The New Evangelisation in practice: five UK initiatives and their significance for the wider Church

The second part of my recent study day on the New Evangelisation was about what it looks like in practice. Instead of theorising, I looked at five UK projects that I happen to have stumbled across over the last few years. All of them, at least in some implicit way, are a response to the Church’s call to be involved in the New Evangelisation. The five initiatives are: Spirit in the City, St Patrick’s Evangelisation School, Youth 2000, Catholic Voices and Ten Ten Theatre.

St Patrick's Church, Soho Square, home to SPES

Then, after giving a straightforward account of the history and practice of each group, I tried to draw out some common themes that run through all of these projects, to give a kind of generic outline of what the New Evangelisation looks like when it becomes embodied in a particular culture. I hoped that this last part of the day would give some practical ideas to parishes and groups that are wanting to reach out in mission.

You can listen to the talk here.

You can download the talk here.

[The whole talk is just over an hour, but the different sections begin at these times, so you can scroll through:  Spirit in the City at 5:30, St Patrick’s Evangelisation School at 14:50, Youth 2000 at 23:50, Catholic Voices at 32:45, and Ten Ten Theatre at 42:15. And the final theological reflections begin at 55:15.]

If you missed the first talk, with the title ‘What is the New Evangelisation?’ – see the earlier post here.

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