Discovering Christ!

Blessed be God! With the help of a friend, Phil Rosensteel of Wired Different Media, we produced the following video that shares what Discovering Christ is and are plans to video produce it this summer:

I hope you enjoyed this video. Please consider committing to pray for us and to making a donation to the cause of the Gospel! Thank you!

We also produced second video - based on the same video shoot - that is shorter and ends before the appeal about evangelizing, the video production, and interceding. This version is an "invitation" for young adults we are inviting to this summer's course!

lent Podcast, fasting, Your Love Never Fails

After about a month or so, we released our latest podcast today, CL55 - Lent is Here! Yes, were in the great season of the Church that orients us to encounter Jesus Christ anew and ponder his AMAZING love he displayed for us through his cross and resurrection. So check out our podcast, it's short and includes a bit about our meeting with the Archbishop and a few more updates!

Another Lenten resource I wanted to share is a sermon from St. Peter Chrysologus on fasting. It's excellent. He talks about the three things the Church calls us to do especially during Lent:

They are prayer, fasting and mercy [or almsgiving]. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives.... When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy... If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery...

Finally, I watched this video today, it is a live music video of a song called "your love never fails" by a group called Jesus Culture, who is doing some great things in the non-Catholic Christian world to bring youth and young adults closer to Jesus through worship concerts. Enjoy the video, very powerful lyrics, inspiring if you are in a time really needing His love!

Advent!

A hearty "happy Advent!" to you. I hope it's treating you well so far... I have an excellent video I want to share with this blog. It's 2-3 minutes long and is a video called Advent Conspiracy which overviews a movement of churches and individuals trying to make a difference this Christmas for those less fortunate AND gives a great perspective on gift-giving - a must see before YOUR shopping spree :)

The Advent Conspiracy Promo Video from Vimeo.

Can't play the above video? Watch it on GodTube.

Well, what did you think of the video? I think the idea is great... to "give Presence" this Christmas. Please share your thoughts on the comments below :)

-snip-

Finally, a word from Pope Benedict on Advent that connects to the above video (he gave this address yesterday in Rome):

Brothers and sisters, it is the time of Advent. In the language of the Church the word Advent has two meanings: presence and expectation.

Presence: The light is present, Christ is the new Adam, he is with us and in our midst. The light already shines and we must open the eyes of the heart to see the light and to enter the river of light. Above all to be grateful for the fact that God himself has entered history as new source of goodness.

But Advent also means expectation: The dark night of evil is still strong. And that is why we pray in Advent with the ancient people of God: "Rorate caeli desuper." And we pray with insistence: Come Jesus; come, give force to light and goodness; come where falsehood, ignorance of God, violence and injustice dominate; come, Lord Jesus, give force to the good of the world and help us to be bearers of your light, agents of peace, witnesses of truth. Come Lord Jesus!

How will you carry His Presence into your environments this advent and Christmas?

Call to prayer for our Nation & Video

Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on him. (Isaiah 55:6,7 see also vs.8-11)

We are, I believe, at a pivotal time in the history of the US and the world. Here in the states we are approaching a very significant presidential election, we are faced with very troubling economic issues and, with the nations of the world, face multiple serious threats to humanity.

The Christian people have the responsibility and the power of prayer to effect change. To cry out for mercy not judgment to come upon our country and the nations. We desperately need God's intervention. We need an explosion of forgiveness and grace bringing about what only He can do- change us from the inside out. Heartfelt change. Beginning with His own body, the Church, who are called to give a counter cultural witness of what it means to be fully human, fully alive, at- one-ment with our Creator and Redeemer. Not conformed to the patterns of thinking of the world systems that are opposed to the Lordship of Christ and, which tell us right about now is the time to live in fear and anxiety. Rather St. Paul tells us at times like this we are called to live in the peace of God which transcends all human understanding and to pray! See Phillipians 4:4-7

I urge you to commit to pray on behalf of our country at this time. Pray for mercy and not judgment to come upon us. Join with others to earnestly seek the Lord.

Pray for the election.

AND exercise your responsibility to vote!

Take a look at this inspiring video from CatholicVote.com Pass it on to all of your friends!

ChristLife on YouTube

Okay, so we are finally on YouTube. Apparently its the thing these days. We decided to put up a 5 minute trailer of our Sharing Christ series. This seven session series via DVD or CD is all about training Catholics and other Christians in how to share the message of Jesus and His impact on our lives - with those around us. Its simple and very powerful. Check out the intro:

Finally, we here at ChristLife aren't the richest people. So, how did we get this video production done? Our Father. Pretty much. We met a wonderful Baptist man who happened to 1) love Catholics, 2) be all about evangelism, and 3) be an award-winning producer. All of that equals a miracle. And the amazing thing is - stuff like this happens (like in the plural) at ChristLife. Thank you Father!

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!

Childlike Faith

"For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

This verse is one that most people have heard repeatedly, and yet sometimes forget it's true meaning or take it for granted. When people lose someone or something they love the first reaction so often is to blame God rather then humbly ask Him for His help. It is easy to forget that He suffered a far greater pain then we could ever imagine and He will always understand and help us through our most difficult times.

The video below is a recording from a phone call made by a 12 year old boy to Houston radio station KSBJ FM 89.3. The radio station was so moved that they recorded it and put it on their website. The video really inspired me because it showed God's love through the eyes of a child, and we could all learn from his faith!

Communicating Faith

Okay, so the real focus of this blog is communicating our faith to others - especially the personal experience of our relationship with Jesus Christ. It's not easy, though, to just begin talking with people about Jesus. How many times have I wanted to talk with others explicitly about Jesus and his importance in my life and his redemption and all of that great stuff - but felt like I would offend the hearer?

Well, I have two helps for this. First, Chad, ChristLife's 06-07 intern, and I had an awesome podcast interview with an international speaker and evangelist, named Becky Pippert. The podcast is called Jesus is Irresistible - check it out - it directly addresses the above fears of being "offensive" and makes evangelism much easier!

Secondly, some friends of ChristLife, Greg and Jennifer Wilitz, who have a great podcast called Rosary Army and are also connected with the Catholic podcasting hub, SQPN - are producing periodic short video clips called That Catholic Show. Its funny, creative, faith-building, and inspirational. Here is there most recent clip on "Statues and Icons"



What does this have to do with this blog? Well, a lot. While we don't spend lots of time talking about statues and icons - we do spend a lot of time talking about faith and communicating it to others hopefully. What I love is the way Jennifer explains this aspect of our faith in an easy, light-hearted, and Christ-centered way!

Did you find the video helpful? Why? What can you learn from the way Jennifer communicates elements of faith?