Soften The Heart And Open The Ears

It is not at all an exaggeration to say that personal evangelization—speaking directly with others about Jesus—derives its unique power, before anything else, from the first two steps: listening and making friends.

Jesus described himself as the vine and his followers as branches. Pope St. John Paul II referred to this image as revealing the identity and dignity of the Christian, because in this image we see the Christian, as a branch as the one who bears the life of Christ out into the world. Through Christians, Christ the vine reaches particular people right where they are.

The great advantage the individual branches have is that we can get to know people. This is the super-power, so to speak, of the countless millions of branches who make up the Church.

When a branch of the Church (one of us) gets to know a particular person and becomes a friend to that person, that branch (you, for example) takes on a usefulness that no preacher in the pulpit or influencer on a screen can have, no matter how filled with talent and grace. The branch becomes useful because the branch makes direct contact with a person who otherwise would stay unconnected with the vine. Listening to and befriending others permits personal sharing on the level of the heart and the mind.

Especially in a world filled with advertising insincerity and consumer cynicism, this direct knowledge of and love for the one being evangelized has immeasurable value. The person has the opportunity to hear the gospel not as a remote ideology, but as a personal message for him.

If all an evangelist does is talk, talk, talk, the gospel message can be rendered powerless, because his hearers are not personally engaged. If anything, they are probably annoyed.

For this reason, and others that we will get to, listening and befriending must come first. These are the beginning steps in personal evangelization.

This, frankly, is why romantic relationships are often fertile ground for sharing the Faith. Certainly, there are instances in which one spouse comes into the Church as a condition of marriage or just to help create harmony in the home. But many other times, a spouse hears the gospel with openness because of the love shared in the home. The friendship shared by the husband and wife allows for the non-Christian or non-Catholic spouse to encounter the gospel with trust. The openness of heart that this trust engenders allows room where perhaps there was no room before for faith.

Whether we hope to talk about Jesus with our adult children who have left the Faith, with a friend who has never come to the Faith, or with a stranger on the street, our best efforts will always include these two steps.