WelCom August 2024
Early last year, Rebecca Taylor-Hunt was announced asthe newDirector of the Catholic Enquiry Centre. CEC is the agency of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, dedicated to evangelising in Aotearoa New Zealand. Now, almost 18 months into her new role, Rebecca gives an insight into her busy and outreaching mission.
One of the joys of working at the Catholic Enquiry Centre is getting out and about and meeting people. I do this to help tell the stories of our Church in Aotearoa New Zealand. Taking photographs and writing about events and parishes shows people how inclusive, interesting, quirky and welcoming the Catholic community truly is. I have established a blog on our website catholicdiscovery.nz called Sowing Seeds, and we manage accounts on most of the social media platforms. In this way I try to reach as many people as I can.
Last month, I was at an ethnic communities Mass hosted by the Archdiocese of Wellington. It was a joyful occasion with much laughter and heartfelt worship, after which I busily wrote a blog post about it to share the story. Future events include the Prayer Conference in Christchurch, World Youth Day in Auckland and the Life Teen Convention in Lower Hutt. This is on top of my visits to parishes.
Why tell stories? Because this is a crucial element our primary mission of evangelisation. People respond to stories, and the more familiar the Church is, the more people are likely to return or try it out for the first time. This strategy is clearly working, because we are very busy here at the Catholic Enquiry Centre.
If you are aware of any events in your area that may help us in our mission, please email us at rebecca@catholicenquiry.nz to let us know.