Wise Words on Wednesday: An atheist tells it how it is
“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”
Penn Jillette (Atheist)
Tag: Evangelization
Asking Questions
In my talks, Evangelization for the terrified and Apologetics for the confused, I emphasize how important it is to ask questions. Here’s a shot video from Summit Ministries explaining why…
TOT: Karen Reynolds
May 2, 2017: Karen Reynolds @ St. Luke, El Cajon
Karen Reynolds is a missionary with a lifetime of faithful service to the Church. She currently serves Dirty Vagabond Ministries as the Chief Operating Officer and Director of Development. She is passionate about sharing the love of Jesus Christ with the lost and training/equipping missionaries.
A veteran of over 20 years of youth, college and young adult ministry, Karen started her career with Young Life serving as the Development Director of the Ohio Valley. Prior to her leadership with Dirty Vagabond, she was a diocesan and parish ministry director in Ventura CA, Denver CO, and Bermuda – to name a few.
Karen is a nationally recognized speaker, having witnessed to thousands over the past 15 years. In addition to being an avid reader and traveler, she has recently begun her plans to play drums in a rock band.
“Dirty Vagabond Ministries & Evangelization” (Download)
TEA: Evangelization For The Terrified (SPC Retreat)
I know I said I wouldn’t be posting during Lent, but this weekend I gave a talk, “Evangelization for the terrified”, at the San Pedro Calungsod Young Adult Retreat in San Diego and promised that I’d upload the audio the following week, together with links to the resources I mentioned in my talk.
The Talk
Evangelization For The Terrified – Extended Edition (Download)
Unfortunately, the original recording has the last ten minutes cut off… 🙁 Fortunately, I just re-recorded the entire talk here at home. Since I didn’t have the time restrictions I had on the retreat, this recording is a little longer. Think of it as the Director’s Cut or the Extended Edition, which includes ten minutes of never-before-heard material!
Referenced Resources
I began my talk by referencing the Papal Encyclical Evangelization In The Modern World.
When I speak about learning your faith, I mention a number of low-cost services which will help you learn the Catholic Faith:
FORMED (Catholic Answers)
ClaritasU (Brandon Vogt)
New St. Thomas Institute (Dr. Taylor Marshall)
I also mentioned recommend the following sites which are completely free:
Institute of Catholic Culture
St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
I mention that you can buy cheap books/CDs/DVDs to give away from Dynamic Catholic.
For staying up-to-date with Catholicism in the media, I recommend listening to Hearts & Minds and the Don Johnson Show.
If you would like lots of good examples of how seasoned apologists engage non-Catholics, please check out Catholic Answers Live.
The talk was concluded with a retelling of the story of the Sun and the Wind from Aesop’s Fables.
Wise Words on Wednesday: Twelve more Teresas
Can you imagine what twelve more Mother Teresas would do for this world? If twelve more people gave Christ 100% of their hearts 100% of the time and held nothing back, absolutely nothing?
– Peter Kreeft
Inside Room 24
I was fortunate enough to spend Christmas 2015 with my family back in England. One of the many things I enjoy about taking trips to England is the plane ride because the time spent at 30,000 feet is usually very productive! I’m not sure if it’s simply because I’m stuck in a seat for nine hours, or because people are waiting on me hand and foot, but for whatever reason I tend to get a lot of writing done. The fruits of previous transatlantic plane rides have included my series on Catholic dating, the top 11 reasons why every man should learn to dance and, one of my personal favourites, the article which explains how the He-Man cartoon teaches transubstantiation.
This last return trip to the States was a little different, however. Rather than spending my time writing, I spent it reading. Over the course of this flight, I read Room 24: Adventures of a New Evangelist by Katie Prejean from cover-to-cover. The book is available through Ave Maria Press and Amazon, and hopefully after you’ve read this review you’ll go order a copy, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
On the return flight to America, I had the entire row of seats to myself which made for a much more comfortable flight. As I write this review, I am once again on a plane, this time from New York City, and once again I have the entire row of seats to myself. Now, I’m not promising that if you buy this book it will automatically entitle you to extra leg room, but please allow me a few minutes to explain why I enjoyed this book so much…
Sitting down with a Jehovah’s Witness
So, as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago I had Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) scheduled to visit my home. I had already received two rounds of visits from them but had not yet managed to get them across my threshold. However, on their previous visit they had promised that next time they would have time to come in and have a proper chat.
I had received my first visit about a month earlier when two female JWs had called. During our discussion on the doorstep, I had spoken a little bit about my reversion to Catholicism and about how the question of the canon had played an important part in my return, being rather unimpressed with the various Protestant explanations as to the Bible’s Table Of Contents. Since JWs are distinctly set apart from Protestants, I asked the ladies on my doorstep how they would justify the contents of the Biblical canon. They had no explanation, but said that they would find out and get back to me.
Several weeks later, two gentlemen rang my doorbell, saying that they had heard from their associates that I was interested in knowing about the “hidden” books of the Bible. I explained that my question was not about the deuterocanon/apocrypha per se, but rather about the Biblical canon as a whole. How did they know the right books were in the Bible? How did they know that there were no wrong ones included and no books missed out? Unfortunately, they said that they didn’t have time to talk with me there and then, but they booked an appointment for the following week.
In today’s blog post I’d like to explain what happened on this next visit and the rather interesting turn of events towards the end…
