Crucial
to the success of our Men's Conference at St. Stephen’s Church in Caldwell on
Saturday March 16, 2013 from 9 am to 3 pm is the Parish Representative. The theme is “Embracing the Faith” and the main speaker, is the nationally known Fr. Larry Richards,
who often appears on EWTN, has his own national radio show, and is the author
of the best selling book, “Be a Man”.
Dynamic and very entertaining, he challenges the men to be true men as
God intended, giving insights into what true manhood really is. He will
talk about true men of God as leaders in serving the parish and the community,
on the job, and especially as spiritual leaders of their families. If we can mobilize an average of 10 men
from every parish in the diocese, this event would be a smashing success! This is a hard sell for many men, but the
Lord will help us.
This
is evangelization at its best as we complete our God given mission in little
ways in fulfilling Christ's command to teach all nations. The priests and religious cannot do it alone;
we must help them and do our part, especially considering the scarcity of
vocations. Evangelization today is more
important than ever before in this Year of Faith, considering the crisis that
Christianity is in all over the world.......drifting and fallen away Catholics,
broken families, laxity in practice, poor knowledge of the faith, the
international spiritual/cultural war with secularism, and the multitude of
evils that our society must confront.
Our country desperately needs a revival.
Why not start in your parish with the Diocesan Men's Conference and be
on the front line as the Lord's instrument?
Don't just keep the faith; spread it.......in little or big ways by
prayer and example, word and deed.
You
might want to consider the promotion ideas below and then adapt them to your
own personality and parish culture.
· Word
of Mouth is the most effective form of advertizing. This is especially true in parishes since
many go over the bulletin quickly with little thought or simply put it aside
and don't read it at all. You could get
others in the parish to help through an informal committee or simply enlist the
help of friends. You may want to canvas
every man one-on-one in the parish with a little sales pitch and record their
answer as: yes, no, or maybe. I'm getting mostly maybe's but that gives me
an appropriate excuse to ask them again.
Of course, be careful not to badger them, which I sometimes do without
realizing it. Ask the local K of C to
help & mobilize their men to attend.
· Ask
the Men to bring their teenage sons, thus making it a father and son day as
well for stronger bonding.
· Inform the men of the objectives and what they can gain
from the Men's Day of Renewal.
The goal of the Men's Day of Renewal is to focus on the
spiritual development of the men of our diocese. Having spiritually strong men
of faith and character translates into more solid families, more dynamic
parishes, and better communities. These are crucial to the Church, now and in
the future, not to mention the critical need of nurturing vocations. Hopefully, the men will become closer to God,
learn more about their faith with a deeper understanding and thus become
stronger Catholics. Life will then
become happier and more meaningful with purpose. It will be a day of enjoyable fellowship and
spiritual invigoration.
· Challenge
the Men without rubbing them the wrong way. The Lord's kingdom on earth direly needs a
few good spiritually strong men and too many of us are failing in our special
missions. Too many of us are
spiritual wimps and this conference attempts to attack that problem. We have to be the pillars of the parish, not
only the older women. We as fathers must
take the spiritual lead in our families, in that way insuring that our children
will be faithful in their adult years.
If only the mother takes the spiritual lead, the probability of
faithfulness in later life is about 40%.
If the father takes the spiritual lead, that probability increases to
about 80%. This conference will help to
prepare us to fill that role more effectively by becoming better husbands and
fathers. Hopefully, many men will leave
the conference on fire to renew their families and parishes. As a natural consequence they will be better
prepared to put Christ into their professions and renew society in a small way
one person at a time.
· Ask
the pastor to announce the conference from the pulpit & for weekly blurbs in
the Church bulletin. These of course are important, but it's the conventional
way. We need creative methods of
promoting this important event.
· Creatively use your parish bulletin
according to the wishes of your pastor with a short catchy blurb every week
during the six to eight weeks before the event.
I have a collection of short blurbs that you can use as is or as a
starting point and adapt to your parish culture and situation. If interested, please write me at paulrsebastian@yahoo.com or call me at
740-245-9404 if you have any questions.
I'll be happy to send these blurbs to you by e-mail or snail mail.
· Make
copies of our trifold brochure that describes the Men's Conference and includes
the registration form. Use it as a
bulletin insert and put it on the parish website. Then the men can personally give you the
registration form without your having to go after them. You can also adapt it. One year Fr. Wayne Morris of Corpus Christi,
Belle Valley and St. Stephen's of
Caldwell, for example, creatively adapted the official diocesan trifold
to the needs of his parish without losing any essential information and thus
made it into his own parish publication in color.
· Register the men personally and submit
the forms and money to the diocese all at once.
In that way you have better control and know who is going and who
isn't. That makes follow-up and
organizing car pools much easier. Most men won't want to bother with sending
the form and check to the diocese and many would put it off. Waiting to register at the door makes
steering committee planning more difficult.
If they pay in advance, it will be much more difficult to back out with
last minute inertia. Do it before
February 15 for the $5.00 discount from $30.
· Help
those who cannot afford the $25 registration.
Ask the pastor, the local Knights of Columbus council, parish women's
group, or other donors to provide some funding for unemployed men and college
students who may have financial problems.
Economic circumstance should not prevent any man from attending.
· Use
a bus or organize car pools, preferably vans to reduce fuel costs. Even better if the distance is great; that
gives a pilgrimage atmosphere! The
great benefit of this is fellowship which is another selling point,
especially if the distance and travel time is great. Distance gives a pilgrimage flavor and
sacrifice is what Lent is all about. In
the Middle Ages, people used to walk great distances to holy sites. The men can have a great time while having a
spiritually invigorating spiritual experience.
The enthusiasm generated by the conference can be contagious. This can result in greater friendships and a
more cohesive parish community. The local chapter of the Knights of Columbus
could also benefit through one on one opportunities to recruit new
members. The fellowship among their
members at the conference could strengthen their councils.
· Ask
for the pastor's help and bring him along.
We'll need confessors. His
example is a big help! It will be a
great opportunity for him to know his men better and become closer to them as
cohesion of the parish family grows.
· Ask
the pastor to allow you or another person to talk about the conference at the
end of the weekend Masses. A peer, whom the
men respect, especially if he attended before, can be more effective than the
pastor whom people hear promoting something all the time. Then inform them that the registration form
is in that week's bulletin.
· Enlist
the help of those who attended a previous Diocesan Men's Conference. They can relate the experience by word of
mouth, to their local Knights of Columbus council, other men's groups, or
perhaps with the pastor's approval speak at the end of Sunday Mass as to how much they got out of it, how much
they enjoyed it. Personal testimony
makes our promotion much more authentic. Donations to help underwrite the
conference are most appreciated.
· Utilize
the Power of the Woman. Perhaps discretely
ask the women of the parish through their parish group to lovingly encourage
(not nag) their men to attend......husbands, sons, fathers, relatives,
friends. What woman would not like to
have her men be true men of God who would transform their families, the parish,
and ultimately society?
· Ask
for prayers to God and to St. Joseph, arguably the best model in history of
a true man of God for his intercession.
We cannot succeed by ourselves with our efforts alone.
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St.
Joseph, model of a true man of God, pray for us & the success of the Men's Conference.
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