What does it mean to us to be a Christian in this society? We hear, at least in Christian circles, a lot of talk about evangelisation but how far do we carry it out; indeed, what does it mean?
We’ve been discussing it at my church, and to my surprise, there seems to be a focus on trying to talk to ourselves. When I, in my usual rather nervous way, raised the question of whether we intended to evangelise the ‘unchurched’ I was asked pointedly ‘how’? Being me, I didn’t say what I thought, which was ‘surely that is what we are here for, so how come our professional ministry has no plan?’ I was glad I didn’t, because it occurred to me later that I had committed the error of supposing that it was someone’s else’s job to evangelise, not mine. That ‘how?’ question was actually a better one than I had appreciated.
My lovely on-line Pastor, Gervase, has a good sermon here on sowing the seed, based on Mark 4:1-23. He reminds us that Jesus came preaching to us, and he taught as one with authority; He did not write a book, He did not set up a system, He taught, and He sent His Apostles to teach. So teaching is at the heart of what the Church is there to do. If we do not hear the word of the preacher, then how shall we be taught? Of course, there is also that question of authority which haunts all my posts – for of what use is it if we hear ‘another Gospel’?
How do we hear Christ? Well, if we go to church, we hear extracts from Holy Scripture, and we get a sermon/homily; but how good is the latter? One of things I like about Pastor Gervase is that his sermons are good meaty ones – he gives his people good measure – abundant and overflowing. But, as he points out in the sermon ‘Take heed how you hear’, most men and women do not think about God and know little or nothing about Jesus. Those of us who go to Church are fortunate – but what about the vast majority who do not?
In eighteenth century England the great preacher, John Wesley followed Christ’s example – he went from town to town on his horse, preaching the word of Christ wherever he stopped. He knew that in many English towns there were people not reached by the official church, and, instead of waiting for people to go to find one, he did what Christ did – he went out there to find them.
I was delighted when I looked at Pastor Gervase’s Facebook page and saw he is setting up an open air mission. That seems such a brave thing to someone like me – but it is the definitive Christian answer to ‘how?’ I suggested it the other evening at Church and was looked upon as a woman who had lost her senses – as indeed I might well be. Would I do it? Goodness me no, but there are those who could, and I’d be very happy to do my bit in classes at church which followed up any impact made by such preaching. But I don’t think we’re doing that – at my church we are going to be talking to each other – which is nice, but I do wonder if that is what Jesus would have done?
neenergyobserver said:
It takes a special person to do the camp meeting as they used to be referred to in this country but, they are quite effective. Me do it? Uh, no thanks. In a support role, sure. I’m inclined to think that our job, in some sense to get bodies in the pews, and let the preacher do the rest, if he is adequate. And that’s a different story these days as well.
Our congregations never want to go beyond bringing someone to church (if that far). It’s like they’re ashamed of being Christian.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, that sounds terribly familiar, I am afraid.
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neenergyobserver said:
Yes, that’s nearly verbatim from my time on the evangelisation committee. It,s something we’ve lost somewhere, and it doesn’t seem like we are aware of it.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, that was what struck me at our meeting – alas.
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neenergyobserver said:
Now, we’ve defined the problem, how do we solve it (problem solver that I am) 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
Indeed. Pastor Gervase is going directly at it – preaching open air every Saturday – wow 🙂
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neenergyobserver said:
More guts, more glory. But you’ll have a time getting mainline protestants or Catholics to try it. In truth, I couldn’t do it, of course I didn’t choose a career that includes public speaking, did I? Maybe we can find a religious politician to do it, other than that we have Franklin, and for a bit longer Billy, Graham.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, very gutsy, I think. But it is certainly a problem.
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neenergyobserver said:
It is, and it’s one I haven’t really thought much about. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that I don’t think my church is actually offering anything of value at the moment, I love the history, the liturgy, the hymns, the whole thing but, the seems to be a hollow core because of the lack of Lutheran orthodoxy in the whole thing. A bit too much cafeteria feel good, I’m afraid. Maybe that’s part of the problem for others as well. I don’t know.
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JessicaHof said:
I wonder too? Could well be.
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neenergyobserver said:
It’s not a happy thought, and I wish I had some idea of what to do with it.
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JessicaHof said:
Indeed, but perhaps between us we can tease it out a bit?
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neenergyobserver said:
We can surely try, and someone needs to, so who better.
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JessicaHof said:
Well, we’ll give it a shot 🙂
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neenergyobserver said:
That we shall. 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
While researching my post on Bella Dodd and the Communist penetration of the Catholic Church, the old book – AA1025, the Anti-Apostle who was recruited to do just that was brought to mind. Your post seems to me to bring us the very pregnant question of What Gospel are we teaching and is it worth teaching? For the Communist idea was so in tune to what we hear today: little of God, much of our fellow man and our reunification, a watered down Christ as nothing but a glorified social worker that we are awash in the errors of Modernism and we have to strain mightily to hear the Gospel as taught by our Father’s in the Faith.
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JessicaHof said:
So true, my dear friend. I suggested to my priest that we should offer a series of open days on Saturdays, when people could just come and look round the church and speak to some if us, with perhaps a talk once in a while – I should have saved my breath.
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Servus Fidelis said:
It is indeed rare, to get the unashamed Catholic faith stated clearly, whether it hurts feelings or not. We are now in this new Church that feels that getting along is more important than Truth and our liturgy should be “welcoming” to all Christians and to never speak of transubstantiation but the Eucharist or Communion to stress our human brotherhood and not the Kingdom of God and our adoption to the Divine.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, and I wonder, as dear neo implies, whether that is not part of the problem? We water things down until there is no taste and then no one wants it.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Indeed. Why should they? There is no reason to sit in a Church to proclaim to the world that we need to provide for the poor and the hungry: usually through a government program or large organization that will keep us from having to rub elbows with the unwashed. Yet, never a word on the 60 million babies slaughtered since Roe v Wade in the U.S. — 45 dead babies for every single dead soldier since the American Revolution. We get all teary eyed at the military grave sites of those who lost their lives in Normandy and yet there is not a single cross to mark these individual souls who were not given a chance to be poor or hungry much less to alleviate these ills by living a normal life that was created by the Grace of God Himself.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, there is very much in that, dear friend. If we bear no witness, why should anyone listen? As you say, there are millions of unborn babies killed and, the Catholic Church and some others apart, we say nothing.
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Servus Fidelis said:
And when we do speak – it is only words. We keep electing those who will perpetuate this holocaust of holocaust in perpetuity I’m afraid.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, indeed, and here in Europe it is even worse.
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Servus Fidelis said:
We were a bit more insular than Europe. Our form of government had not yet slid into this secular humanist form of socialism. But we are making mighty strides to catch up with you on it.
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JessicaHof said:
Well, let us hope for a mighty halt soon 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
Even your wonderfully conservative MP, Daniel Hannan has done some great work in trying to get the U.S. from going down this road. But alas, we seem to have blown him off as someone who doesn’t know what he’s speaking of. If I could, I would cast my vote for him for our U.S. president. He knows more about our constitution and our what it means for the freedom of Americans than most who are citizens.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, he’s a good man – but fighting against so many who aren’t.
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Servus Fidelis said:
He may just be your next Churchill. He seems to be a man for our times.
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JessicaHof said:
We can only hope so. There seems a real lack of statesmanship now.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Amen to that Jess. When we were growing up here in the U.S. we usually had 4 or 5 that you might put in that category. Now there is precisely 0. Just hoping a phoenix will rise from the ashes sometime in the near future.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, that’s how it seems, alas.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I seems time for sad face now. 😦
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JessicaHof said:
Alas 😦
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neenergyobserver said:
Very well said, SF, and I still have trouble figuring out why the government program is better, we must still have people in our congregations who would do such things, certainly the Salvation Army does, and are far more inline with our goals than the government.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Indeed so, NEO. There is no reason for it outside the fact that the Government wants to shackle these people to themselves and are making it difficult for the Churches to evangelize the way they used to.
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neenergyobserver said:
Quite right, SF. Not to mention that we need to cure the government of thinking that it is their money and property, not ours. And why can’t people like Dan Hannan and Mark Levin be born here anymore, I’m grateful they’re here at all mind, but why aren’t they American born, they understand us better than most of our own people do.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Amen to that. They are people I could pull the lever for at election time and not use my other hand to hold my nose.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, that is becoming ever harder – voting for as opposed to voting against.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Wouldn’t that be refreshing for a change? 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
It would so 🙂
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Servus Fidelis said:
🙂 🙂
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Mr. V. said:
Evangelisation is not the easiest thing. Going out in public, finding a spot, and then proclaiming the Word of God for everyone to hear would be a hard challenge for most of us, I reckon.
Short of preaching the Gospel on the street, we can be ‘boldly Catholic’ wherever we go. When we eat, we should visibly thank God for our meal. Don’t be afraid, on break, to pray a decade of the Rosary. When we converse with others, work our faith into the conversation. It doesn’t have to be in a blunt way, or anything like that, just a simple acknowledgement and depiction of our faith. If someone mentions a problem they’re facing, a response could be something like “Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember one time when _______________________, and I was thankful I remembered St.______________, and the struggle he faced, and how he overcame it by putting his trust completely in God.”
Jesus admonished us not to pray in public, that blessed would be the man who prays in secret, but I think that was against those who tried to make a public spectacle of their praying and fasting in order to demonstrate their ‘piety and holiness’. That we shouldn’t do, but letting people see us pray before meals, and during free time, praying the rosary, isn’t for the purpose of building our pride, and it allows people to see the Catholic life in action. Making our faith part of our conversations lets people see that our faith is important to us, indeed the most important part of our lives.
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David B. Monier-Williams said:
We are called to be Witnesses for Christ. Each of us are called in idiosyncratic ways. Certainly, each of us need to be faithful to our beliefs.
For Catholics, to live our faith demands the discipline of the Mass, daily if possible, the frequent use of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist and a prayer life that includes the daily Rosary. The monthly or better still the weekly use of Reconciliation and the daily reception of the Eucharist are not just about the forgiveness of sin and the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ but the additional accompanying Sanctifying Grace. I haven’t even mentioned First Fridays or First Saturdays those are a bonus.This is so that those who see us see a person of love.
In my life’s work as a psychotherapist, I try to re-unite all patients with the Infinite Love as they understand it. What you do over and above your normal life depends on your specific calling.
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JessicaHof said:
They seem excellent ideas, my friend.
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Mr. V. said:
Jessica,
on an unrelated topic, I noticed that you use the WordPress theme Chateau for your blog. That’s the same one I ended up using after trial and error with a few different themes. How many tries did it take you with themes before you finally decided on this one?
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JessicaHof said:
Amazingly, I just went for this one and found it worked 🙂
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