I just read Holly Ordway’s conversion story, Not God’s Type: An Atheist Lays Down Her Arms and was fascinated by it. I posted a review here, but in this post I’d like to focus on what I learned in terms of how to evangelize.
A few points to consider: Holly Ordway was not led to belief in God through a program, but a person. For her, the typical college evangelization tact of getting people together to socialize and force a conversation about your salvation did not work; it had the opposite effect of making her leery of Christians. In short, proselytizing was ineffective.
In her book, she writes, ”As we wrestled with these ideas, Josh answered my questions: not the questions that an evangelist might think I ought to have, but the ones I actually did have.”
What does this have to do with us? Are we willing to change our plan for the lesson or conversation to serve the people in front of us?
Last week I had my plan set for my meeting with a woman who is preparing to receive Communion and Confirmation in the near future. When she came into my office she was all excited and wanted to talk about the Rosary and how she had never known its full meaning or purpose and while she knew the Hail Mary and prayed it she thought the rosary itself was just jewelry (thank you Madonna). When she told her fiancé about what she had learned he was “well of course that’s what a rosary is” and how could he have not told her about it and when do kids usually learn about it and now I understand why people have them in their hands on the pane and…and… and.
It all came out, in one long breath and at first I tried to stop her and then I thought to myself, “Don’t stop her. Listen and answer her questions when she gets to them.”
And she asked questions and I answered her. I asked her if she had a rosary and she pulled out a plastic rosary enclosed in a plastic bag. She was so pleased that now she knew what to do with it. I had to leave and go get a rosary CD and pamphlet out of the closet for her.
We didn’t discuss what I had planned, but that’s okay. I answered her questions and the next time I see her we’ll get to the rest, after I listen to her and answer her questions.
If the goal is to be an effective evangelizer, then first we must listen, meeting people where they are on the journey. Not dragging them to where we think they should be walking. In ministry, I have found this mind set helps me to focus on walking with people on their faith journey. To me, that is true evangelization.
Copyright © 2014, Deanna Bartalini
Deanna Bartalini
Deanna G. Bartalini, is a Catholic writer, speaker, and educator. She serves on the retreat team at Our Lady of Florida Spiritual Center. Deanna loves teaching about Catholicism and how it fits into our daily lives. She writes at DeannaBartalini.com, serves as the editor of the NewEvangelizers.com blog, and is a contributor there as well as at AmazingCatechists.com. Deanna contributed to A Catholic Mom's Prayer Companion published by Ave Maris Press. She is the author of “Invite the Holy Spirit into Your Life: Growing in Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control” published by Our Sunday Visitor. Deanna is available to lead retreats and speak at catechist and ministry events.
4 responses to “What Questions Get Answered?”
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I have to say, this is music to my ears.
As an ex-Evangelical, I’m having a sense of ‘deja vu’ with a lot of the New Evangelisation which is, quite frankly, setting off all sorts of alarm bells.
In Evangelicalism, there was an implicit ‘two-tier’ view of a congregation – those who’d had the ‘second blessing’, and were living ‘spiritually’ (‘intentional disciples’?) – and those who were ‘carnal Christians’ whom, although ‘attending Church’, weren’t really saved.
In a similar way, some of the Catholic ‘New Evangelicals’ are beginning to see themselves as some outpost of the CDF sent with a mission ‘to fix everyone else in the pews’. The sort of language I’m hearing is, ‘We’re intentional disciples, and they (‘the laity’, as ‘we’ are not so ‘lay’ as ‘them’) need converting’.
It seems to me that the process – although slow and undramatic – is far more real and effective as advocated, here, in this article.
Thank you.
I agree with you, especially in regard to an us and them mentality. We are not to push or pull people in the direction we think they ought to go, but walk with people on their journey.
I agree with this well writen and thoughtful post.
I also think the following should be considered. One must also look at context. If one is simply walking on and off the beaten path, then yes wait for and then answer their specific questions. If one is walking the edge of a slippery cliff, there is no time for questions. Grab an arm and pull – very hard. Then when on safe or neutral ground yes…answer their question which most liiely will be why you pulled on their arm…very hard. That too is evangelization. God Bless..
Luciano Corbo
I like your visual of pulling someone off a cliff, makes your point quite well.