Son of Hamas leader's conversion to Christ

"...we preach Christ crucified,.. to those of us called,...Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, 1 Cor. 1:23-25

In our day, where and when Christians are ready and willing to share the love of Christ with others, the the life changing power of the Gospel is still as effective as in the days of the early church!

The young man in this video, Mosab Hassan Yousef, is the son of a very well known Hamas leader on the west bank. Several years ago he was invited to hear a talk about Jesus. He had seen the torture inflicted by Hamas leaders on their followers, and while reading his Bible secretly read Jesus' call to love our enemies. The truth of God, which is weakness to the world, proved to be stronger than man's ways! This truth is seen in completeness in Christ crucified! Jospeh(his Christian name) Hassan Yousef has given his life to Christ! He knows that Jesus is the way to God the Father, and is praying for his family and friends to embrace the Lord Jesus as well.

Let's us pray and look for opportunities to share the life changing good news of our Savior with anyone whom he leads us to. All people have the right to know the love of God made manifest in our Lord Jesus, the Christ!

Let's pray for this young man to become a living witness to many people, and in a special way to his Muslim family and friends! May the Lord protect and strengthen him, in Jesus name we pray. Amen!

earthen vessels

God is amazing. I'm really convinced of it. He really uses each of us, despite our weaknesses and insufficiencies, to restore people's hearts to friendship with Himself...

I got a call last Friday from a lady, for privacy purposes, named Leah. Leah explained she is homeless and on disability, but she was approved for section 8 housing recently. She went on to tell me, however, that she needed nearly $1600 in less than seven days for a security deposit - and the county government couldn't help her with this particular amount - so they told her to call churches and ministries. So she was obviously looking through the yellow pages making phone calls asking for money. She did have about $200 towards it and explained she is desperate to get into a place - her van or homeless shelters are rough on her, and her disability.

I responded telling her we at ChristLife don't give out funds for the poor, but, that I would ask around the office to see if anyone had cash. Well, that day only three young adults were in the office. We only had a few bucks.

Leah was so grateful I even asked others to personally give. Then I asked if she would like to pray over the phone. A pause goes by, and she answers "yes." I began to pray and invite the Lord Jesus to show her how much He loves her and to provide for her. After a tangible sense of God's presence, we ended the prayer with a hearty "amen." Leah then expressed her gratitude and gave me her number and said she would really love to help out some time.

Over the weekend that followed I prayed for her and then called her on Monday to see how the fundraising for her security deposit was going. Well, I didn't get a hold of her - and was worried that I wouldn't because she said her phone was going to be turned off at any point - due to not paying her bill.

But, on Tuesday she called and said, "thank you so much for praying with me, without it, I would have given up all the phone calls I was making." Then with lots of joy she said, "I got the whole amount of the deposit given to me by a local church coalition!" Whoa! I must admit, even during my prayers, I didn't have too much faith about her getting that much money in seven days. Praise God!

And Leah keeps insisting on how powerful praying with her was. Which is amazing because I didn't think too much of it at the time. And yesterday she came into ChristLife and I was able to share with her and pray a bit more... She was visibly moved and full of joy. It was as if I was the one who gave her the money; but rather, more correctly, the treasure.

And the incredible thing is that the Lord Jesus could use me in such a powerful way in someone else's life. All of this happened right in the midst of a season where I feel like I'm trying to do a lot for the Lord - but I don't see big ripe juicy fruit yet... Until this. Thank you Father!

If you feel like you are in a similar season as I was or you feel great weakness in fulfilling the mission the Lord's given us, then definitely read 2 Corinthians chapter 4. An excerpt: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us." (vs. 7) Basically we are called to be common clay pots, so people know that when God uses us - that is not because of our special abilities - but that God is working through us!

Do you have an experience where God used you in the midst of your weakness and insufficiency?

Image credits: The first illustration is by Elizabeth Wang, "True Prayer" (CWC 5930) © Radiant Light 2006. The photo of the clay pot is from umamitv a blog on cooking.

Are we evangelizing in our parishes?

Recently a man who had seen a TV episode of The Choices We Face, on which I talked about evangelization, contacted me. As a result he called me for support and clarification on some of what he was experiencing. He had formerly been an evangelical Christian, was now a Roman Catholic, and wanted to continue to evangelize people to Christ within the context of his parish. His parish was the diocesan Cathedral, so he wrote his Bishop asking how do ‘we’ evangelize
people to Christ in our parish? He understood the place of RCIA and had been through it himself, but was asking, what else do we do? He was simply trying to understand how the parish evangelized. After respectfully writing three times and receiving no response he decided he had apparently gotten his response.

I have often heard this type of concern voiced by Catholics regarding their parishes or (arch)dioceses.The questions raised go like this: What are the steps we are taking to make evangelization our priority mission? What is our evangelization plan and process for my parish? Does anyone know the evangelization game plan in our parish so that we are all know what is expected of us and how we can support it? If evangelization is really a priority to us as Catholics, why isn't it reflected in the budget? Do we know that it is the universal calling, privilege and responsibility of every baptized Christian? Do we as Catholics realize this incredible calling given to each of us isn’t intended to be some abstract, irrelevant educational exercise we hear and vaguely remember, but rather is the power of the Gospel that can change the lives of people we encounter who desperately need good news! Is anybody being taught how to personally evangelize in our seminaries or parishes?

There are many Catholics (clergy, religious and laity), who are life long Catholics, who are raising these questions about evangelization, in addition to brothers and sisters who were formerly from other Christian traditions. I for one being a committed ‘cradle Catholic,’ would like to publicly express my gratitude for those of us who have come from other Christian backgrounds and have a deep personal commitment to evangelization. Thank God for their zeal! Oh that all Catholics would be so concerned for those around us to know the love of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior!

The fact is we have Catholics who want to evangelize and don’t find the necessary support or means to do it as parishes. The Church teaches that the laity are intended to be in the front lines of evangelization in our neighborhoods and in the market place. The laity are crucial in the new evangelization and they need the support of their priests to get out into the harvest fields and spread the good news! Evangelization is after all not an isolated act: it is ecclesial. (See Pope Paul VI’s, EN, 60).

This issue of parish evangelization is a very serious pastoral challenge for the Church here in the United States. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, speaking recently at a conference held in Rome on "The Parish and the New Evangelization," stated: "The Church exists only if it evangelizes, and the same is true for the parish. If a parish does not evangelize, it is only a building." Read the full article

The Magesterium teaches that evangelization is “the reason the Church exists.”(EN, 14) The universal mission of the Church we are taught is to be lived out at every level, in all institutions and in the lives of every baptized Christian (Mission of the Redeemer, 3). The US Conference of Bishops stated in “Go Make Disciples,” A National Plan and Strategy for Catholic Evangelization, that the Bishops want “to make evangelization a natural and normal part of Catholic life and to give evangelizers the tools and support they need to carry out this ministry today.”

The bishops evangelization plan was written back in November 1992. It is worth asking ourselves as parishes how we are doing with evangelization becoming a natural and normal part of Catholic life in 2008? Since the place where the rubber meets the road for most people in terms of their Catholic life is the parish, what are we doing?

Three Steps parishes can take

I would like to offer three practical steps that we can take as parishes that can help us move forward in making evangelization the essential mission. I am not going to develop these points here, we do that in our Building Evangelizing Eucharistic Communities seminar. I am simply pointing out three practical areas worth parish staffs and councils discussing and considering in order to take some steps to move forward.

1. Provide ongoing opportunities for people to encounter Christ Jesus as Lord within the context of a welcoming relational community (of the parish). As a parish we need to have regular ways of inviting people to encounter the Lord Jesus, both for parishioners and those not connected with the parish.
Courses like Alpha, Life in the Spirit seminars and ChristLife’s Discovering Christ course are effective examples of courses that are offered over several weeks.
Retreats that evangelize people like Cursillo and Light of the World are also means of evangelizing people to Christ and fuller life in the parish.
Special events. Special events such as a music concert, a film, or our Christmas and Easter liturgies. These Masses have incredible potential for lovingly welcoming our annual Catholics to the parish through par the intro to the Mass and in proclaiming clearly at the homily the reason for the celebration of the Incarnation or Resurrection of Jesus and what it means for you! Also, having some type of event, course or retreat, to invite everybody to, which the presiding priest would personally invite all attending to come to. Having extra greeters who could pass out a welcoming leaflet and invitation to whatever it is we will offer to connect them to the love of God and our parish!

2. Develop an ongoing process of initiation in the parish that includes both actual evangelization of the participants (point one above) and practical life formation/catechesis. I am not talking about RCIA here (which is essential and needs to be taught well and in an ongoing manner). But here I am talking about formation (discipleship) for daily living as a Catholic follower of the Lord, e.g., How to have a personal prayer life; how the sacraments sustain and strengthen our daily life; reading Scripture as God’s word; Christian relationships; service and evangelizing, learning to deal with the world, the flesh and the devil, etc. Here at ChristLife we are piloting a new course entitled, Following Christ, which teaches on these basics of following Christ as Catholic disciple. We also have some video courses that help in this process.

3. Foster Community as part of the process. True interior conversion, the work of the Holy Spirit, is most effective when it occurs in the content of relationships. Without authentic Christian relationships within the context of the parish it is hard to expect anyone to make the shift from being ‘conformed to this world’ (See Romans 12:2) to a transformed Christian worldview and lifestyle. To live authentic Catholic lives we need each other! We can establish small Christian communities that spontaneously develop and flow out of the two previous points above if we make it a priority to pastorally care for their development.

We would be happy to personally talk with you or someone from your parish more about evangelization in your parish, if you would like. Contact us at: info@christlife.org May we all take active concrete steps to incarnate the calling of Christ our Lord and the Church to evangelize!

Reflections on my ChristLife Internship

"At the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a person, the person of Jesus of Nazareth." - John Paul II

The Lord has taught me a great deal throughout my year internship at ChristLife, primarily in a deepening relationship and heart to serve the number one living person in my life - Jesus Christ! It is so incredible to look back on my life and how much the Lord has done and where He has brought me. During my senior year of high school I experienced the love and mercy of Jesus in a such a real way that there was no turning back! I needed to share it!

After serving a year of National Evangelization Teams (NET Ministries), I went to Steubenville followed by Towson for a Nursing degree, but was still unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. I began my internship at ChristLife last fall, while studying at Towson.

This past year at ChristLife was an eye-opening experience of the aching hunger this world has for Jesus, not in theoretical way, but to know and love Him as a real person in their lives. I don't think words can express how awesome it is to be used by the Lord to tell people about the one thing they desire the most and to see Him transform their lives. That is the heart of ChristLife's ministry, and the Lord has really blessed it and I've been able to witness so many lives renewed by Jesus during this past year.

The most memberable aspect of my internship at ChristLife was beginning every work day together in prayer, praising the Lord and asking Him for all we needed that day and giving ourselves and our efforts to Him. My experiences during prayer and ministry at ChristLife lead me to desiring and asking the Lord to use me to serve His Church in a direct way with my career and whole life. This year the Lord opened all the doors for me to change my major to Theology and transfer to Ave Maria University for the remainder of my undergrad studies.

I am so grateful that Jesus brought me to ChristLife this past year and used it to show me what I am truly passionate about and how I can use that for His Kingdom! This experience impacted my life in so many ways, by being a place of encouragement, growth and challenging me to pray, to use my gifts and talents for the Lord, and to have courage to share His love with others! I am excited for the future interns at ChristLife and the awesome things the Lord has for them through this incredible experience!

ChristLife's 50th Podcast!

Wahoo! I can't believe we are already at 50 Podcasts! It's so amazing to look back and see all the inspiring men and women of God we were able to interview and learn from in all of these podcasts! If you've listened to any or all of them, I hope the Lord has impacted you in some way through them, because He definatly has impacted me!
You can Listen in to this exciting podcast with congratulations from many of our supporters including Archbishop O'Brien, and news about the awesome things going on in our ministry! Also, Chip shares with us his personal experiences of living out the call for a New Evangelization by JPII! To listen click here or press play below:

Give us your feedback please! How have these podcasts affected you? We'd love to hear from you!

ChristLife's Summer Newsletter!

Check out all the latest happenings in ChristLife's ministry in our Summer 2008 Newsletter: