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Nov. 30, 2006
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‘Knock Knock’ no joke
for St. Catherine evangelizers |
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Team lets neighbors know they are welcome |
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MILWAUKEE — Due to their architecture, most churches in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee are impossible to miss. St. Catherine in Milwaukee is no exception as its buildings occupy the block between 51st and 52nd streets on the south side of Center Street. However, when Fr. Jack Kern, pastor, and a few parishioners started going door to door to meet their neighbors, they discovered that many people in the neighborhood, even those living across the street, didn’t know where or what St. Catherine was.
Fr. Kern and his parishioners started going door to door this past May after parishioners Debbie Curtis and Mark Peters noticed that not many people from the neighborhood came to church and nobody seemed to want to extend an invitation.
Curtis and Peters, along with Fr. Kern and a few other parishioners, decided to go into the neighborhood and “let down the drawbridge to the castle,” said the priest in a telephone interview with your Catholic Herald.
The purpose of Knock Knock Ministry, as it came to be known, is to evangelize the neighborhood and the parish. However, the philosophy is that in order to evangelize, the evangelizers need to build a relationship with those they are hoping to evangelize. At the same time the evangelizers experience God’s Good News by sharing it with others.
Before going out and knocking on doors, the Knock Knockers started examining the parish to “look at all those people who come to us and ask, ‘How do we interact with them,’” said Fr. Kern. That led to taking simple steps like getting to know the women living in the transitional home that occupies the former convent and offering cake to the recovery groups that have meetings in the parish hall.
Fr. Kern described the first step as “knocking on the hearts of those who are already here.” Having strengthened the relationship between the parish and those already coming into the parish for various reasons, Knock Knock hit the streets.
A group of nine to 10 people started canvassing the area and introducing themselves, asking, “How can we help you?” The group quickly realized that evangelization doesn’t occur on the first try.
“There’s no instant gratification in this; you have to think long term,” said Curtis in a telephone interview with your Catholic Herald. Instead, the focus was on establishing contact with the neighbors and showing that St. Catherine’s “is not a closed club,” she said.
An unexpected reward for the evangelizers was the friendliness of those in the neighborhood.
“We were knocking on doors at 10 or 11 a.m. on Saturday morning and people were actually opening their doors,” said Fr. Kern.
Curtis recalls that people in the neighborhood were very cordial and “they wanted to talk.”
Knock Knockers would chat with the neighbors and learn about what neighborhood issues they were concerned, and what they thought some possible solutions might be. Before leaving, the St. Catherine parishioners would ask if there was anything they could pray for on behalf of the neighbor they were visiting. Fr. Kern said those petitions were later written down and presented during Mass along with the parish’s regular intentions.
“The important thing is to follow through,” the priest said.
Since then a block club has been formed and neighbors meet regularly in the church hall to discuss community issues and try to find solutions together. The community voiced a need for a safe place for kids to play, and in response the parish offered the use of its playground one afternoon a week. Neighborhood mothers volunteer to supervise the children who come to play. The plan is to expand that into a full playground program next summer.
The parish is also looking at the possibility of having a community youth club that would use the gym. It is also exploring the idea of offering computer instruction for adults.
One of the ideas that surfaced from the neighborhood meetings is holding a prayer vigil against violence after a violent event occurs in the area.
These initiatives are drawing the neighborhood together, but also causing excitement within St. Catherine Parish. Fr. Kern said that newcomers to the parish and people looking for a parish get excited by the activity that Knock Knock Ministry is creating and stay with the parish because they want to get involved.
Knock Knock Ministry is also changing the image of the Catholic Church in the neighborhood, which is important in drawing people in, including lapsed Catholics who may have left for a number of reasons and need to see this new image and approach.
“It’s not hardcore evangelization, but it’s bringing people together who can help each other,” said Fr. Kern. |
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