2005 Evangelization Supplement

Disciples in Mission helped St. Mary-of-the-Knobs
grow in hospitality

By Sean Gallagher

In the spring of 2002, St. Mary-of-the-Knobs Parish in Floyd County began their involvement in Disciples in Mission. As the southern Indiana faith community completes the three-year process, they have a firm vision of how they are being called to participate in the Church’s mission of evangelization.

This vision coalesced over the past three years as parishioners met during successive Lenten seasons and reflected together upon the readings for Sunday Mass and during each Easter season when parish meetings were held to discuss particular evangelizing priorities for the ­coming year.

Parishioner Sandy Pinnick said in a recent interview with The Criterion that in the first year of St. Mary-of-the-Knobs’ involvement in Disciples in Mission, growth in hospitality toward new parish members and the broader community emerged as one of the community’s main concerns.

To meet this need, the parish launched Hospitality in Service ( HIS) Ministries.

Father John Geis, pastor of St. Mary-of-the-Knobs Parish, praised the many ways that it has reached out to those at the parish’s margins, such as shut-ins and college students, as well as those beyond its borders, such as people in living with various disabilities in the area around the parish.

“This particular group has really done a lot of outreach in the parish and the community,” he said. “They welcome new families. They particularly have connected to young college adults and tried to stay in touch with them throughout the time that they’re away from the parish and home. They’ve also shown a lot of increased ­hospitality…”

Pinnick definitely sees the work of HIS Ministries as a form of evangelization.

“We felt like we were evangelizing through our outreach efforts, which we hadn’t really focused a lot on,” she said. “We tried to reach out beyond our own parish family to our community and our fellow Christian brothers and sisters.”

While HIS Ministries is a concrete sign of the way that Disciples in Mission has helped St. Mary-of-the-Knobs Parish focus on evangelization, Pinnick recognizes that embracing this mission is still a challenge for many parishioners.

“Evangelization is an intimidating word still in our parish,” she said. “We talk about outreach because I believe it all ties together, outreach and evangelization, whatever word you want to call it that is less threatening to people.

“I really feel that our parish has become more aware of the need for hospitality, that hospitality touches every aspect of every ministry in our parish, that without hospitality, without welcoming and reaching out, that your ministries aren’t going to grow.”

This openness to those outside the parish first started within the faith community through the Scripture reflection groups in Disciples in Mission, according to Dennis Cooper, the parish coordinator for the process.

“I feel the biggest impact that Disciples in Mission has had on our parish is that it strengthened an attitude of openness, friendliness…,” he said. “It brought people together who may never have before shared their faith on a weekly basis and gave them the courage to do so.”

Disciples in Mission was able to have a positive impact upon the parish as a whole by touching the lives of individuals. Cooper knows that it has changed his life of faith.

“[It] allowed me to be more receptive to others’ opinions and perspectives as they related to our Catholic faith,” he said. “It allowed me to interact with the parish staff through the organizing efforts of the program. It strengthened the message of Lent and the Easter season each year as I was able to study the Sunday readings and to discuss their impact or not on my life.”

In looking to the parish’s future efforts in evangelization, Father Geis emphasized that their foundation will always be on the parishioners’ openness to the Scriptures that was nurtured in Disciples in Mission.

“It was through the small-group sessions where they could read the Scriptures and share that with one another,” he said. “I think that in itself was a step forward, for folks just to share their faith with each other.

“And my desire is that that will provide more of an opportunity to happen in homes, … where [families] spend some time with the Scriptures or prayer and that they could just share their lives and really make Christ at home in their homes.”

From his experience in helping to lead the parish through Disciples in Mission, Cooper also has high hopes for the future.

“My hope and prayer is that the parish and those that participated in Disciples in Mission will continue to be a welcoming parish,” Cooper said, “one that is not afraid to reach out to others, one that is not afraid to share its faith or to discuss it openly with people of other denominations.”

Father Geis thinks that the members of his parish will truly become more welcoming to newcomers and those in the broader community the more that they are truly open to each other.

“When they get used to sharing that faith more with each other and the more prayer they have together, I think [evangelization] just flows out of that,” he said. “It’s going to spill out into the people around them.” †