From Team RCIA, Featured image: Paramount

Is your RCIA open all year-round? First contact: Catechizing your parish on talking with seekers

This is everyone’s ministry, invite people into the process of RCIA.  Is someone you know not fully initiated or interested in being Catholic?

For those of you who are Star Trek fans, the term “first contact” has a special meaning—it’s that moment when the Federation (typically humans) encounter an alien race for the first time. In the Star Trek universe, how well that “first contact” goes can have repercussions for generations, be it the positive relationship that developed with the Vulcans or the negative relationships that developed with the Romulans and the Klingons. Put another way, first impressions matter, and a bad first impression can be difficult to recover from.

These same “first contact” issues apply to our seekers.

For me there’s nothing more exciting in this ministry than when a seeker first reaches out to us. If properly approached, it can be an almost magical, even a mystagogical, moment for both the seeker and us.

The trouble is, that the first person the seeker encounters in our parish isn’t always me or one of our initiation catechists. In fact, in most parishes, many times it’s someone else—the parish secretary, the formation director, the priest after Mass, even fellow parishioners.

How these first contact situations go can make or break the experience for the seeker. They can make the difference between that seeker developing a relationship with Christ in your parish, or developing that relationship somewhere else, or worse, just walking away altogether.

Therefore, good “first contact” protocols are not just important for those working in adult initiation ministry, they are vital for everyone in the parish!