Some Questions People Ask:

1. What is the "Association of the New Covenant"?
   The Association of the New Covenant is a Catholic organization. At the present time, it consists of the Sisters of the New Covenant, a Private Association of the New Covenant, and lay members who have come together for two specific reasons:
   
   
   1. To live the Christian life with a deeper commitment to the Gospel in order to grow in holiness of life.
      
   2. To carry out the mission of direct evangelization together.
      
      
2. Why have an Association?
   A community can do more together than an individual can alone. And as Jesus said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).
   
   The hope is that the Association will become a community whose members represent the various vocations in the church working together in unity to:
   
   
   1. Carry out the mission of direct evangelization;
      
   2. Facilitate the transformation of the parish into an evangelizing community; and
      
   3. Send out representative teams of the Association to evangelize persons and territories throughout the world who have yet to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ proclaimed to them.
      
      
3. What means or method does the Association use to carry out the mission of direct evangelization?
   The Association uses the ACTS II Process to carry out the mission of direct evangelization. This Process is a biblically based formation that equips individuals, parishes, and dioceses for evangelization. It provides the tools for evangelization and develops within those trained a ZEAL to go out and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.
   
   
4. What exactly is the ACTS II Process?
   The title of the ACTS II Process, ACTS II: Conversion, Proclamation, Community, takes its name from the book in the New Testament called the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2: first the apostles (the leaders) experience conversion; they go out and proclaim Jesus; those who hear and accept Jesus undergo conversion and come into community and the process continues.
   
   A pastor who decides to bring the ACTS II Process into his parish selects some parishioners (leaders -- future coordinators) who go through the ACTS II Leadership training. Once this training is completed, the leaders -- the coordinators of the ACTS II Process -- are ready to train their parishioners in the "how to" of evangelization and the ACTS II Process unfolds step by step.
   
   The vision of the process is to revitalize the evagelizing church today toward conversion, proclamation, and community. This Spirit-filled process lovingly leads an individual into a personal relationship with Jesus and to giving testimony to the faith and to the love of Jesus Christ for all men and women. The Process leads to the development of small Christian communities that provide ongoing follow-up for those initially evangelized.
   
   
5. What elements are contained in the ACTS II Process that enables a person to accomplish the above?
   There are four components to the ACTS II Process: Recruitment, the ACTS II Evangelization training, Ongoing Evangelistic Outreach, and the Parish Small Group System.
   
   
6. What are the benefits of the ACTS II Process?
   The answer to the need of society at every level is Jesus Christ. The ACTS II Process forms our Catholic people as evangelizers to be able to bring Jesus Christ into every level of society. It is a serious formation for life and for mission.
   
   By going through the ACTS II Evangelization training, given by those who went through the ACTS II Leadership training (the coordinators of the ACTS II Process), parishioners acquire a zeal to bring Jesus Christ not only to those within the parish boundaries but beyond the parish into every level of society -- into the market place: the educational, political, governmental, technological, medical, recreational, and communicational levels of society -- in other words, into all aspects of societal life. This is the call of Pope Paul VI to the universal Church in his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelization in the Modern World. This is what the ACTS II Process brings about through the formation it gives.
   
   Parishioners not only evangelize but they provide follow-up for those they initially evangelize by inviting them into small Christian communities where ongoing evangelization, encouragement, support and nurturing takes place.
   
   
   
7. What is the fruit to the parish?
   The parish is gradually transformed into and evangelizing community through the net-working of small Christian communities whose very reason for existence is to evangelize. The parish becomes the Community of communities.
   
   ACTS II calls forth the leadership of the laity. Through their small Christian communities, the laity begin to take a real personal Christian care for one another as they reach out and evangelize, inviting those they initially evangelize into their small groups where ongoing evagelization takes place. The laity work in collaboration with their pastor to bring this about.
   
   There is an ongoing change in the mentality of the parishioners who gradually become more and more missionary in outlook and action.
   
   
8. How does the ACTS II Process come into a parish?
   For the ACTS II Process to come into a parish, the pastor must want the Association in his parish and fully support those carrying out the Process.