Evangelization Jesus' Way

In continuation of yesterday's blog there is a great deal to be said about evangelization:what to do and what not to do. We are not good carriers of the message that Jesus gave us. Catholics are not united as we should be, although in Korea we do have a certain type of unity; there are serious divisions among Protestants, and in recent times, not obvious in the past, fundemental issues separating Christians in the different Churches. The unity a very important part of Jesus' message is not considered important enough to make it central to our thinking.


This lack of unity is no help in the work of evangelizing that Jesus gave us to do. One has little difficulty seeing how mystified are those without religion looking upon us with religion. In Korea as in other parts of the world the numbers of those without religion is becoming one of the largest segments of society very likely most of the blame belongs to us.

In the presentation that was made at the symposium on Evagelization the conclusion was to do a better job in presenting our message. One of the suggestions was to use the three Cs approach to evangelization which is taken from the business world: Content, Community and Commerce. The case was made that in our world it is no longer duty that speaks but grace, gift. One has to experience the gift of grace or else we get nowhere. We have to use the operating methods of the market. The competition to bring people to Jesus is great, there are just too many out there doing what we do and those who do a better job in the marketing will get more followers, we are dealing with consumers.


The conclusion was to have a diverse spiritual product that fits the culture. We have to draw plans that fit the mental world of our people and build the future community.

This reminds me of Maryknoll's own attempt many years ago to use some of the know how from the business world to do a better job as missioners. I have forgotten the order but some of the words we were using were: aim, plans , targets and goals. We can learn a great deal from business and other areas of life but grace will always be what it is all about.

Catholics have to be the example of what it means to be persons of grace. The life of grace has to be seen: persons of joy, peace love... the gifts of the Spirit. The future will have the product speak for itself. It will not be words or our selling but the attraction of what we are. What we need is saints who can show us the way of grace. That will be attraction enough. It was Jesus' way.