Introduction to Evangelization

Last week I told you it was time that you get up off your butt and be a Catholic. I was referring to evangelization. In order to show you that I mean business, I’m going to invest in a very lengthy series of instruction on how to evangelize. Don’t worry. This won’t be boring, you won’t be put on the spot to do any actual exercises, and you’ll learn about aspects of the faith along with evangelization.

I have a story to tell you. Before I get to the story, I need to mention that I’m a convert, and I believe lived Catholicism is the most exciting lived experience ever! I became a Catholic thirty-plus years ago, and I’m still as pumped about the faith today as I was then.

There! I was afraid I’d blow a gasket if I didn’t tell you that. I want to tell that to everyone I meet every day, but I know it wouldn’t be long before people would see me coming and do an about-face to avoid me. Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s get to the story.

Thirty years ago, I was at the lowest point of my life. I was at rock bottom. I won’t bore you with the details about why I was at the bottom. Just take my word for it that I was. It’s as Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.” I’d been a Baptist in my youth, but as I grew older and more cynical, I became an agnostic. Consequently, since I felt we humans were on our own and that God didn’t really care, I didn’t see much value to life… especially mine. That’s right: I was contemplating suicide. I didn’t see much sense in continuing my miserable life. Because of the underhanded things I’d done, nobody liked me or wanted to be around me anymore… and I didn’t much want to be around me, either.

Over the next year, I contemplated how I would end it all. Then I met a man who was a walking Catholic encyclopedia. I’m not 100% certain how he got me to listen to him, but I listened nonetheless. Boy, am I glad I did!

I was perhaps the toughest student my new friend had ever taught. Being the cynical agnostic, I made him prove everything he was teaching me. I’d have never believed it if I hadn’t experienced it first-hand, but every single teaching of the Catholic faith can be proven from the Bible, ancient extra-biblical writings, history, and logic and right reason.

When my friend proved to me that Jesus was God and that He’d founded the Catholic Church, I made the intellectual decision to become a Catholic—despite the fact that I’d been reared in a vehemently anti-Catholic home. I didn’t want to become a Catholic, but I was afraid not to join the Church after learning Jesus established her.

It wasn’t long, though, before I was at peace with my decision, because it became an emotional decision in short order. No, that’s not quite true. It became a ravenous hunger, a longing of the heart, and a passion. Now, thirty-some years after the fact, I can remember it as if it happened yesterday. What caused me to change my attitude about conversion from dread to eager anticipation was when my friend taught me about (and proved) the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. As I listened to what he told me, it occurred to me that I never had to suffer all my misery alone—that God the Son had been present all along, waiting for me to visit Him in every Catholic Church in the world! I wept and wept and wept—unashamedly, no longer the proud and arrogant tough guy. (For the record, I’m still proud and arrogant. I just wasn’t at that particular moment. But God ain’t finished with me yet.)

Even while yet a catechumen, I began sharing the Catholic faith with anyone who was warm, had a pulse, could at least communicate with grunts, and would stand still long enough to listen. Since that day, I’ve considered myself a lay evangelist. But I’m not what you typically think of as a lay evangelist. Some who call themselves lay evangelists—the ones you typically think of as lay evangelists—make big-bucks preaching to the choir on the Catholic speakers’ circuit. They’ve never made a convert in their lives (or maybe only a few), but they spend their time and efforts attempting to motivate the lay faithful to share the faith. I’m not saying this sort of “lay evangelist” doesn’t have a place. What they do is actually a good thing, but there is little doubt in my mind that they want to all make a full-time living preaching to the choir and have the name recognition of other famed Catholic laity. If that weren’t so, rather than spending all their productive time booking speaking gigs, they’d use that time to actually reach out to souls. I don’t have a problem with them speaking to groups of people and making money (many are very good at it!), I just think they shouldn’t call themselves lay evangelists. They’re not. They’re speakers. Period.

The other types of lay evangelists (who are very rare) are the ones who draw big crowds with their preaching. That’s a tremendously great thing, but they’re not able to follow through with the souls they reach and risk losing them altogether. That’s the problem with large crowds… unless you’ve managed to establish a productive system for follow-up. They plant seeds, but most folks don’t know what to do or where to go to get those seeds watered and grown.

Me? I take a little different approach. I’ve managed to stay under the radar and not attract attention over the years in my work with individuals and small groups. The Holy Spirit has used me to make hundreds of converts and reverts over the last thirty years—eighty-four of whom are my adult godchildren. I’m not bragging about the converts. I know I’ve just been a tool and nothing more. After all, the Holy Spirit could just enlighten every person’s soul with Catholic truth and let each one make a decision then and there. I’m not really necessary at all. God has chosen to use human intervention for sharing the Gospel message.

I’ve spent the last thirty years doing something that not one in ten million Catholics do, but that all of us are obligated to do: evangelize. My experiences have demonstrated to me that a huge percentage of Catholics want to evangelize, but they don’t know how and are afraid to try on their own. I get that. Doing something like this is outside the realm of most people’s experience and can be pretty scary; anything outside your comfort zone is scary. So this series is for all those Catholics who want to learn to evangelize and live the true meaning of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

Now that you know a little bit about my background in evangelization, next week I’ll tell you how you can become God’s rock star.