your Story Breaks Open the Universe for the Power of God (for lay groups, women’s conferences, parish missions, schools)
We have a real problem: Catholics are scared to talk about God. We are hesitant to share that God is real, powerful, and will transform lives–maybe because we are not convinced ourselves. This is a problem because sharing God’s story, and especially how it intersects with your story, is the most powerful way to change others’ lives. Susan shares her own story of miraculous healing, going deeper in prayer, and her call to evangelization, to teach people how our Lord is powerfully active in scripture and in our everyday life. She then teaches people how to prayerfully excavate their own spiritual history and provides a system to make sharing simple, and everyone will practice it on the spot.
*This talk could come with supplied copies of Susan’s book, 101 Ways to Evangelize: Ideas for Helping Fearless, Fearful, and Flummoxed Catholics Share the Good News of Jesus Christ, or could be offered onsite to participants at a discount.
Christ the Healer: The Jesus that Gen Zers (and the Rest of Us) Need.
Christ the Healer: the Jesus that Gen Zers (and the Rest of Us) Need. (for priests and consecrated, lay conferences, Catholic K-12 school faculty, women’s conferences, parish missions; adaptable to high school students/college students; keynote)
Our young people (members of Gen Z and the younger “pandemic generation”) are the loneliest and most depressed generation on record. They also increasingly are identifying as the “nones”: 45% of those 18-25 are disaffiliated with any religion or Church. Using studies, scripture, and her own story, Susan focuses on introducing these generations to the Jesus they need: the Divine Physician, Jesus Christ the Healer. This is no trick: a cursory read of the gospels make clear that Jesus Christ evangelized first, and precisely, through healing others. Every request for healing, physical, mental, and spiritual, was met with an invitation to follow him–which most did, eagerly. Jesus Christ the Healer is the relational, hopeful, and meaningful way to the Father that breaks through the images that confuse a hurting generation, and saves and salves to our young people’s hearts.
To Be a Mission-forward University: The Challenge of an Apostolic Future
To Be a Mission-forward University: the Challenge of an Apostolic Future. (faculty/administration, trustees, adaptable to college students; talk is adaptable to Catholic K12 school faculty on request)
Increasingly, American Catholics recognize our landscape has changed dramatically and we are in an apostolic age–aliens in a foreign land, but sent to offer hope, life, and good news. This is especially obvious on the college campus, when many of our students are formed by secular values and identify as “nones.” But given our American Catholic universities were established in a culture that assumed Christian belief, we need to grapple with the challenge of mission in this landscape. Dr. Windley-Daoust provides a path forward that avoids culture war traps and restrictive ideologies: using scripture, current trends in missiology, and cultural analysis, we can fulfill mission through focusing on how to be student centered by seeing the whole person. If we do so, we can create a space where students and faculty can search and find ways to honor truth in love.
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