Eric Sammons - The Old Evangelization : - How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did

The Old Evangelization

How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did

E RIC S AMMONS

The Old Evangelization

How to Spread the Faith Like Jesus Did

2017 Eric Sammons

All rights reserved. Except for quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, uploading to the Internet, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, biblical citations are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible ( 1971 by Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America).

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DEDICATION

To Nathan Schlueter, who cared enough about my soul to drag me into the Catholic Church.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the past quarter of a century and more, many people have influenced and encouraged my evangelization efforts. In particular, Ward Ballard helped me understand evangelization better while I was a Protestant in college, and Fr. Rory Conley initiated the door-to-door campaign in my parish years ago that forced me out of my comfort zone. Also, Maria Ortiz has been a great example of a faithful evangelizer in the parish, the home, and in her circle of influence.

I'm grateful to Bishop Frank Dewane and the Diocese of Venice, Florida, for allowing me to be the director of evangelization there for five years, which allowed me to meet and interact with many good souls throughout the diocese.

I want to thank Todd Aglialoro at Catholic Answers for reaching out to me and encouraging me in this project.

Finally, thanks go to my wife, Suzan, who is one of the best door-to-door evangelists Ive ever met and who helped me throughout the process of writing this book; and to my seven wonderfuland patientchildren: Anna, Lucy, Maria, Peter, Hope, Madeline, and Lydia.

Table of Contents

Introduction: An Evangelizing Man

I was raised in a Methodist home but embraced Evangelical Protestantism while in high school in the 1980s. As a result, I developed a strong desire to do what Protestants call evangelism and Catholics call evangelization. (At least Catholics call it that when theyre not afraid to speak its name.) I fell in love with Jesus and wanted others to experience that love, so I tried to share my faith with others. Not that I was very good at it: I most likely came off as clumsy or holier-than-thou; my nickname in high school was Joe Bible Stud, if that tells you anything. But my intentions were good, even if I was ineffective.

In college I joined Campus Crusade for Christ (now called CruI guess having crusade in a Christian organizations name is anathema on most college campuses today). This organization had a single focus: to bring people to Christ. We were encouraged to go door-to-door in dorms sharing the gospel, and to take Spring Break trips evangelizing the heathen masses. We were given specific training on exactly what to say, and we enacted mock scenarios to practice sharing the gospel. My experience as an evangelist usually consisted of getting myself psyched up to go out, awkwardly and hurriedly telling people about Jesus, and feeling a rush of relief when it was over.

I was also involved in pro-life work in college, and this led to an unexpected situation: I was now on the other side of the evangelization equation. Most of our pro-life group were Catholic, and some of the membersparticularly my roommate, Natemade it their project to convert me to Catholicism. As you can guess from the fact that this book is published by an organization called Catholic Answers, they were successful.

My conversion to Catholicism didnt diminish my desire to evangelize; it simply redirected it. Initially I used some of the same methods I had used as a Protestant but found them wanting. For almost a decade I searched for ways to tell others about my faith, whether at work, in my neighborhood, or in my parish. Most of my efforts would fall under trial and error, with the emphasis on error.

Eventually my parishs young associate pastor approached me about starting an evangelization committee, with me in it (actually, he wanted me to lead it, but didnt tell me that initially). I was happy to help, and he proceeded to form a core group that would evangelize at the parish level, which we did with limited success. Like most parish committees, we probably spent as much time meeting and talking about what we should do as actually doing it.

Then our parish was assigned a new pastor. When I was introduced to him as the head of the evangelization committee, he immediately said, So, when are we going door-to-door? I was overjoyed, for here was a pastor as passionate about evangelization as I was. So we organized door-to-door campaigns, visiting thousands of houses in the parishs surrounding neighborhoods. We also started hosting Ask Any Question meetings. These were open meetings at our parish at which I answered any question anyone might have about Catholicism (the group chose me to host the meetings rather than a priest, so that people would feel comfortable enough to ask any question). We advertised these meetings at Christmas and Easter in order to reach out to fallen-away Catholics, and also invited the people we met in our door-to-door campaigns. These and other activities met with many successesthough some failures tooand I learned a great deal about evangelization during that time.

Eventually I took a job as a director of evangelization at the diocesan level. While in this position I encountered Catholics from all walks of life and worked with many of them to encourage evangelization efforts throughout the diocese. I discovered a number of evangelization programs created by Catholic apostolates and even created some of my own. And again, I had both successes and failures along the way. I met hundreds of Catholics who wanted to evangelize relatives and friends. Frequently, after a talk I gave or an event I organized, someone approached me to tell the story of a loved onemost often a son or daughterwho was raised Catholic but had left the practice of the Faith. Their pain and sorrow was unmistakable. So was their frustration: many urgently desired to share their faith with those closest to them, but didnt know where to start.

How Would Jesus Evangelize?

For more than a quarter of a century Ive been involved in evangelization in some form or another. Ive witnessed many different techniques for sharing the Faith and tried many apostolates evangelization methods. Ive heard (and given) countless talks on how we should evangelize. But Ive almost never heard anyone talk about how Jesus evangelized. As Christians, we look to Jesus as our model in all things. So we should make him our model for evangelization as well.

What Ive found is that most Catholics model their evangelization (if they do it at all) on one of two examples: successful corporate marketing or Protestant megachurches. Instead of looking to Jesus, we take Steve Jobs and Joel Osteen as our models. The resulting approaches tend to downplay Catholic doctrine, the Mass, and the hard teachings of the Faith, and they aim less at attracting disciples than at gaining cultural acceptance. Ignored is the Churchs rich patrimony of evangelizing models and methods, reaching back to Jesus himself.