The Bible Timeline Course as a Parish Event


Brief Overview



Are you willing to help us reach as many of the parishioners in your parish as possible, with the Bible Timeline Course starting on Wed 29th September 2021?

If your answer is YES, please please approach your Parish Priest ASAP, and let him know the following:

(1) For publicity purposes within the Parish:

  • The course should be announced at the end of Sunday Mass on Sunday 12th, 19th & 26th September, as the course begins on Wed 29th Sept. A short script for the announcement is provided (see the Appendix).
  • Mauro is willing to send 200 (or more) Course Invitation A6 Flyers to your parish - completely free of charge, to be handed out at Mass on the Sundays mentioned above. Just email him with

(2) The course is designed in such a way to ensure that the Parish Priest is not given any workload.


If you want a detailed breakdown of the above, you can read the document below, which is divided into two parts.






PART 1: Approaching your Parish Priest to discuss the possibility of promoting the course as a parish event

1. About the Bible Timeline Course

Please begin by informing your Parish Priest (PP) that Mauro Iannicelli will deliver the next Bible Timeline Course, LIVE via YouTube, completely FREE OF CHARGE, starting on Wed 29th Sept.

The course runs for 8 consecutive Wednesdays (7pm-8:40pm UK Time), ending on Wed 17th Nov 2021.

Please reassure your Parish Priest that Mauro delivers the course himself - in a way which ensures that the PP is not given any workload.

If your PP is not familiar with the course:

  • You can direct him to comeandsee.org where a description of the course & a promo video can be found.
  • You can direct him to the page comeandsee.org/testimonials  - where one can read over 650 testimonials from former course participants.
  • If you are a former course participant, you can share your own personal testimony about the course, highlighting to him what the course is all about. You can explain how, in 8 sessions, the course participants will grasp the big picture of the whole Bible, the Old and New Testament, thanks to the famous methodology of the Bible Timeline which divides the Bible into 12 key Periods.

2. What does it mean to run this course as a Parish Event?

In a nutshell, to run the Bible Timeline Course as a parish event, will mean that:

  • The course will need to be widely publicised within the parish, encouraging every parishioner to register individually on the course website.
  • During the course, the registered parishioners will have the option to engage in some of the course activities together (face to face, or on Zoom).
  • One or more Parish Course Coordinators (PCCs) will have to be identified. This is a key figure: he/she will liaise with the Parish Priest (if/when necessary) and with the parishioners registered for the course (see para. 8).

Please Note: even if the course is followed ‘as a parish event’, every single participant is required to register individually on the course website at: comeandsee.org/register-bible

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY they will be able to access their personal area on the website finding course material and receiving personal communications from Mauro himself.

3. Main Parish publicity channels

The next step is to speak about the course publicity process within the parish.  We highly recommend, as a bare minimum, the use of the following three publicity channels:

  • Course Announcements given at the end of Sunday Masses.
  • Distribution of small course invitation flyers at the end of Sunday Masses.
  • The Parish Newsletter.

KEY POINT: According to our experience, the Sunday Mass Course Announcements accompanied by the distribution of flyers is the most effective form of publicity - and an essential one to promote the course as a parish event. We have seen how, using solely the Parish Newsletter, results in just a handful of parishioners registering for the course.

4. Course Announcements for Sunday Mass

Mauro has already prepared a ready-made script for a 90 secs course announcement, to be simply read by a volunteer at the end of Mass. You can find it here.

PLEASE NOTE: The Sunday Mass course announcements & flyers distribution should take place on the three Sundays preceding the start of the course. That is, on Sunday 12th, 19th & 26th September (and on the respective Saturday vigil Masses if possible), ideally trying to cover as many of these Masses as possible.

5. Course Invitation Flyers

Mauro is happy to send to you in the post, completely free of charge, 200 to 500 small A6 course invitation flyers (size: 10cm x 14cm).

You can have someone hand out the flyers as people arrive and/or leave Mass, on those Sundays when the course announcement is given. You can see how the flyer looks like here.

Please decide how many flyers you need, depending on the size of your parish. Again, Mauro will cover the cost of both flyers and postage.

If the PP is happy with our proposal, please can you email us your postal address and we will send the following items in the post to you:

  • 200 to 500 small A6 course invitation flyers (depending on the size of the parish)
  • A couple of large course invitation flyers (size: A4), to be pinned to the parish notice board.

You can then hand over the flyers to those who will distribute them.

6. Parish Newsletter

Mauro has already prepared a short text with the course information to be inserted in the Parish Newsletter. You can find it here.

The information provided in PART 1 above, might already be sufficient for the Parish Priest to decide if he wants his parishioners to follow the Bible Timeline Course 'as a parish'.

PART 2 below concerns more closely the Parish Course Coordinator himself, as it deals with the logistical aspects of how the course could be followed within the parish. However, your Parish Priest might want to know about this too – in which case he is welcome to read the below.

PART 2: The role of the Parish Course Coordinator for the three weekly activities of the course

7. The three weekly activities for the course

During the course, the participants can engage with the following three weekly activities:

ACTIVITY 1: Preparatory Bible Reading, during the seven days prior to a Wednesday Bible Teaching session.

The course participants can carry out this activity individually, from home.

ACTIVITY 2: Watching the Wednesday Bible Teaching Session, live-streamed on YouTube by Mauro (7pm – 8:40pm)

The course participants can carry out this activity in the following ways:

  • In a large group - in the parish hall if available
  • In Small groups - meeting in homes
  • Individually, from home

ACTIVITY 3: Discussion of the Study Questions, straight after the Wednesday Teaching (recommended!) OR during the following 7 days.

The course participants can carry out this activity in the following ways:

  • Large group - in the parish hall if available
  • Small groups - meeting in homes
  • Small groups - meeting on Zoom, from home
  • Individually, from home

We believe that having various ways for the participants to meet up, provides every parish with great flexibility. Having said that, a course participant can still register, and choose to follow the whole course individually from home, if he so wishes.

Please Note: For the first session of the course, there is no Activity 1 (Preparatory Bible Reading) and no Activity 3 (Discussion of the Study Questions).

8. The Parish Course Coordinator (PCC)

As previously stated in para. 2, the Parish Course Coordinator is a key figure that needs to be chosen, to facilitate the logistics of the Bible Timeline Course as a parish event.

Please Note: this role can either be covered by one person, or, more conveniently, by a small team of 2-3 people who share the various tasks between them.

What do the PCCs do? Their main tasks are:

  • Prior to the start of the course, the PCCs need to ensure the smooth running of the publicity process within the parish (liaising with the volunteers etc.).
  • During the course itself, to ensure that the course participants engage in the course activities together (as explained in para. 7).

For example:

  • The PCCs can help find volunteers for the course publicity process – volunteers who will deliver the end of Sunday Mass course announcements, and/or who will distribute the course invitation flyers at Mass.
  • The PCCs should liaise with the Parish Priest and with the course participants, to decide how they can best engage with the second and third activity of the course (see para. 7).
  • If it’s decided that the course participants will meet in the parish hall on a Wednesday, to follow the Bible Teaching Session together (followed by the discussion of the study questions), the PCCs should deal with the logistics – by ensuring the parish hall is available and set up, that there is a wi-fi connection, a laptop, and a projector to watch the YouTube session live-streamed by Mauro, etc.
  • If some of the course participants express their preference of meeting in small groups (see para. 7), the PCCs might help decide how to divide them into small groups. If some small groups are going to meet on Zoom, the PCCs could perhaps find someone with good IT skills who can lead the Zoom meeting using breakout rooms.

We believe that the role of the Parish Course Coordinator is an exciting opportunity to serve the Lord, a way to help in your parish, and a chance to develop gifts like leadership, communication, and organisation. The Parish Course Coordinator will need to take the initiative to get things done - by liaising with the Parish Priest and with the parishioners registered to the course.

If you feel prompted to cover the exciting role of the PCC (by yourself or together with someone else), or know somebody who might be good at it, please let us know!

9. Summary of the three key roles highlighted so far

We have named at least three roles necessary to follow the course as a parish event:

(1) Volunteers to deliver the end of Sunday Mass course announcements

(2) Volunteers to hand out course invitation flyers as people arrive and/or leave Sunday Mass.

(3) One or more volunteers who are willing to be Parish Course Coordinators.

10. How to identify volunteers to cover the three key roles
  • Volunteers could be identified (also with the precious help of the PP, who knows his parishioners) amongst the most active members of the parish (e.g. catechists, readers, etc.).
  • It goes without saying that the PP himself (or any assistant priest, or deacon) can, if he wishes, be the Parish Course Coordinator, and/or deliver the course announcement himself, at the end of Sunday Mass.
  • Mauro can contact parishioners who registered for the course in the past and can ask them if they want to help.
  • Perhaps yourself, reading these instructions, can be one of the volunteers if you wish. Or you can help find them in your parish!

11. Final List of Action Points for you

To wrap up and for your convenience, please find below the key action points for you to follow up on.

  • If you (or the PP) have any questions about the above instructions, please contact us at mauro@comeandsee.org or via WhatsApp on 07868 055 593.
  • If the Parish Priest agrees to promote the course as a parish event, please can you inform us ASAP?
  • If the Parish Priest is happy with the described publicity process, please let us know your postal address, and how many small flyers you want us to send to you in the post (from 200 to 500, depending on the size of your parish), completely free of charge - Mauro will cover the cost of both flyers and postage.
  • You can find the script for the end of Mass course announcement here, and the text for the parish newsletter here.
  • You may also start finding volunteers in the parish to cover the three roles described (especially the role of Parish Course Coordinator).

Please Note: It would be preferable if you could approach your Parish Priest ASAP to discuss the above.

Thank you very much again for helping us in the task of evangelisation!

Mauro & Janet Iannicelli

Come & See Catholic Evangelisation Ministries
W: www.comeandsee.org
E: mauro@comeandsee.org

APPENDIX - Publicity Resources to Download

Download the explanation above as a PDF document here

Download the Course Announcement Script for Sunday Mass here

Download the Course Information for the Parish Newsletter here

To quickly get hold of the A4 Course Invitation Flyer, so you can print it and pin it to the parish notice board, click here

Please Note: The smaller A6 flyers we send out in the post mirror the A4 flyer above.

Last Updated: 12/09/2021

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