1999
William Edward Hardwick
Empowering the Faithful: Preparing for Evangelism in the Episcopal Church
This thesis is a report of research designed to be the first part of a two-part program of evangelism in two pastoral-sized congregations. The program’s aim was to help the participants develop a clearer faith identity and to gain facility in sharing that faith identity with others. Using interviews, the researcher analyzes the impact of a weekend retreat and an eight week class on the participants ability to articulate their own faith and on their willingness to participate in the task of evangelizing. The researcher then examines the implications of the research for developing the second part of the program in a matter which is attentive to the ethos and theology of the Episcopal church. Key to this task is understanding evangelism to be a ministry of the whole Christian community and not just the work of individual Christians.