Steve Dawson, Founder & President
Saint Paul Street Evangelization
At age 30, Steve Dawson had hit rock bottom. With a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, he fell to his knees in a field of grass behind his parents’ house and prayed his first real prayer of his life: “God if You are real, You’ll have to show me.” God broke powerfully into his life and within a month, Steve went to confession for the first time since second grade.
Soon after his dramatic conversion, Steve had a hunger to share with the world the treasure he found in Jesus and His Church. He lamented that he never saw Catholics evangelizing. He had seen Bible-waving Protestants, bicycling Mormons, and smartly dressed Jehovah’s Witnesses, but no Catholics. He was determined to do something about it.
He heard about Saint Maximilian Kolbe who evangelized strangers by offering them a blessed Miraculous Medal. St Maximilian called the medal, “Our Lady’s Silver Bullet” because it was a channel of grace, and God oftentimes used it to bring about a conversion in someone’s life. Steve decided to begin evangelizing using this medal.
Steve, his wife Maria, along with another couple started to evangelize at Portland, Oregon’s Saturday Market and over time began offering free rosaries and medals to people walking by. Steve was amazed at how receptive and open people were to talking about religion—and especially Catholic Christianity.
After graduating with a degree in business from Portland State University in March 2013, Steve and his family moved back to near where he had grown up outside of Detroit, Michigan. Soon after, he established Saint Paul Street Evangelization as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization.
Since then, Saint Paul Street Evangelization has grown to become an international network of more than 200 trained, street-evangelization teams and a world-class school of notable evangelists teaching average Catholics how to take the gospel to a world starved for the Good News. Among these distinguished advisors include: Cardinal Raymond Burke, Archbishop Allen Vigneron, Steve Ray, Mary Healy, Peter Herbeck, and Tom Monaghan.
Saint Paul Street Evangelization provides the tools and resources for Catholics to engage the culture in a simple, non-confrontational method of evangelization that involves making themselves available to the public to answer questions about the Faith and to pray with those who request it.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Lay people also fulfill their prophetic mission by evangelization, ‘that is, the proclamation of Christ by word and the testimony of life.’ For lay people, ‘this evangelization acquires a specific property and peculiar efficacy because it is accomplished in the ordinary circumstances of the world’” (CCC 905). As a lay organization, Saint Paul Street Evangelization works in fidelity and obedience to the Catholic Church and her Magisterium.
For more information, please visit
Saint Paul Street Evangelization
Join us for our Annual fellowship Dinner on October 26, 2023 at the Diocese Chancery Meeting Hall.
Doors open 6:15 - Dinner 7:30
Dinner will be $70 for members and $85 for non-members
PROCEEDS WILL SUPPORT
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SOUTH CAROLINA
