The
launch of CAFÉ (Catholic Faith Exploration) the evangelistic
and catechetical teaching video programme designed by Catholic Evangelisation
Services to help Catholics get more enthusiastic about their faith
got off to an impressive start. The first training day - on Saturday
March 9th - was so oversubscribed that the team have had to organise
an extra day on 25th May to cope with the demand (see coming events).
Catholic Evangelisation Services, which grew out of
a small office set up by Crew Trust (the Trust that supports Catholic
Charismatic Renewal in England) in 1996, initially to promote the
Alpha Course in the Catholic Church, has flourished and grown in the
last couple of years. The small team of mainly volunteers and part-timers,
headed up by David Payne and now, under the chairmanship of Charles
Whitehead, over this time have produced eight different video series.
These have featured marvellous communicators and teachers and have
covered every conceivable area of Roman Catholic teaching from getting
more out of the sacraments, to parenting and how to understand the
Scriptures. The last six series have sold between them 20,000 copies
over the last three years and gone as far as the Falkland Islands
and Fiji.
"Catholics must be bold and creative
in developing new media and methods of proclamation" Pope
John Paul II , World Media Day 2000
The videos have been used in RCIA classes, Lenten groups,
Confirmation classes etc but the CES team felt they had an even greater
potential and thus over the last year have been working on CAFÉ
. This is a process that the Catholic Evangelisation Team has devised
to use the existing videos and some extra ones specially filmed, to
their best effect to help to renew parishes.
"Sometimes even Catholics have lost or have never had the
chance to experience Christ personally, not as a mere "value"
but as the living Lord" Pope John Paul II, 1993
Key to this is to evangelise and equip small groups
to develop their faith and reach out to others. To kick start the
process they recommend organising a mini parish mission featuring
the latest filmed video course called "Knowing God Better".
This features David Payne himself in a series of entertaining stand-alone
talks which encourage people to open their lives up to God. On the
video are mimes and testimonies and opportunities to meditate to music.
The Café mood is encouraged by seating people at tables with
coffee and getting them to chat informally about the video afterwards.
Thus people often find they have enjoyed being in a small group and
faith sharing without realising it.
"The Church has the task of transposing the essence of
the Gospel message into the language of the people… we must
reshape with boldness!" Pope Paul VI in Evangelii Nuntiandi
Participants are then encouraged to make more of a
commitment and do the course on the sacraments by Professor D'Ambrosio.
The idea is that this would then be followed by "Catholics Making
A Difference", the second newly filmed course. This features
Lord David Alton, James Mawdsley and others, and encourages Catholics
to witness to their faith by words and works - either in proclamatory
evangelisation or social action or both.
"For the disciple of Christ to evangelise is an obligation
of love" Pope John Paul II.
The idea is that after these three modules, the group
does some kind of outreach themselves. Either by running an evangelistic
course like Alpha for others or another type of course. The good news
for potential parish organisers of CAFÉ is that everything
has more or less been done for you. You just need to book the hall,
set out the chairs, make the coffee and turn on the video. As Mgr
Keith Barltrop, director of the new agency for Evangelisation set
up by the Bishops Conference, comments, "It is the kind of resource
we have needed in the Church for a long time. One of the best things
about it is that it can be used in a whole variety of ways."
"….groups which come together within the church…
will be nurseries of evangelisation and will be of great service
to the larger communities…" (Evangelii Nuntiandi 58)
The CAFE process is receiving great support from the
hierarchy. Cardinal Cormac Murphy O Connor who appears on the introductory
video is promoting the course in his own diocese and Charles Whitehead,
who has been travelling round the country visiting other bishops,
has found an excellent response among them too.
Café training resources include a team training
video, leader's pack and group facilitators manual. For futher information
and leaflsts explaining about Café, contact Catholic Evanglelisation
Services, PO Box 333, St Albans, Herts, AL2 1EL Tel 01727 822837
