Dear Friend,

At our January Board of Directors meetings, we considered how to develop our mission in the areas of conversion and discipleship training. Our mission is to help to equip the Church for the work of evangelization. The Catholic Church teaches that evangelization includes not only sharing the Gospel with people who have never heard it, but also with those who no longer attend church, or those who do but are not sure why they do. The Church also includes Christian formation as an essential part of evangelization. We believe this area of conversion and discipleship is a core part of our mission. It is crucial that all people have the good news announced to them, so that they can, in reality, come to personally encounter the love of God the Father in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. This crucial element is missing in the lives of many adult Catholics who have been sacramentalized but never evangelized. In the early Church the sacraments of initiation were bestowed upon adults who professed their personal faith and commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord. Today the parents and godparents stand in faith for the infant who is baptized. Many Catholics do not have a clear understanding of their need to personally acknowledge and affirm as adults what in fact has been conferred upon them through the sacraments of initiation. As an adult Christian each of us needs to make a personal profession of faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior of his life. This releases the power of our baptism and confirmation. You may have heard the illustration likening the grace of baptism and confirmation to chocolate syrup being poured into a glass of milk. When you pour the syrup into a glass of milk, it sinks to the bottom. It needs to be stirred up in order for the milk to become chocolate milk! In each of our lives, as Christians, the initial grace is there, but for many of us we have not released this transforming power of God's love by making an act of faith in Jesus as our Lord, inviting him to be the center of our life. This "yes" to the Lord enables the grace of God to empower us as witnesses who have come to know his love and quite naturally, really supernaturally, want to share it with others!

The Privilege of knowing Christ and making him known!
What a privilege and joy to share with others what we have come to know as truly good news! CHRISTLIFE wants to serve with dioceses, parishes, ministries, small faith communities, and individuals to help Catholics to know the love of God in Jesus Christ, becoming his disciples, and embarking on an apostolic mission from God! (See Matt. 28:18-20).

Providing help for Encountering God's love and becoming disciples
We see Alpha as the first step in the evangelization / conversion process and the video teachings that we have developed as a natural next step for most people. (We plan to add to the current teachings through the development of other video series.) We see small groups and leadership training as essential to continuing discipleship and formation. Please pray with us as we consider what contribution we can make in this area.

Love in our Lord and Savior,

Dave Nodar
Director

Updates!

April 3&4 North American Alpha Conference for Catholics, Columbia, Maryland. The Conference is a great way to learn how to begin to respond to the priority of evangelization in our parishes and other ministries – tell your friends who would like to learn what Alpha is and how to use it to join us. Feel free to copy the conference brochure we have included!

And please let all of your friends who are using Alpha know that CHRISTLIFE now sells all Alpha resources. Ordering from us helps to support the work of our apostolate! Thanks.

Second version of Touching Jesus Through The Church is completed and should be ready for distribution by early March. It is an excellent 8 teaching series to help Catholics and non-Catholics to begin to understand the Catholic Church. It is an ideal follow-up to the Alpha course, as well as a good review for any Catholics desiring to understand the Catholic faith better.

Dave just returned from St.Timothy Catholic Community in Mesa, Arizona, where LifeTeen was founded. Dave had a wonderful and inspiring time sharing with Fr. Dale Fushek and his parish staff (about 40 of his staff attended the presentation) on our mission and Alpha for Catholics. St.Tim's and LifeTeen are wonderful examples of the signs of the new Springtime of Christianity that Pope John Paul II says are already evident as we enter the Great Jubilee!

Please pray for:

1. The return of many prodigals to God the Father during this Great Jubilee year!

2. The Lord Jesus to rule and anoint the mission of CHRISTLIFE

3. The final preparations for distributing Touching Jesus Through The Church.

4. Baltimore North American Alpha Conference for Catholics April 3&4

5. Vancouver North American Alpha Conference for Catholics, July 7&8

6. More full time workers and volunteers for CHRISTLIFE(there are only 2 full time workers and a number of wonderful volunteers). Ask the Lord to send us the workers we need at this time in the ministry

7. Funding for all of our projects for this year of Jubilee.

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