Carrying the Light of Faith: Three Essential Attitudes – John Boucher

“You Catholics write about evangelization better than anyone, but you tend to do it worse than anyone!” exclaimed a Protestant speaker at a Catholic conference on evangelization I once attended. At first, I was furious with this seeming accusation, but  have I repented. We do struggle with learning skills for “how-to” reach out with the good news of Jesus Christ to others, especially in ways that it sounds like GOOD NEWS to them!

To learn these skills, we need to develop new attitudes. We need to be teachable, to take the appropriate time to learn new skills, to be willing to turn from previous behaviors and attitudes we have toward evangelization, and to turn toward Jesus Christ’s ways to evangelize in our time in history. 

1. Teachable—It is humbling to admit that we do not know everything about evangelizing. We need openness to be taught by the Holy Spirit, the Church, and other Christians. We need to seek other people’s opinions, advice, and coaching about “how-to” evangelize. This includes making mistakes at evangelizing, and at times, being corrected by others.

2. Time—Evangelization skills develop incrementally over time. Often we need to unlearn habits that are “non-evangelizing” or “de-evangelizing” toward others. We need to learn and practice new skills and habits for evangelizing (ex. prayer, care, share, dare to invite, etc.) Social scientists tell us that for most of us it takes a minimum of 50 days to develop just one new good habit or skill.

3. Turn—We are challenged to undergo constant conversion in our lives (groups, ministries, and parishes): to a deeper personal relationship with Jesus in his Body, the Church; to embrace evangelization as “essential mission” of the Church, parishes, ministries, and our lives; and to follow the Holy Spirit’s new ways of reaching others with Christ’s Good News in our culture(s).

“Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries”, but rather that we are always “missionary disciples”. …Of course, all of us are called to mature in our work as evangelizers. We want to have better training, a deepening love and a clearer witness to the Gospel. … All of us are called to offer others an explicit witness to the saving love of the Lord, who despite our imperfections offers us his closeness, his word and his strength, and gives meaning to our lives.” (Pope Francis, “The Joy of the Gospel,” 120-121, emphasis mine)

(John J. Boucher is a Catholic evangelization consultant and trainer. He served for many years as the director of evangelization in the Diocese of Trenton. He has authored/co-authored over 300 religious articles and many books including, Sharing the Faith that You Love: Four Simple Ways to Be Part of the New Evangelization.)