Living as Missionary Disciples

lar Church to undertake a resolute process of discernment, purification

and reform.”

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

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.