Glory be to Jesus Christ!

I had a question, how does an Eastern Christian, whether Catholic or Orthodox, start a mission? There are several of my friends who want to experience the Eastern tradition, in the fullness of the Holy Mysteries, here in Ketchikan, more specifically the Eastern Catholic tradition. We even designate one time a week to pray typika and several Akathist hymns at my ikon corner at my house. How many families do you have to have to start a mission? Is an outreach possible if a mission isn't?

Thank you.

In Christ,

Chief Among Sinners, Robert

try this missian handbook:

www.antiochian.org ----> Departments -------> Missions and Evangelism ---------> Resources ------> "manaul" [sic]. 89 pages of mission suggestions. Go for it buddy!

anastasios

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

WOW! The Antiochians have a powerful resource. It seems to be very evangelical in its approach; I do not see any problem with most of it. I am not sure if our Metroloplia has anything similar in publication, but I will talk to some of my friends about perhaps using its ideas.

Thank you for your suggestion.

In Christ:


Robert, Chief Among Sinners

Robert,

I am shocked no one has posted on this message! Evangelization is the most important thing. Shame on all of you for not posting a thousand messages on this topic. Saving souls is more important than our gossip and speculation about meaningless topics.

If any of you don't post here I pray the Spirit convicts you. I am going to send him a letter of support and anything else he needs to get a mission started in his home town. You people would much rather talk about Islam and all that other nonsense than helping a brother in Christ with advice and help on starting a mission. Well I know that I am going to support him.

Expect a letter from me Robert, I will help you as much as I can. You know I am 63 years old and I after reading Robert's posts think he should be a priest. I would help him through seminary.

I will email you my address and phone number, please call me Robert and I will help you as much as I can.

God bless you. Please become a priest!

I don't know how I missed this post earlier, but why not contact your bishop and get his support. I will pray for the success of your efforts. I may be doing the same thing as you are doing someday.

I know that we have convinced ourselves that we don't have enough priests to go around and that we aren't supposed to do mission work because that is the perview of the Roman Catholics yet, may God have mercy upon us, we must support missions or we don't deserve to exist.

Dan Lauffer

Shame on YOU! For judging us! We have spoken many times about evangelization! You don't know us! You don't know anything about this Forum! So lay off!

spdundas

Glory Be to Jesus Christ!

I hope the tone on this particular topic tones down a little bit. I am part of a new mission here in the Boston area. It is part of the Romanian Diocese of Canton Ohio, and it is very small at the moment. We are lucky that God has provided us wih a holy priest, and also a place for us to meet. The people come from all over New England for liturgy, and the spirit is wonderful.

I have been a very big supporter of evangelization for many years. I attended an evangelical college, and they really know what they are doing when it comes to saving souls. I do not want to debate weather they are acually saved or not, but we could learn many things from them. They are not afraid to talk about their faith wit anyone they meet, and they acually believe and live what they preach. This is something that we all need to do.

I believe that we byzantines are the best kept secret in the church, and we need to get the word out. There are many people who need us, but we need to look for them.

In His Service,

Peter

I concur with Spdundas that Joyce may have jumped to the wrong conclusion about us on the forum. Robert, it seems you're off to a good start with a real (though little) congregation and a place to worship. I'd think the next step would be to contact your old church, St Nicholas Cathedral in Anchorage, and your eparchial locum tenens (the priest running the eparchy until you get a new bishop) in Phoenix, and ask for help. I don't know how practical this would be, never having traveled in Alaska, but could a priest from St Nicholas come round to Ketchikan once a month to serve?

http://oldworldrus.com

Br. Peter,

I am so glad to hear about this! The Romanian Diocese of Canton is a wonderful group. It is small, but has a lot going right for it. Bishop John Michael is a real pastor... he is probably one of the best Eastern Catholic bishops in the USA. He's also a liturgical purist, and promotes a full return to Eastern traditions.

Please send me some information about your mission.

God Bless,
Anthony

Joyce,

I believe the Ruthenian Metropolia conducted a conference on Evangelization a few years back and it was attended by all eparchies. I don't know the outcome.

Hey Spdundas! Ms. Scott said she was 63 years old, which is close to the age of my momma! The proper response would be "yes, ma'am!"

Interesting topic, indeed.

As a Greek-American (of the Catholic persuasion, although not unknow to the Greek Orthodox), I am also a Bostonian -- born and bred.

Boston is a unique place; like a number of "old cities" it is an ethnic mosaic. Folks go where their families go: Irish, Italian, Polish, etc. Constantinopolitan or Eastern Christians are mainly Greek (Orthodox), Syrian (Orthodox), Ukrainian (both), Armenian (both), Antioch (both Antiochian and Melkite) and recently Coptic and Ethiopian.

Looking for converts is a difficult job. Some RCs will jump for liturgical reasons. Some unchurched will also jump. For Prots: forget it.

Unfortunately, anything that is "ethnic" seems to be the kiss of death, unless it your own. (Our Jesuit RC German Catholic parish -- Holy Trinity in the South End, now caters mostly to Chinese and Spanish speakers; German once a month at 10:00. Sorta-kinda German-Latin. The Poles at Our Lady of Czestochowa parish in Dorchester are barely holding its own. So too the French at Notre Dame des Victoires in the Back Bay, and the Italians at St. Leonard's in the North End.

The fact is: the already baptized are most likely to go to "their own" if they are church goers; the non-church-goers are fair game, but they are more likely to go to "American Church", whatever that may be.

It is interesting to me that apart from the Melkites in Newton (and the insular Ukrainians) there are no non-Orthodox Eastern communities in the metro-Boston area. And even the "native-ethnic" parishes are having a hard time.

The question is: in light of these realities, what do we have to do to bring people in to our Eastern parishes?

Blessings!

"The question is: in light of these realities, what do we have to do to bring people in to our Eastern parishes?"

Tell them about it!

Actually I think there is an Armenian Church affiliated either with the Congregationalists or the Presbyterians.

There is also a Romanian Mission in Wakefield.

http://members.aol.com/stjosephsbyz/index.html

Br. Peter

It's good that Bishop Ioan Mihai Botean is doing a great job and wants his people to return to the Eastern tradition, as well as the Exarch for Romanian Greek Catholics in Canada, because in Romania the hierarchy is very latinized.

Once I heard that a lot of Romanian greek catholics that emigrate to the USA join the Romanian Episcopate of the OCA and leave the Greek Catholic Church, because there are no missions for them and they feel accepted in the OCA, as they see it is not part of the BOR, that colaborated with the Communists that supressed the Greek Catholic Church in Romania.

What do we have to do to attract people? I wish I knew! We are trying everything that we can think of: prayer; newspaper and radio ads, special event hosting etc. etc. without much success. I belong to a Romanian Byzantine parish that underwent a rebellion over control of funds etc.(it is a long story) The parish was not large to begin with, and now that the rebels left we are just a handful. We have the support of Bishop John Michael and the efforts of a good and Orthodox-Catholic parish priest with his wife and children. I am happy the mission in New England is doing well, and I assume it is because of recent immigration. Dr. John, as I child, I grew up in the Boston area (Norwood). We belonged to the "Irish" church, but usually went to the Lithuanian. There was also a Polish and Syrian Orthodox, but alas no Italian church. I think that the Italians were too jealous of each other. If anyone can offer any ideas for us it would be appreciated. We are so frustrated. Vito

Vito,

prayer; newspaper and radio ads, special event hosting

All of this is nice but sociological studies show that only about 5-6% of all people who come to a Church and become part of God's kingdom come by way of the methods you outlined. Is it any wonder that Churches that limit themselves to these things get little or no results?

The one thing missing from your list is the one thing our Lord told us to do. "Go out into the world and...teach...and baptize."

Would you make a major investment in something you never saw or never had explained to you? I wouldn't.

You seem to have a great love for God. Go out and invite people door to door, business associate by business associate, friend to friend, neighbor to neighbor and become a friend. Then invite them to come with you to worship.

75-90% of all converts come by way of face to face invitations from people they've come to know.

We live in a lonely society which has many markings of an anti-culture. Most of us are initially suspicious of each other. But given kindness and encouragement people will respond.

It has little or nothing to do with cultural differences or similarities. One should not be worried about how people will react to our Eastern ways. Don't assume that anyone's reaction will be negative. Just let yourself be an instrument of the Holy Spirit to love people into the kingdom. That's all. Don't worry about calculating results, just be a supple instrument in the hands of our gracious God. After all, "He is gracious and He loves mankind." Let it shine through you.

Dan Lauffer

Vito,

Email me. I have prepared a simple evangelization guide that may be of great help to you. I have gathered the best, proven methods of evangelization and molded them to fit a Byzantine parish.

Anthony

Dear Dan, Thanks for your advice. I do try to spread the word through my encounters with people. However, I have not done the knocking on doors. For me to do this would be very difficult because of my personality and cultural upbringing, but I will pray for the help and strength from the Holy Spirit. Vito