Speakers at Pastoral Staff Day say all are called to evangelize

ELLICOTT CITY – For generations, the Catholic parish was understood as a spiritual home for everyone who lived within its boundaries. But in an increasingly disconnected culture, parish leaders may not even know who lives in the houses just beyond their church doors.

That challenge was one of several themes explored Oct. 6 as 450 pastors and parish staff from throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore gathered at Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City for the archdiocese’s annual Pastoral Staff Day, focused this year on “The Evangelizing Parish.”

Catholic academic and theologian Dr. Susan Windley-Daoust, who lives in Winona, Minnesota, shares her view that every parish “has a story” to tell during her keynote address at the Archdiocese of Baltimore Department of Evangelization’s annual Pastoral Staff Day Oct. 6, 2026, at the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

The day’s three nationally known speakers – Ryan O’Hara, host of the Better Preach Podcast; Kristin Bird, executive director of Burning Hearts Disciples; and Susan Windley-Daoust, a theologian and author – addressed the call to evangelize from different perspectives, encouraging parish leaders to renew their own encounter with Christ, embrace their baptismal call to make disciples and look beyond parish walls to the people living in their communities.

For Windley-Daoust, that meant taking a fresh look at the parish itself – not simply as a place Catholics gather, but as a geographic mission field filled with people who need an invitation to “come and see” that the Lord is present in their midst.

Windley-Daoust challenged parish leaders to see evangelization as a mission shared by the entire baptized community, not the work of a select few. Reflecting on Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples of all nations,” she noted that the original apostles could not personally reach everyone. Christianity spread through the cooperation of the wider body of Christ, each person participating according to his or her gifts and calling.

The call to evangelize, she said, is a “baptismal call,” and everyone needs to “reach out into the neighborhood” and “make sure that people are invited to come and see that the Lord lives within their midst right here.”

That understanding gives the parish a particular mission, she explained. A parish is not simply a building or a collection of ministries; its geographic boundaries define a mission field of everyone living within them, Catholic or not. Windley-Daoust described this as an “ancient plan of evangelization,” in which the pope serves the universal Church, bishops their dioceses and pastors their parishes. But the work ultimately also belongs to the baptized.

Ryan O’Hara, producer of the “Better Preach Podcast” in West St. Paul, Minnesota, was one of three keynote speakers at the Archdiocese of Baltimore Department of Evangelization’s annual Pastoral Staff Day Oct. 6, 2026, at the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

The key, she said, is to know the neighborhood surrounding a parish. Leaders should begin by discovering their mission field rather than assuming they understand it. Publicly available information, including U.S. Census data, can reveal a community’s age, family structures, economic circumstances and languages. But data is only a starting point; leaders should also meet local officials, the public high school principal and business owners, and get to know their actual neighbors.

“Take the answers that you receive to these questions with your crew, whoever they are, and you’re going to pray on it,” she said. “You’re going to ask the Holy Spirit … where is our parish called to serve the community? How are we called to love our literal neighbors right here?”

When a parish does invite its neighbors, Windley-Daoust said, “You have to consider the size of your door, and your door needs to be as wide as God’s mercy.”

She acknowledged that such an invitation can be difficult for parishes accustomed to focusing on their existing members, and that many are probably thinking this all sounds good but they really need to take care of their own. She asked them not to be afraid.

“Don’t think that there’s going to be like this magical time, like, OK, we’re ready now, we’ve got time now,” Windley-Daoust said. “Stop thinking like that. It’s today. It’s when you decide we’re going to do it. Don’t let ‘we’re taking care of our own’ hold you back.”

Click play below to play the Pastoral Staff video. Story continues beneath.

O’Hara, in his talk “The Dynamite of the First Proclamation,” emphasized that God meant for each person in attendance to be there and had given each a mission.

“The mission is the great commission, that we would make disciples of all nations,” O’Hara said. “Now, you are doing that for your jobs, but jobs aside, it’s still our call as the baptized. You are called to make disciples of the entire Archdiocese of Baltimore.”

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, native Kristin Bird, executive director of Burning Hearts Disciples, which according to its website helps faith communities “take the next faithful step” in their mission, speaks at the Archdiocese of Baltimore Department of Evangelization’s annual Pastoral Staff Day Oct. 6, 2026, at the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

His emphasis echoed Windley-Daoust’s point that evangelization cannot be reduced to the work of ordained ministers or professional parish staff. Those gathered were there in their professional roles, but their baptism gives them a mission that extends beyond their jobs.

Bird, in her talk “The Kerygma Experience,” placed the parish’s outward mission alongside an inward one. Parishes are made up of people, she said, and in order to be people who evangelize, “we must first be people who are evangelized.”

“God is giving himself to us all of the time,” Bird said. “His goodness, his divine life, his beauty, his truth, his oneness, pouring out to us all of the time.”

Before Catholics can effectively invite others to encounter Christ, in other words, they must continue to encounter and receive the Gospel themselves.

Archbishop William E. Lori had framed the day in his opening remarks, noting that the parish is the place where grace can be found to break down the barriers humanity creates for itself. He told the crowd they had gathered “to strengthen one another” by celebrating, discussing and sharing their faith so that they could “return to the mission field with renewed boldness and confidence.”

For many attendees, the day did just that.

Archbishop William E. Lori shares a personal story during remarks at the Archdiocese of Baltimore Department of Evangelization’s annual Pastoral Staff Day Oct. 6, 2026, at the Turf Valley Resort in Ellicott City. The archbishop recalled writing as a child to then-Bishop Fulton J. Sheen asking for prayers for his father before a back surgery; the response from Sheen, now beatified, was among the influences that inspired him to become a priest. (Kevin J. Parks/CR Staff)

“These are awesome because they are a gathering of God’s people who have a mission to evangelize and build up his kingdom,” Deacon Skip Comegna, of Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City, said of the day. “It’s just a chance for me to continue to grow and continue to grow with others. You know, it’s easy to get kind of self-centered and you come to these things, and you hear new ideas.”

Rosalyn Thackston, communications coordinator at St. John in Westminster, called the day a “nice reminder” because working in a parish can sometimes put one on “auto-pilot.”

“I work every day at a parish, of course I am surrounded by the Gospel and God’s truth. I don’t need to be convinced of it because clearly, I’m in it and I’m here,” Thackston said. “Hearing them talk about it so emphatically, it is just a nice reminder that every now and then, we all need to be toppled over again by the Gospels, by God’s love, instead of being complacent.”

Father John Streifel, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Essex, said the day is important because of the unity it fosters within a parish staff.

“To come here to renew, to rekindle the real gift of Christ that we’ve been given and to have staff unify around that and re-energize around that is so crucial. Indeed necessary,” Father Streifel said. “A day like this does reinforce that.”

Pastoral Staff Day is organized annually by the archdiocesan Institute for Evangelization.

Email Katie Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

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