In the typical Catholic parish, it is likely that more energy is spent on youth ministry than any other ministry. But is it energy well-spent? In a 2005 article (but one I just found), Mike Aquila gives us a model from the early Church in which we can compare to modern attempts at youth ministry:

Scouring the Patrologia Latina and Patrologia Graeca, I found nothing to suggest that Ambrose had ever led teens on ski trips to the nearby Alps. Digging through the Eastern Fathers, I came up even drier — no junior-high dances — not even a pizza party in either Antioch or Alexandria. In fact, in all the documentary evidence from all the ancient patriarchates of the East and the West, there’s not a single bulletin announcement for a single parish youth group.

Yet the Fathers had enormous success in youth and young-adult ministry. Many of the early martyrs were teens, as were many of the Christians who took to the desert for the solitary life. There’s ample evidence that a disproportionate number of conversions, too, came from the young and youngish age groups.

How did the Fathers do it? They made wild promises.

They promised young people great things, like persecution, lower social status, public ridicule, severely limited employment opportunities, frequent fasting, a high risk of jail and torture, and maybe, just maybe, an early, violent death at the hands of their pagan rulers.

The Fathers looked young people in the eye and called them to live purely in the midst of a pornographic culture. They looked at some young men and women and boldly told them they had a calling to virginity. And it worked. Even the pagans noticed how well it worked.

Continue reading…

Let us also make “wild promises” to our youth today: if you follow Christ, you will be completely counter-cultural and your life will never be the same…

On a happier note, Catholics Come Home continues their excellent work to bring fallen-away Catholics back into the Church:

One thing I have noticed about strong religious orders, such as the Franciscan Friars (and Sisters) of the Renewal or the Sisters of Life, is that their members are joyful. Whenever I talk to one of them, I can’t get a smile off my face, because their joyfulness is so contagious. This joyfulness is attractive and is one of the best means of evangelization; after all, who wouldn’t want to be part of something so full of happiness and fun?

Joy, however, is often an overlooked virtue in the Christian life. But Fr. James Martin gives a great (and hilarious) defense of joy in this speech he recently gave (note: the talk is almost 30 minutes and the audio quality at times is poor, but it is worth it):

James Martin, SJ from The Leadership Roundtable on Vimeo.

H/t: OSV Daily Take

About a year ago, I had never heard of Fr. Robert Barron. Now it seems that every time I turn around online, he is there! And this is a good thing, as Fr. Barron is a wonderful explicator of the Catholic Faith today. Fellow blogger Brandon Vogt recently interviewed Fr. Barron on Catholics in the New Media and other topics. I thought the answer to Brandon’s first question was spot on:

Through “Word on Fire”, your podcasts, blogs, writings, and ambitious documentary, “The Catholicism Project”, you are reaching a multitude of people around the world. As someone using New Media to evangelize the globe, what advice would you give Christians on using these technologies in service of the Gospel, and what dangers lurk within their use?

Fr. Barron: My advice to those who would venture into the new media is to prepare yourself by immersing one’s self into the depths of the Catholic tradition. The great danger of the new media is that it seems to relish the superficial. There has been an ethos within the Church for many years to pursue an accommodationist strategy in regards to the culture, and this has resulted in a public presentation of the Faith that is often nebulous or “dumbed down.” Presenting the Faith as intelligible does not mean that we have to compromise the profundity of our great Tradition. We are the bearers of a Faith that inspired one of the most interesting civilizations that the world has ever known. The faithful are the route of access to this culture and its patrimony which is expressed in art, architecture, literature and theological reflection. The world needs to know all this, but we have to be sure that we know it ourselves before we can even begin to share the Faith with others.

Continue reading…

Last night I had the fortune of meeting Msgr. Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter/St. Cyprian church in downtown Washington, D.C., and über-blogger for the Archdiocese of Washington. He was holding a meeting at his parish to plan for a major door-to-door evangelization campaign his parish will be conducting this Fall. I was invited to share my own experiences of going door-to-door. In many ways, I was there to smash the many “myths” that have cropped up around going door-to-door. Here are a few:

1) You will be yelled at and attacked.
I have organized going door-to-door to over 2,000 homes in the past four years, and we only had a single instance of someone yelling at us. The vast majority of people are polite, even if they are not interested. But even if someone did yell at you, why should that stop you? Our Lord told us that we are blessed when people persecute us in his name, so being yelled at while sharing the Gospel is a wonderful blessing.

2) Catholics don’t go door-to-door; only Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses do that.
Quite often people who meet us when we are out evangelizing are shocked to hear we are Catholic. They expect us to be either Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. We have even heard people exclaim “I’ve never seen Catholics evangelize!” What a sad commentary. Our Lord told his followers to go to all the nations preaching the Gospel, so all Catholics are obligated to evangelize in some way – and door-to-door evangelization is a great way to follow Christ’s command. Door-to-door evangelization has gotten a bad name, and this is mostly due to the aggressive tactics of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses, who often browbeat those they meet in their attempt to make converts. But that does not have to be the only way to go door-to-door. In my experience, Catholics take a much more subdued approach. We go simply to share with others about our parish and the blessings we have received there. We have been given a great gift and we are letting others know about it.

3) I don’t need to go door-to-door; I evangelize without using words.
When people are looking for excuses not to go door-to-door, they often remark that the best evangelization is “without words” and that is how they evangelize so they don’t need to preach with words. I’ve addressed that canard here. It is very important to evangelize with our whole lives, including our actions, but it is a false dichotomy to say that we should only do one method. The assumption of the Christian life is that we evangelize with our actions; we also need to evangelize with words.

4) You have to be outgoing to go door-to-door.
Most people picture the typical door-to-door evangelizer as someone who is bursting with enthusiasm and extroverted to the extreme. I have actually found that the best door-to-door evangelizers are the exact opposite; those who are willing to listen are the most effective at sharing God’s love with others. My wife has a definite gift for door-to-door: very often people will pour out their problems on her as soon as she gets to a door, and she is able to tell them that they will be loved at our Catholic parish.

5) Door-to-door is not effective.
People often cite statistics showing that going door-to-door isn’t really effective and it doesn’t bring people into church. My first response would be to ask why the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are growing so fast then? Also, Jerry Falwell built his megachurch from a tiny congregation by going door-to-door back in the 1950′s. So it can be effective in growing numbers. But the real reason we go door-to-door isn’t to effectively grow our church, it is to be obedient. Christ commanded us to share the Gospel with others, and this is a prime way to do it. And effectiveness can be measured in many ways. I have countless stories of praying with people who are hurting and sharing God’s love with strangers through door-to-door efforts. Furthermore, those who go are energized in their faith and often become better disciples of Christ after going door-to-door. Ultimately, we don’t go door-to-door to get (converts), we go to give (God’s love).

I was very encouraged to see the work Msgr. Pope is doing and the enthusiasm of his parish for evangelization. I hope and pray that more Catholic parishes would recognize the great need to share the Good News with their neighbors who surround them.

Over the past few years, Francis Beckwith, the former President of the Evangelical Theological Society who reverted to the Catholic Faith, has popularized the notion of an “Evangelical Catholic.” This is someone who is faithfully Catholic but at the same time embraces many of the good things of Evangelical Protestantism, such as a zeal for evangelizing and a deep love of the Scriptures.

But what exactly does it mean to be an Evangelical Catholic? Fr. Phillip De Vous of the Diocese of Covington, KY has composed “Eight principles of Evangelical Catholicism,” (posted over at Rich Leonardi’s blog Ten Reasons) which are a great summary of Evangelical Catholicism:

Evangelical Catholicism

During the nearly twenty-seven years of his pontificate, John Paul the Great called the Church to the urgent mission of fulfilling the Great Commission in our time, a project he called the New Evangelization. This evangelical summons of John Paul continued the same call given to the Church by Pope Paul VI in the years of and after the Second Vatican Council, and now the same commitment to announcing the timeless truths of the Gospel with new ardor, new methods, and new conviction is being asked of us by Pope Benedict XVI.

By our Baptism we are called to receive the Gospel as a complete, coherent, comprehensive Way of Life and to submit our entire lives in the obedience of faith to the Lord Jesus. Everything about us must be measured and guided by the Gospel: our thoughts, words, actions, bodies, relationships, spending habits, political convictions, leisure activities, lifestyle choices, and business decisions. But this total surrender to Christ and His Gospel is not a restriction of our freedom; in fact, it is the beginning of authentic discipleship and the only path to evangelical liberty. As the Lord Jesus teaches, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31 -32).

Another way of expressing our commitment to the work of the New Evangelization is to say that we must become Evangelical Catholics. By our Baptism, we are called to be men and women of the Gospel who are Christian disciples by conviction rather than Church members by convention. Being Evangelical Catholics requires that we know the Gospel, believe the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel with others. Becoming Evangelical Catholics is a lifelong adventure of letting go of cafeteria, casual, and cultural Catholicism by accepting the liberating truth of the Word of God and living by grace through faith in the Son of God.

All Catholics are called by their Baptism to be Evangelical Catholics, which means (in part) living according to these eight principles of Evangelical Catholicism:

1. The Lord Jesus Christ is the crucified and risen Savior of all mankind, and no human person can fully understand his life or find his dignity and destiny apart from a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. It is not enough to know who Jesus is; we must know Jesus.

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is divine revelation, not human wisdom, and the Gospel is given to us in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition which together constitute a single divine deposit of faith transmitted authentically and authoritatively by the Bishops in full communion with the Bishop of Rome. We must surrender our private judgments in all matters of faith and morals to the sacred teaching authority of the Church’s Magisterium if we are to receive the whole Gospel.

3. The seven Sacraments of the New Covenant are divinely instituted instruments of grace given to the Church as the ordinary means of sanctification for believers. Receiving the Sacraments regularly and worthily is essential to the life of grace, and for this reason, faithful attendance at Sunday Mass every week (serious illness and necessary work aside) and regular Confession of sins are absolutely required for a life of authentic discipleship.

4. Through Word and Sacrament we are drawn by grace into a transforming union with the Lord Jesus, and having been justified by faith we are called to sanctification and equipped by the Holy Spirit for the good works of the new creation. We must, therefore, learn to live as faithful disciples and to reject whatever is contrary to the Gospel, which is the Good News of the Father’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

5. The sacred liturgy, through which the seven Sacraments are celebrated and the Hours of praise are prayed, makes present to us the saving mysteries of the Lord Jesus. The liturgy must therefore be celebrated in such a way that the truth of the Gospel, the beauty of sacred music, the dignity of ritual form, the solemnity of divine worship, and the fellowship of the baptized assembled to pray are kept together in organic unity.

6. Receiving the Sacraments without receiving the Gospel leads to superstition rather than living faith, and the Church must therefore take great care to ensure that those who receive the Sacraments also receive the Gospel in its integrity and entirety. Consequently, before Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, and Marriage are administered, there must be in those who request these Sacraments clear evidence of knowledge of the Gospel and a serious intention to live the Christian life.

7. Being a follower of Christ requires moving from being a Church member by convention to a Christian disciple by conviction. This transformation demands that we consciously accept the Gospel as the measure of our entire lives, rather than attempting to measure the Gospel by our experience. Personal knowledge of and devotion to Sacred Scripture is necessary for this transformation to occur through the obedience of faith, and there is no substitute for personal knowledge of the Bible. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

8. All the baptized are sent in the Great Commission to be witnesses of Christ to others and must be equipped by the Church to teach the Gospel in word and deed. An essential dimension of true discipleship is the willingness to invite others to follow the Lord Jesus and the readiness to explain His Gospel.

In short, Catholics should personally know and love Jesus, encounter him in the Sacraments and the Scriptures, serve him faithfully in the Church, and tell others about his great love for us!

What do they have in common? They all became Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and are now living in one of the toughest cities in Ireland:

What happens when a former US Marine becomes a Franciscan friar and then goes on to found a monastery in the toughest district of Ireland’s toughest city?

In 2007, Father Sylvester and a small group of American friars from the Bronx, N.Y., did just that when they arrived in Limerick, Ireland. They left behind their former lives as a teacher, a soldier, a punk-rock singer, and a rapper to transform lives through prayer.

The urban district they live in, Moyross – a sea of burned-down and boarded-up houses – is always in the news for the wrong reasons: drugs, shootings, and stabbings. But the friars are working to change that. They have made a makeshift friary out of three abandoned houses in an attempt to bring spiritual renewal at the same level as a government-funded, multimillion-dollar regeneration program.

In a time of crisis for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the friars are trying to give people hope in countercultural ways. Their bushy beards, broad smiles, and shaved heads – not to mention their American drawls – seem to have captured Irish hearts. In 2008, they even appeared on “The Late Late Show” (considered Ireland’s premier talk show) alongside Bono and Sinéad O’Connor. But their celebrity is of a different kind. In an age of sexualized glamour, they practice humility and chastity; in an era of consumerism, they vow poverty.

Their informal youth ministry offers spiritual advice and support. At Christmas, they host a popular Nativity play that includes live animals, and their Easter Passion play draws a large crowd. Weekly prayer and support groups are offered for dads.

“People have the same needs all over the world,” says Brother Shawn, “we just try to show them the way to hope.”

Pray for the Friars!

I have always admired Evangelicals’ passion for evangelization (you must have passion for something if it’s part of your name). I wish all Catholics would desire to share their Faith with their neighbor as much as most Evangelicals do. Evangelicals are also on the forefront when it comes to using modern technology to spread the Gospel. They have pioneered outreaches via television, radio and now the Internet. But it is important to remember that Evangelicals do have a number of errors in their theology, especially when it comes to how one obtains salvation, and these errors can creep into their evangelization work.

Case in point: an iPhone app which “evangelizes” people who don’t speak English. An answer to that whole tower of Babel problem, the GM2:8 app will walk a person through the Gospel in a few short steps in their language, so you can bring someone to Christ just by the touch of a button! Here’s what evangelist Ray Comfort (and Kirk Cameron!) say about it:

The problem, of course, is that just walking a person through a few questions and getting them to make the right responses is not evangelization. It’s quiz-taking. Evangelicals like Comfort and Cameron believe that one is saved simply by making a prayer and that once saved, they are always saved. But that is not biblical Christianity. Christ, in the “Great Commission” told his apostles (and all of us):

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19-20, emphasis added)

Becoming a Christian, therefore, involves three things:

1) Discipleship: The Christian does not just give an affirmative answer to the question, “Is Jesus Lord?”, he becomes a disciple of Christ, which means that his entire life must revolve around Christ.

2) Baptism: Baptism is the entrance into Christ’s Body, the Church; it is how one becomes a Christian. When the crowds asked Peter how they were to be saved, he didn’t respond “say this prayer and it’s a done deal!” No, he stated, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Baptism has always been the normal way in which one becomes a Christian.

3) Obedience: Once a person becomes a disciple of Christ and is baptized, he must live a life of obedience (cf. Romans 1:5). This means following the commandments and living a moral life. It also means obeying those Christ have put in charge of the Church, i.e. the bishops. Obviously, this cannot be done as a one-time activity, but instead involves a re-ordering of one’s entire life.

Kudos to Evangelicals like Comfort and Cameron for wanting to tell people about Jesus and using modern technology to help their efforts. But unfortunately they are hamstrung by bad theology, which ends up leading to really dumb iPhone apps like GM2:8.

A heard a pretty funny joke this weekend that is also a bit indicting:

A Baptist pastor, Methodist minister and Catholic priest from a small town were talking about a common problem they each had: bats were congregating in their sanctuaries. The discussion turned to how they attempted to get rid of the bats.

The Baptist pastor, who liked to address problems head-on,  said, “I went and got my shotgun and started shooting at the bats. Unfortunately, all that did was leave holes in my sanctuary roof and the bats are still there.”

The Methodist minister, who was a gentle, caring soul, chimed in, “I set some elaborate traps for the bats, caught them, then drove 50 miles away and deposited them in some caves over in the mountains. Unfortunately, they beat me back to the sanctuary and are still there.”

The Catholic priest then calmly noted, “I was able to get rid of my bats pretty easily.”

“How?” both the Baptist pastor and Methodist minister asked.

“Well, I baptized and confirmed them, and I haven’t seen them in church since.”

You might be surprised to know that I’ve got a lot more to say than can fit on this blog. Just ask my wife.

That’s why I do speaking engagements, too, and have been for fifteen years. I’ve addressed groups large and small on topics as diverse as Scripture, evangelization, marriage and spirituality.

Although my true speaking-topic-loves are Scripture and Evangelization, I’m happy to speak on other Catholic themes and shape my talk based on the audience.

Right now I’m not receiving any financial compensation from these engagements (although I do ask that the host organization pay for my travel expenses, and in lieu of a speaker’s fee I ask for a donation to Little Flowers Foundation). I look at my speaking engagements as a tithe, in the hope that I can help others draw closer to Christ.

The message of my book Who Is Jesus Christ? is that the Lord is waiting to meet us – chasing us down in fact – in Scripture and in the circumstances and experiences of our lives. If I can serve others in seeing Him, encountering Him, embracing Him, I consider that a privilege.

I am now scheduling for engagements starting this Fall through Summer 2011. If you are interested in having me come to speak, just email me. For more details, click here.

Every year we Catholics get a welcome jolt in the thousands upon thousands of new converts that enter the Church during Easter Vigil. In recent years approximately 100,000-150,000 people have become Catholic each year in this country. This is cause for great rejoicing and as one of those people I am very appreciative of my fellow converts. I can’t think of anything more joyous than being received into the fullness of the Catholic Church.

But there is a lesser-known and less-joyous aspect of all these conversions. I have heard from a variety of sources that almost half of all new converts are no longer regularly attending Mass just a year after their reception into the Church. Many who swim the Tiber are making a return trip out of Rome. For example, the former Episcopal bishop of Albany, who became Catholic in 2007 to much fanfare, has recently returned to the Episcopal church. This is a serious issue and I would even say a crisis.

Most Catholic parishes pray for those to be received into the Church at every Mass leading up to the Easter vigil. But after the vigil, those prayers mostly dry up. We need to continue to pray for new converts that they maintain their relationship with Christ through the Church. We also need to work hard to make new converts feel welcome and do all we can to help them live their Catholic faith.

Next Sunday, if you see a recently-received Catholic at your parish, go up to them and strike up a conversion with them. You may very well be helping to stem a tide of swimmers going the wrong way across the Tiber.

Great news for DC-area Catholics: we are getting a Catholic radio station!

The Guadalupe Radio Network is bringing Catholic Radio to Washington D.C.

With great thanks and praise to almighty God as we want to announce that the nation’s capitol will soon be the home of another Guadalupe Radio Network station. On May 5th WMET 1160 AM will begin broadcasting Catholic Radio 24 hours a day. And what an amazing impact this station will have in bringing souls closer to our Lord and the holy Saints, an impact that has the potential to reach far beyond the immediate listening area.

WMET is a powerful 50,000 watt AM radio station which will blanket all of Washington D.C. and the surrounding area with the beautiful message of Christ’s Good News through His One, Holy Catholic Church. In fact, the signal covers Washington DC and stretches on into Baltimore, Anapolis and beyond Arlington VA, along with dozens other cities across the metroplex. Over five million people will soon have the opportunity to tune into Catholic radio on the Guadalupe Radio Network.

We need your help. We’ll be busy raising funds to ensure the long life of Catholic Radio in the nation’s capital and preparing for the official kickoff and blessing of the studio. We are very thankful to everyone who has prayed and worked tirelessly to make this vision a reality. We will need a local staff, many volunteers and countless ‘prayer warriors’ over these next few months. Please download the project plan, “Into the Deep” and about how you can help be a part of this incredible moment in the history of our nation’s capital and the local Catholic Church.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, please pray for us.

This is a cute video:

I admit that I am blissfully unaware of about half of her pop-culture references.

As regular readers of this blog know, I have a passion for evangelization. I admit that this passion probably has its origins in my Evangelical Protestant background, but I truly believe that Catholics are called to evangelize. Sometimes, however, I will get resistance from Catholics on our need to evangelize: they will ask, in all sincerity, why do we need to evangelize since the Church teaches that it is possible to be saved even if one is not a baptized Catholic?

Fortunately for us, Mark Shea answers this question very well in this article.

An article over at U.S Catholic recently caught my attention. It involved an interview with Donna Freitas about being “evangelical” and Catholic, specifically as that relates to attracting young people to the Church. One of the “tips” she offers is:

3. Remember that evangelical does not equal orthodox. Many think that becoming an evangelical Catholic means embracing all of the rules and practices of traditional Catholicism. This, however, only appeals to a small subset of conservative Catholic youth, Freitas says. Orthodoxy does not appeal to the average young person as much as a youth-created culture does.

There are a number of problems with this “tip.” The first is that Freitas treats the terms “orthodox,” “traditional” and “conservative” as synonyms. But of course they are not: “orthodox” means “right belief,” and therefore it follows that the orthodox person will want to conserve a tradition only if it is true. If it is false, the orthodox believer will work to liberate us from that tradition.

Secondly, by dismissing the importance of orthodoxy, Freitas is undercutting the full power of the Gospel. When evangelizing anyone – including young people – we are not evangelizing them to rules or practices, we are evangelizing them to Jesus Christ. But the rules and practices of the Faith, developed over the centuries by the Church and lived by the Saints, have been proven to bring us closer to Christ and allow us to live the Gospel life most fully. As evangelists, we are like tour guides; we point the way to the destination, which is Jesus Christ himself. But if we don’t have a map to follow, we can’t guide anyone else to him. Thus, an embrace of orthodox Catholicism is not a matter of being “traditional” or “conservative,” it is a matter of following the best path to Jesus Christ. By withholding that from our young people, we are doing them a grave disservice.

Finally, she talks about orthodoxy not being an “appealing” message to the “average young person,” and instead we need a “youth-created culture.” The emphasis is all wrong here: it is Jesus Christ who is appealing, not our message or our culture. What we need is a Christ-centered culture, not a youth-centered one (which is what a “youth-created” culture would be).  Orthodoxy is the best way to Jesus, thus it is the most appealing message and culture for those whose hearts are open to Christ.

We have seen almost fifty years of failed attempts at evangelization that involved watering down the Gospel and avoiding any taint of “orthodoxy.” It is time we as evangelical Catholics proclaimed the Gospel in all its fullness, and trust that the power of the Gospel will appeal to all whom the Father calls to Himself.