For this week, I asked Fr. Barron a question of my own. Lucky me!
Being somebody who works in "New Media" and likes studying the impacts of new technologies on culture and how we communicate, there are some unique challenges in sharing the Faith in this information age. One such problem is the scarcity of attention combined with an explosion of things demanding our attention.
Afterall, the amount of information available to us has increased orders of magnitude in recent years, yet we still have the same amount of time in a day. This means more things competing for our attention than ever before. It means we have more choices and temptations to consume information and the same amount of time to sort through it all.
This has naturally led to a bias toward information and ideas that are conveyed quickly and easily. Now, it's a very good thing to communicate truth concisely. Brevity, as they say, is the soul of wit. And some of the most effective communicators in history were able to communicate profound truths in very few words or actions.
However, this trend has also led to people consuming a lot of info that is sensationalized, incomplete or over-simplified...which is not good. And it makes it harder for more complex ideas to be shared and understood.
Unfortunately, for the sake of this point anyway, there are many aspects of Catholicism that require a level of depth and lengthier study before somebody can really understand them. So I wanted to ask Fr. Barron what he thought were some ways to try and overcome these challenges of sharing an intellectually deep faith in a 30-second sound-byte culture.
Some great advice followed:
View the entirety of my Ask Fr. Barron series (so far) by clicking here.
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Fr. Barron is very correct. Evangelization is always a process, yet we tend to try to take short cuts. For example, parishes that invite newcomers (who come with little or no active faith life) to a meet and greet after Mass might think they are evangelizing, but if the newcomers are not assigned a mentor or companion to journey with them in a faith-based friendship (anyone know a parish that does this???) the meet and greet is only a social event, friendly and welcoming though it be.
However, I wish Fr. Barron had not so quickly dismissed “sound-byte” evangelization. I wish he had explained how to use the culture’s opportunities for digital evangelization, which often does start with short sound bytes. It works well when it includes an action response that invites deeper thought and farther traveling in the journey of faith. For example ... in Good News Ministries (gnm.org), where we are always striving, testing, analyzing, and developing effective outreach to the digital culture, we are posting daily photo-quotes on our Facebook fan page. These are eye-catching photos with a fragment of an evangelizing thought taken from the day’s blogged reflection on the readings from Mass. The Facebook post includes a brief introduction of the theme of the reflection, to entice people to read the reflection (with a link to the reflection of course). The quote embedded on the photo must be inspirational as a stand-alone, for those who don’t click the link. And the photo must include the name of our ministry and our website address, so that even those who don’t read the reflection will have an ongoing opportunity to come find out more about the faith.
Not only does this use the “sound byte” to invite follow-up, but it also goes viral, thus spreading the outreach.
Well meaning, but so very typically “Catholic.” Fr. Barron refers to Scripture (albeit down the list) but the Gospel and Christ are not part of his response. Fr. Barron fails to even mention why we should evangelize. He mentions helping others but doesn’t mention why. If you have no conviction of Christ impacting your life it is impossible to evangelize anyone. Just showing up for church on Sunday with a Catholic Radio bumper sticker on your car is not evangelization. Why are there no diocesan or parish programs to equip people to tell others about Jesus?
Why do we want people to know about Jesus, forgiveness of sin and life eternal? One needs to be able to explain why this is important to someone who has never heard the Gospel.
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The most effective way to evangelize for Christ is to engage others in a conversation and be prepared to discuss your own faith and why YOU follow Christ. One should develop his/her own 60 second commerical for what God has done (and is doing) in your own life. Ask people questions regarding what they think concerning one or two aspects of life (and even death). Even people who are not interested in religion or Christianity are almost always willing to listen to YOUR story. YOUR story is about you. YOUR story is not compulsive or threatening to the person you are witnessing to. And don’t worry if they are unresponsive. We are not responsbile for the results,—the Holy Spirit is. Someone else may pick up ball after you 6 months or 6 years from now.
From my perspective, the problem is that average Catholic persons in the pews are not equipped to share the Christian faith. Evangelization to them is bringing someone to Mass on Sunday, then letting their parish priest take over, hoping people will see the value of that Sunday ritual.
Sadly, parish priests duties are more ceremonial on Sunday, and centered on “The Eucharist”, called the “Source & Summit of the Catholic faith”. That while the REAL Source & Summit of the Christian faith is Jesus, and
1) believing in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God that came to seek and save the lost
2) confessing with our lips that Jesus died and rose, for our sin
3) that through Jesus, we have access to the Father in Heaven and
4) with that blessed assurance, we are ransomed and no longer slaves to sin and Satan, but rather, we have new lives, with Jesus living inside our hearts, forever, promised eternal life with Him in Heaven.
All the above is in New Testament Epistles. But Catholics, from parish priests to those in the pews refuse to read God’s word, because tradition cancels the Bible. If we believe the New Testament, Catholics call it “Bible worship”.
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