Living as Missionary Disciples

lar Church to undertake a resolute process of discernment, purification and reform.” 5 We know too that successful pastoral ministry is not just about plan ning programs and activities. It depends first on pastoral leaders’ ongoing conversion and daily personal encounter with Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire and lead all ministries toward witness and discipleship, whether in liturgy, preaching, catechesis and education, administration, or works of mercy focused on the dignity of the human person and care for the poor. The fruitfulness of pastoral ministry at the service of evangelization requires effective leadership focused on missionary discipleship. It means discerning the state and life or pulse of the parish community and whether maintenance and self-preservation or mission and evangelization best describes the parish’s life. Successful pastoral ministry also involves reevaluating parish ministries, programs, and activities to assess how effectively they serve missionary discipleship, with an honest assessment of how human and financial resources are prioritized and managed. Furthermore, fruitful ministry identifies the opportunities for and challenges to achieving mis sion and evangelization. Using This Resource Living as Missionary Disciples: A Resource for Evangelization does not seek to duplicate or replace what has already been developed or to serve as a concrete formation program. Rather, it provides principles of evangeli zation and missionary discipleship, with resources designed for pastoral leaders to develop, enhance, and review their own local strategies to create an evangelizing parish. As mentioned earlier, it is meant to serve as a road map that leaders can use to: • Integrate evangelization principles into existing pastoral plans for their specific community; • Identify the rich inventory of pastoral and theological resources that already exist and can be adapted and integrated into existing initiatives; • Employ its theological summary and evangelization principles in a variety of contexts including: catechetical reflection days; parish council discussions; in youth ministry; and in Catholic schools, with the goal of forming teachers and students to be missionary disciples.

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