2025 Summit on Mission and Evangelization
Spend two days at the beautiful Schoenstatt Retreat Center, just 30 minutes away from Milwaukee.
Join us for an inspirational gathering of faith leaders, ministers and advocates committed to revitalizing ministry and deepening engagement in global, intercultural, and social mission. Through prayer, learning, and community-building, this event will explore new pathways and partnerships to:
- Deepen mission understanding, commitment, and engagement
- Foster hope and promote human dignity in challenging times and circumstances
- Mobilize for mission and solidarity in our communities, Church, and world
General Admission: $175.00
USCMA Member Admission: $125.00
Hosted by the United States Catholic Mission Association (USCMA) and Office for World Mission / Society for the Propagation of the Faith of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in special collaboration with the Vatican International Secretariat of the Pontifical Missionary Union.
Speakers
Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, OFM Conv.
Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen is Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU) and a Conventual Franciscan Friar belonging to the religious province of Warsaw (Poland). A priest of Vietnamese nationality, he holds Doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He is a professor of Exegesis and Biblical Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure and is an invited professor at the Pontifical Urbaniana University and the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Shannon Wimp Schmidt
Shannon Wimp Schmidt is the Content Director for the TENx10 Collaboration, co-host of the Plaid Skirts and Basic Black podcast, and award-winning author for Ave Maria Press. A proud wife and mother, Shannon holds a bachelor’s degree in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Ministry from Catholic Theological Union. She also serves on various boards and advisory committees for not-for-profits working in racial justice, youth ministry, and evangelization. You can find her on social media @teamquarterblack
Tisha M. Rajendra, Ph.D.
Tisha M. Rajendra is Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Loyola University Chicago. She is the author of Migrants and Citizens: Justice and Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration (Eerdmans 2017). She is currently writing a book about solidarity as practiced by fragmented selves.
William P. Gregory, Ph.D.
William P. Gregory is President of the American Society of Missiology and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. He received his Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston College in 2006 after teaching for two years with the Christian Brothers in The Gambia, West Africa. He edited Go Forth: Toward a Community of Missionary Disciples (Orbis, 2019), a collection of Pope Francis’s teachings on mission, and has published articles in the International Bulletin of Mission Research and the International Review of Mission.
Sessions
Missionaries of Hope Among All Peoples
In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis calls us to “a new evangelizing season,” capable of reviving hope for a world in crisis. In our opening Inspiration Session, we will reflect on our missionary identity as leaders and ministers dedicated to encountering and proclaiming God’s love in every person, place and circumstance to which Spirit leads.
Bearers and Builders of Hope
How can we embrace hope today and convey the compassionate love of the Lord? In our first Action Session, we will consider authentic mission praxis in the concrete realities of our time, re-grounding ourselves and our ministries in “God’s ‘style’” of “closeness, compassion and tenderness, cultivating a personal relationship with our brothers and sisters in their specific situation.”
In the Footsteps of Christ Our Hope
Where do we encounter, recognize, and fail to recognize the face of Christ today? This session explores, broadens, and complicates our contemporary mission context, helping us answer Christ’s call to “to hear, like him and with him, the plea of suffering humanity and, indeed, the groaning of every creature that awaits definitive redemption.
Renewing the Mission of Hope
How do we cultivate a spirit of hope in ourselves, our community and all of God’s people? This session calls us to discern a Spirit-driven spirituality and ecclesiology and “discover how to become ‘artisans’ of hope” and “[build up] Christian communities through the accompaniment of each of the baptized along the path of the Gospel.”
Schedule
Wednesday, July 23
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2:00 PM
Registration
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4:00 PM
Opening Prayer, Inspiration Session: Missionaries of Hope Among All Peoples
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6:00 PM
Welcome Dinner
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7:30 PM
Action Session: Bearers and Builders of Hope
Thursday, July 24
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8:00 AM
Breakfast
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9:00 AM
Action Session: In the Footsteps of Christ Our Hope
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10:30 AM
Action Session: Renewing the Mission of Hope
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12:00 PM
Mass and Commissioning
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1:00 PM
Box Lunch
Location Details
Suggested Hotels
The Avid Hotel and Ingleside Hotel are both ten minutes or less from the retreat center and provide reasonable rates.
Updates
Support the United States Catholic Mission Association
Help support, promote and invite others into God’s mission of love, mercy and social transformation. Through your generosity, USCMA provides missionaries and faith leaders more opportunities to connect, collaborate and grow in witness to the reign of God.