Since its initial launch in October 2019 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, the Proclaim Movement, the evangelization initiative in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, has grown tremendously.

In the last few years, Proclaim has supported parishes and ministries by providing online and in-person training and resources on leadership, discipleship, and how to start their own Alpha and CCO Discovery small groups in their own communities.

A frequent question that the movement has received is “Why Proclaim?”, and Brett Powell answers it best below in his article when he talked about the movement’s principles.

The Proclaim Movement is rooted in four key principles:

#1: The universal call to mission

The call to mission is conferred at baptism, not ordination or profession of religious vows. When it comes to numbers of vocations active in ministry, the Archdiocese of Vancouver is doing very well. The average age of active priests is on the decline. That said, we have 1 priest for every 2,000 Catholics.

Healthy congregations invest in the people they are trying to keep AND the ones they are trying to reach. With 1 priest per 2,000 Catholics and only a handful of Catechists at every parish, the majority of deployed resources are disproportionately going to the ones we are trying to keep and much less going to the ones we are trying to reach. Proclaim is a movement that focuses on the ones we are trying to reach.

The Church is made up of 99.9% lay people. The Church is missionary by nature, she exists to evangelize. How will we direct more of our time, energy, talent and human resources to the evangelizing mission? Should we require more from the 0.1% already so dedicated to the work of the Church? No, of course not. The only way forward is to encourage, equip and commission more and more lay people to engaged, evangelizing vineyard.

Through Proclaim, we hope to see more and more lay people embrace their missionary identity by taking the initiative to share Jesus, empowered by the Spirit, motivated by love and leave the ‘results’ to God.

As you think about embracing your missionary identity and being more intentional in witnessing to your faith, you might anticipate feeling alone and isolated – Proclaim is a growing movement of disciples where you will feel a sense of community, solidarity and support. You are not alone.

#2: A proximate periphery

Pope Francis has continually exhorted the faithful to take the Good News to the peripheries. Unfortunately, many of us consider the periphery as far ‘from me’ or ‘far from here.’ In other words – Guatamala, Peru, Sierra Leone, Papa New Guinea or some other remote centre.

The periphery isn’t a geographic location. The periphery is referring to people that are far from Christ and from His Church.

By virtue of the relationships you and I have with people that are not in relationship with Jesus and do not belong to a Christian community, the periphery is proximate.

The periphery is across the street in the face of your neighbour. The periphery is standing next to you on Saturdays at the soccer game. The periphery is sweating beside you every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6am in the gym. The periphery is proximate.

Proclaim is a movement that will help you see these relationships with the proper prophetic lens. Could it be, that God has given you a foundation of trust and unspoken permission to influence lives for such a time as this?

Sherry Weddell is an expert on Catholic engagement and intentional discipleship and has concluded that modern men and women who are not in a relationship with Jesus and do not belong to a Christian community go through five stages, five thresholds on their journey to discipleship.

  1. Initial trust: A person is able to trust a Christian believer.
  2. Spiritual curiosity: A person finds himself intrigued by or desiring to know more about Jesus, his life, and his teachings or some aspect of the Christian faith.
  3. Spiritual openness: A person acknowledges to him or herself and to God that he or she is open to the possibility of personal and spiritual change.
  4. Spiritual seeking: The person moves from being essentially passive to actively seeking to know the Jesus who is calling him or her.
  5. Intentional discipleship: This is the decision to “drop one’s nets,” to make a conscious commitment to follow Jesus in the midst of his Church as an obedient disciple and to reorder one’s life accordingly

As a movement, Proclaim is not encouraging anything like door-to-door encounters with strangers, rather we are encouraging every disciple to consider the relationships in their life and ask themselves, “Is Jesus inviting me to accompany this person through intentional relationship evangelization?”

#3: Narrow the focus for greater impact.

There are a hundred different tools of evangelization that we could endorse and promote but we have chosen to focus on two. Alpha and the CCO Discovery study.

First, we wanted to partner with organizations and promote evangelizing tools that have a long track record of fruitfulness in a variety of contexts.

Second, there are hundreds of tools we could have chosen but we cannot effectively train and support several different tools. Therefore, for the sake of maintaining a high-level of training quality and support, we narrowed down to two.

Third, we wanted to partner with organizations that are committed to innovation and the improvement agenda. Both Alpha and CCO are continually improving their tools and their training for the benefit of those that are using them and to enhance their relevance in the modern world.

Fourth, both CCO discovery and Alpha are available in multiple languages. Alpha in particular is available in multiple languages. Providing resources in multiple languages is an important piece as we hope it will bring comfort and familiarity to more people.

#4: Annual Cycles of Momentum

1,000 people gathered on Saturday October 26th for the first annual Upper Room conference. Regardless of how wonderful the event is, one off events come and go, the meaning fades until it is nothing more than a distant memory, sentimentally appreciated but not what Pope Francis had in mind when he said, “Let us not fear to undertake a missionary option capable of transforming everything.” The Upper Room is not a one-off event. It is strategically situated in a broader, three-year design, what we call annual cycles of momentum.

Each cycle begins with the Upper Room – a momentum building, large group, gathered event. It’s inspiring to be at these kinds of events. It’s a profound experience of community, solidarity, unity in mission with our Shepherd and with each other.

But the real work takes place between two Upper Rooms: Disciples will be trained in missionary discipleship; engage in the work of evangelization with their family, friends and associate; disciples will choose their own context – in their homes, places of work when appropriate, their parishes or school communities. Through Proclaim, disciples will have a lot of opportunity to opt-in to a digital community or take part in the in-person offerings for spiritual and personal formation

As a Proclaim member, there is a lot of opportunity but little obligation. Proclaim members choose their own pace and frequency as they align the Movement to the other important aspects of their life – no burden, no guilt … just a lot of opportunity and blessings to come.

After a year of being equipped, evangelizing others and community building, we will gather for another Upper Room. This time each of us will bring a few friends, some from the faith study we lead or the Alpha group we facilitated, some of these folks would have had a recent conversion and just began their life of discipleship.

That’s it, those are the four key movement principles:

  1. Universal Call to Mission
  2. Proximate Periphery
  3. Narrow the Focus for Greater Impact
  4. Annual Cycle of Momentum