in this issue-
Dear Friends of the Coming King,
“So faith comes from hearing the message, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” --Romans 10:17
Each day here at the offices of ChristLife, we begin with prayer in our chapel. We pray that you might grow in the knowledge of God's love for you and that it would overflow in a great harvest in the lives of those around you through Jesus our Lord!
This morning during an exceptional time of prayer, I praised God for the incredible privilege of working full time to advance his Gospel! I cannot believe I get to do this as my 'job'! Thank you so much for supporting the work of ChristLife!
As we’ve offered Discovering Christ in several parishes and presently at a local university (UMBC) - it is tremendous to see people, especially young adults, encounter the truth about what God has done through Jesus of Nazareth. Lives are being transformed by the simple truth that the Father loves them; that they can enter into personal relationship with Jesus; and rediscover the forgiveness and power of the Holy Spirit, given in Baptism. It is such an honor and joy to participate in His love coming to others! Glory and praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!
As an apostolate, we get to do this full time. As Christians, every one of us is anointed with the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the universal calling to every Christian! Every one of us who is a follower of Jesus is offered opportunities to witness to our Lord (in word and life witness)! As we share our stories of God's love for us, and at times, explicitly share the truth of the Gospel with others, we experience God using our words sacramentally to proclaim His Words. We witness the Spirit bringing new life into being, as only God can! How awesome is that? It is one of the reasons I signed up, how about you?!
Believe it or not there is a great spiritual hunger in many people today. One of the current issues for us in the Catholic Church is that there are too few of us willing to share God's love with others. St. Paul tells us that faith comes from hearing the message. That is, the explicit truth about a person, Jesus Christ and the invitation to relationship with the Trinity through him! Somebody needs to tell those who do not know, what they have the right to hear. Namely, what God has done for them in our Lord Jesus.
As Pope Benedict XVI reminded the bishops early in his pontificate, "We must reflect seriously on how we might carry out a true evangelization today, not just a new evangelization, but often a true first evangelization. People don't know God, they don't know Christ. A new paganism is present, and it is not enough just to maintain the community of believers, although this is very important. I believe that together we must find new ways of bringing the Gospel to today's world by preaching Christ anew and by establishing the faith."
ChristLife is a ministry of evangelization committed to personally evangelizing and equipping others to do so as well. We exist because of God’s grace and your prayers, service and financial contributions. We are forever grateful to you for standing with us in this most vital mission! Continue to make our Lord and Savior known and loved where you are!
Sincerely,
Dave Nodar
Director
B16 and Christian Proclamation
As an apostolate of the Church, ChristLife pursues communion with our bishops and the Bishop of Rome. This is a blessing, as we are very inspired by Pope Benedict’s constant call to the Church to make Jesus Christ personally known and loved. We’ve included some of his thoughts on evangelization below. Checkout this link for much more.
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“We must be inspired by a holy restlessness: restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of friendship with Christ.” “I believe that missionary responsibility must once again become strong within us: if our faith makes us glad, let us feel bound to speak of it to others. The extent to which people will be able to accept it will then be in God's hands.” “The Christian faith, as we know, is not born from the acceptance of a doctrine but from an encounter with a person, with Christ, dead and Risen. In our daily lives, dear friends, there are so many opportunities to proclaim this faith of ours to others simply and with conviction, so that from our encounter their faith can grow. And it is more urgent than ever that the men and women of our age know and encounter Jesus, and, also thanks to our example, allow themselves to be won over by him.” ”One providential avenue to create a new missionary impulse is the ecclesial movements and new communities. Welcome and promote them in your dioceses, because the Holy Spirit is using them to reawaken and deepen the faith in people's hearts and to proclaim the joy that comes from belief in Jesus Christ.” "There is nothing more beautiful than to have been touched, surprised by the Gospel, by Christ. Nothing more beautiful than to know him and to communicate friendship with him to others." |
Pope Benedict XVI |
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Christy Soboleski joins ChristLife as Intern
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So, Christy what do you do for ChristLife? As the college intern at ChristLife I work with Pete Ascosi in young adult outreach through communications & publicity, event planning & preparation, hands on work at events, web editing, podcasting and blogging. What is your background? After graduating high school in 2005, I joined a nine-month ministry (NET ministries) where I became passionate about evangelizing and was able to witness many young people experiencing the love of Christ for the first time! I then attended Franciscan University in Ohio for a year and felt called to serve in my own community in Maryland, which led me to pursuing the internship at ChristLife. I am currently attending Catonsville Community College, and will enter the nursing program at Towson in the fall of 2008. I am excited to be working as a part-time intern with ChristLife for the 2007-2008 school year! |
Christy with Bert Ghezzi, ChristLife Board Director, and Pete Ascosi, young adult coordinator |
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Christy Soboleski
While most college students are enjoying the last of their weekends, finishing up last minute homework, and getting ready for the start of a new week, 30 young adults are joining together Sunday nights at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) for fellowship, teaching, and prayer! That’s not something you see everyday.
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ChristLife joined forces with Fr. Richard Gray and UMBC’s Newman club to present our course called Discovering Christ on October 7. The purpose of the course is simple: to introduce or reaffirm in young adults the love of Christ and the impact of having a relationship with Him. The course consists of: dinner, fellowship, prayer, live teaching, dessert, and small group discussions. The sessions deal with a variety of questions central to the basic Gospel message: “What is it all about?” “Why Does Jesus Matter?” “Why do I need a Savior?” “Why do we need the Church?” and more. As a participant in this course, I can testify to the impact that is has had on my life and the lives of many other young adults. This past week my small group discussion was about the love of God as our Father and how it is constant no matter what we do or how many times we fall. It was a tear filled conversation as we reflected on our own failings and the freedom that comes with surrendering them to the Lord. We ended the discussion each saying a brief prayer giving our individual burdens to the Lord and allowing His love to free us! It was a very powerful experience for me, and hopefully the rest of the group! |
Dave Nodar speaking at Discovering Christ |
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Please pray for all of the groups to experience initial or deeper conversion to Jesus Christ and please pray for our Holy Spirit day retreat on November 10. This is usually the turning point of Discovering Christ. The course concludes the following week on Sunday, November 18.
Pete Ascosi
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives his motley crew of eleven disciples a pretty big task – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” And, then, he leaves! And, somehow (thank you Holy Spirit) they end up doing it and handing this same task down to us.
Two millennia later, we are still in the business of making disciples, yet, how often do we see true discipleship? How often do you look around the body of Christ and see a lot of “convert” making, but little “disciple” making? Or see a lot of attempted “disciple” making on people who aren’t really “converts?”
Enough with problems though; the good news is that we at ChristLife are really trying to not only present a conversion course, Discovering Christ, but respond fully to Jesus’ call to make disciples via developing a course we call Following Christ (no ambiguous titles here folks).
We are now in the midst of presenting Following Christ for a small group of young adults who experienced St. Agnes’ Discovering Christ course. Held at ChristLife on Wednesday evenings, each session includes contemporary praise and worship, a teaching, and small groups. Thus far it has been a great experience as we’ve explored the call to discipleship, personal prayer, reading Scripture as God’s Word, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
The course concludes on Wednesday, November 14, but our prayer is that the participant’s commitment to being disciples and followers of Jesus Christ as Catholics won’t stop there. Our desire is to see these young disciples of Jesus blossom into lay apostles, ready and willing to make disciples themselves. In the concluding weeks of the course, please pray that the One who has all authority on heaven and earth will captivate each of our hearts, making us devoted followers of the Lamb!
In recent years there has been an exponential increase in media and technology within the Church. Well, ChristLife is now making a contribution through 3 resources. Each of these resources can be accessed via the Internet. They are all great ways to stay updated on what we are up to as a ministry and what is going on in the world of evangelization and the Catholic Church. Check them out!
ChristLife Website – This site includes detailed information on who we are as a ministry, endorsements, staff biographies, articles, Church teaching, links, audio & video resources, books, news, and much more! As a spotlight, check out our “Share Faith” section.
Everyday Apostles Blog – This site is updated every few days with “informal news” on ChristLife happenings, pictures, interesting Christian news stories, and personal testimonies & reflections on evangelization by ChristLife staff.
We Have Been Sent Podcast – This site allows you to access our biweekly “radio-show” style audio recordings. Our podcasts include updated ChristLife news, and interviews with Christian authors, missionaries, priests, bishops, evangelists, and much more!
Please pray for these events!
Following Christ for Young Adults
Wednesdays, October 3 – November 14, 7:30-9:15pm
ChristLife Offices
Discovering Christ for Young Adults
Sundays, October 7 - November 18, 6:15-8:15pm
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
“Why Does Jesus Matter?” Retreat
Saturday, November 17
Our Lady of the Chesapeake
Dave teaching during an Advent Series
Friday, December 7, 7pm
Church of the Crucifixion
Thanks so much for your love and support of ChristLife's ministry! If you feel led to give financially to the work we do, you can donate online via our bookstore. ChristLife is a tax exempt ministry dedicated to equipping Catholics for the work of evangelization. To continue in this work, we depend entirely on the donations of fellow Christians like you. Thank you in advance for your generosity.
