Most of us have had the experience of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or another religious group visiting our homes to share their beliefs with us.Some of you, however, have been participants in that effort yourselves, and have conducted door-to-door evangelization, perhaps before as well as after becoming Catholic. Hence, this week’s question:
Have you ever been a part of a door-to-door evangelistic effort? If so, what was your experience?
As always, we’re looking for a short response, and we’ll include some of our favorite replies in this Friday’s CHN Community Responds post. Feel free to share with others who might be able to weigh in on the topic!
I’ve always avoided the door-to-door evangelism. I don’t like it myself if church folk knock on my door, so I certainly don’t want to inflict it on someone else. I believe this method of evangelism to be intrusive and and much less effective than other efforts. Canvassing a neighborhood leaving door hangers inviting people to church or to a special event is OK.
I had the privilege of doing door to door evangelization for one week, and I LOVED it. There was such a passion and a fire in me to bring the faith to others, and everything about it was positive. I believe this along with one other experience helped me down my current road of doing apologetics and evangelization… which I still love to this day.
As a lifelong Catholic, I have shared my faith with others, but never door-to-door. However, I welcome evangelists from other faiths – Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses – into our home.
I believe a statue of our Blessed Mother in our front flower garden attracted a former Catholic-turned-JW, and when he visited us for the first time, was eager to show him that we Catholics know the Bible too. After a few visits, he stopped coming – I’m thinking it was because he saw I was firmly grounded in Catholicism, and that maybe my responses to his questions unsettled him, made him doubt, perhaps, his JW commitment.
My parents, particularly my mother, did the same thing when evangelists would come to our door when I was a child. I watched her share our Catholic faith with them, and listened to her gentle tone and inviting words as she invited them to accompany her to Mass sometime. I don’t recall any of them taking her up on her invite, but I’m certain they left with a positive feeling about the Catholic faith, because of her hospitality and warmth.