Feedback from OLPH Discovering Christ course

Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ellicott City recently wrapped up a Discovering Christ course. I wasn't part of it. However, I have had the privilege of reading the feedback participants wrote. WOW! It's amazing how God has worked through those seven weeks of teaching, fellowship and prayer. Here are some pictures and testimonies:

"While it is hard to explain, I feel closer to God and more willing to show my feelings out loud. God had invited me to open the door to him in the past, and now that door is open wider."

Women's small group.

"The most important thing that I learned was to not just focus on God, but to open and talk with God...Also, going to confession was empowering because I learned the word Gratitude and actually felt the Holy Spirit come in...Another thing that was great[:] my husband is now listening to Christian music."

Overhead shot of Discovering Christ final night.

"During the laying of hands I was on fire of the Holy Spirit."

"I don't worry anymore, esp. about the future. I really have placed my life in God's hands - total freedom."

Kids' table at OLPH DC (Aren't they cute?)

"After being prayed with at the retreat, I felt a real connection with God. I feel a fullness that always used to be empty. "

"Before the course I was not involving God in my daily life and felt very unfulfilled and felt like I was failing in life. Now I see that God is with me everyday even when the days are bad. I feel a freedom from the stress and have more clarity."

Some of the kitchen crew - who help make it all possible.

"It was a very moving experience. Very hard to write explanation. Holy Spirit was working in the room. I know I want a deeper relationship and I can have it!"

It's exciting to see what God has done through Discovering Christ - especially when it's going to be released nationwide at the conference next week, and be able to impact lives across the country, and maybe even throughout the world.

Holy God, we praise thy name.

Discovering Christ Session 1

“It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.”
- St Paul to the Ephesians 1: 11-12, The Message translation

We began the Discovering Christ course at Our Lady of Perpetual Help last night, April 2nd. Father Erik Arnold, the Pastor at OLPH, gave a talk on the meaning of life and how there's a reason why were are here. He sent out a letter to the leaders of the course to sum it up and invite prayers. The letter is below:

Dear Discovering Christ team, Thank you for making our first night such a great success! The evening flowed well, the food was great, the small group leaders did a great job, the set-up created a wonderful atmosphere, and, above all, I know that much prayer went into the night. Thank you! I believe so deeply in what we are doing and I am grateful to the Lord that you share the same desire to help others experience the Lord in a life-changing way that will also bring about renewal in our parish and Church. Next week Dave Nodar will offer the teaching as we look at the question "Why does Jesus matter?" Please continue to pray, asking the Lord to open hearts to conversion. Thank you again for your hard work and dedication! You are in my prayers
In Christ,
Fr. Arnold

All in all I'd say it was a great night - good food, songs, fellowship with our small groups, and a profound teaching! During the small group discussion the Associate Pastor, Fr. Larry Adamczyk, went to the Church and prayed for each of the leaders by name. Prayers are definitely the power behind this course, please keep us in your prayers!

Getting ready to evangelize at OLPH!

Things are stirring at Our Lady of Perpetual Help these days! A team of 20-30 adults are readying for a new evangelization initiative ChristLife is sponsoring - Discovering Christ.

We met together as a service team for prayer, worship, planning, etc. this past Saturday. The day went quite well. After mass and some super breakfast food - Dave Nodar began the day with a talk on evangelization and Discovering Christ. Quoting from Pope Paul VI, we all joined Dave in reading from On Evangelization in the Modern World,

"The churches have the task of transposing the gospel message, without the slightest betrayal of its essential truth, into the language of the people... It loses much of its effectiveness if it does not use their language, their signs, their symbols, if it does not answer the questions they ask and impact their concrete lives."

This was one of the main points I pulled out of the day. We need on one hand to "transpose" the authentic Gospel and on the other - we need to speak in the language of the people and aim at impacting people's "concrete lives." To borrow the title of a fellow evangelization ministry's blog name, we need to engage in intentional discipleship - and especially in intentional evangelization. Looking at the Gospels, we can see that osmosis is not how Jesus made disciples or converts.

Moving on throughout the day I was struck by the parallel between our training day at OLPH and Acts 2:42,

"And the disciples devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers."

apostles' teaching = Dave's exegesis of Scripture and Church teaching on evangelization
fellowship = during our delicious pizza meal provided by Larry (see below)
breaking of bread [eucharist] = started the day with mass
prayers = all throughout the day we had times of praise and intercession

So, all in all - it was a wonderful day. One more thing I forgot to mention was - the fact we were joined by Dianne Martin, former staff member, who is now the Catholic coordinator for Alpha USA. She gave an excellent presentation on small group pastoral care. It was wonderful having her with us.

Please pray for Discovering Christ at OLPH and visit their Web site for more information about being a part of the course.

The Lord's strategy

We are now moving forward with Discovering Christ on several fronts now. Exciting stuff!

What's our strategy? Well, I hope the Lord's. During morning praise & prayer at ChristLife last week I shared a Scripture I was reminded of-

"Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, have you any fish?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, for the quantity of fish." John 21:4-6

The lesson I took from this "word" is that we could "fish" all day long and not get anything - unless we are in tune with the right way of doing things - with Jesus Christ.

Back to Discovering Christ...

We want to make available the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all humanity. And we want to equip Catholic communities to enthusiastically and intentionally do this.

So we are now praying for God's anointing to rest upon the Discovering Christ course. We also - following up from our meeting with Archbishop O'Brien - are focusing our efforts here in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Part of the strategy is to hopefully see great fruitfulness here locally and then leverage this to others across the nation.

Where locally? Well, we've done the course at Crucifixion Parish, St. Agnes (for young adults), UMBC campus ministry (Newman club), and now we are preparing to get started at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH). And, we are really excited about doing it at OLPH! Our Board member, Fr. Erik Arnold, is the pastor here and has a really solid vision for parish renewal and evangelization. Plus, my friend Erin, is the youth minister and has been doing some awesome stuff with the youth there! Our Lady pray for us!

At the national level - we are working with two other Board Members - Bert Ghezzi and Michael Timmis. Bert, a senior editor for the Word Among Us, is helping us put together a manual - so we can make Discovering Christ exportable - in a similar fashion as Life in the Spirit. Michael, who is connected with a lay apostolate who does some great work - Regnum Christi - hopes to run a version of Discovering Christ down in Florida for men in his pseudo-theology on tap series (or he might call it beer n' bible - "stealing" the name I used for a bible study I did in Baltimore at J. Patrick's pub).

So, we are excited about all of this, please pray for us and if you have any comments, suggestions, connections, etc. - please let us know! It may be all a part of the Lord's strategy.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts." Zechariah 4:6