Sharing your faith — how to go from believer to disciple (Podcast)
September marks the first anniversary of the Office for Evangelization podcast Heart of the Ark. In the final episode of our first season, Father Charles Pinyan, Vicar for Clergy and Director of Clergy Personnel for the Archdiocese of Newark, spontaneously said, “You never know when conversations are going to lead to the sharing of faith.” This stuck with me not just because it is the very message and method of evangelization that inspires each episode of the “Heart of the Ark.” But also, when I first began work at the Archdiocese, Father Pinyan stopped by my new office to say hello and in our first conversation he asked something like “what have you done before this to help you with the task of evangelist?”
I must admit, I look in the mirror and ask myself the same question most mornings, not out of a false sense of humility, but a true questioning of whether I am up to this. What makes any of us ready for the work of evangelization? What makes a good evangelist? And what is evangelization anyway?
Should I go back to school and study to be a theologian, a speaker of Latin, a degreed apologist? Should I have become a nun?
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Recently, I was driving back from a Catholic retreat with my dear friend. As busy working moms, neither of us had ever gone on a spiritual retreat since our own teenage confirmation experiences now some 20 years ago. (I know how lucky we both were to have families of a certain age and work schedules that allowed us the time away.) At the retreat, we were offered spiritual talks, personal and communal prayer, mass, Eucharistic adoration, and inspiring personal witnesses of faith. This felt like a time to step back from the immediate tasks of life and to hold my spiritual life out like a fragile bird’s egg in the palm of my hand and consider it from all sides, without judgment.
Late on the first evening, we were asked to consider the difference between believing and deciding. In a roomful of Catholics, most cradle Catholics like us, I knew I was amongst those who believe in Christ. My companion and I have both worked for the better part of our careers as parish staff members and catechists. Yet I must admit personally – I do not know if anyone ever asked me to “decide for Christ.”
I know that I believe based on cultural, intellectual, and spiritual education, which has transformed in and through firsthand experiences. I have had moments of experiencing personal times of connection with Christ that have borne a conviction of the truth of Salvation through Jesus Christ, which makes this truth more apparent to me than my own name.
But have I “decided for Christ?” I have certainly worked for the church for a long time, does that count? Or is it something more? I really had to stop and think about the intentional act of deciding, or the act done through force of my will. Have I, Jen Behnke decided for Christ?
According to the Miriam Webster Dictionary, the definition of a disciple is one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another such as Christianity or one of the 12 in the inner circle of Christ’s followers according to the Gospel accounts.
In the retreat, I was presented with the following definition for deciding and for discipleship:
- Only you can make the intentional choice to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We can only say “yes” to God because He has loved us first (1 John 4:19);
- We must keep renewing this “yes” through prayer, sacraments, growth in virtue, serving God and our communities and;
- We need always to be in communion with the Catholic Church to keep us from straying from the path.
I am not an apologist, a theologian, or a nun. My Latin comes out of liturgical usage and is primary level at best. However, I am a disciple and an evangelist.
St. Bonaventure said, “If you have learned everything except Jesus, you know nothing. If you’ve learned nothing but Jesus, you have learned everything.”
I know that my ability to affect how others consider their faith is only as deep as my own relationship with Christ and His church. Their own openness to considering my witness is only as deep as my relationship with them.
Heart of the Ark will continue to present conversations. Perhaps this will give you knowledge about deepening your relationship with Jesus. Perhaps this will help you have some courage to have similar faith-sharing in your everyday conversations. Or, perhaps this will give you a small sense of companionship for the voyage of deepening your faith in Jesus Christ and your connection to His Holy Catholic Church.
Our most recent Heart of the Ark episode is about the process of discernment. How we make decisions in and for our spiritual growth as individual persons of faith, in relationships, and as communities. We interview Milissa Else, Assistant Coordinator for Parish Strategies, in discussing the importance of discernment when facing personal and interpersonal faith decisions. Else has been an invited speaker throughout the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen, leading parish communities, and small groups into a deepening of communal prayer and conversations regarding mission and ministry.
Jennifer D. Behnke is the Associate Director, Office For Evangelization, Archdiocese of Newark.
Featured photo: Courtesy Cathopic.
