This session lays out the history, definition, structure, method, and content of the New Evangelization based on The New Evangelization: Building the Civilization of Love by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is the foundation on which later sessions build.  It helps one to know where we have been, where we are going, and how to get there.

Topics and documents covered include:

• “Vatican II did not want to modernize the Church. It wanted to ‘Christify’ the world…It’s about bringing the treasures of Christ’s life out to the wider world. That’s Vatican II.” – Fr. (now Bishop) Robert Barron
• Apsotolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World) – Blessed Pope Paul VI
• Address of John Paul II to the Assembly of CELAM, 1983
• Address to Catechists and Religion Teachers – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace.” – Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel)
• The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic by Matthew Kelly
• What do we mean by the term Kerygma? by Msgr. Charles Pope
• Jesus Shock by Peter Kreeft

One cannot give what one does not have. Disciples are living the call to holiness and striving for sainthood.  Disciples will make  every sacrifice necessary to grow in relationship with God as well as make every sacrifice to help another embrace a or grow further in relationship with God. This session focuses on intentional discipleship, personal relationship with God lived in the context of the Church, in order to be able to go out and make disciples (Mt 28).

Topics and documents covered include:

• “There is only one sadness, it is to not be a saint.” – Leon Bloy, The Woman Who Was Poor
• “The tragedy of not being a saint is both global and personal, temporal and eternal.  A saint’s life sends out ripples of grace that bless many within the Church and outside of it.  When the fruit of a saint’s life is missing, all of us are impoverished.” – Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples
• “All the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state.  Indeed they have an obligation so to strive.” – Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (Light of the Nations)
• “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and decisive direction.” – Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love)
• Gaudete et Exsultate – Pope Francis
• “Grounded in the center who is Jesus Christ, [disciples] are detached from even those things that strike most of us as indispensable, even from physical life itself.  Centered, they are free…Only the person who has attained such freedom, the capacity to move wherever the Spirit prompts, is ready for the mission of Christ.” – Fr. Robert Barron, The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path
• Christifideles Laici – Pope St. John Paul II
• “The presence of a significant number of disciples changes everything: a parish’s spiritual tone, energy level, attendance, bottom line, and what parishioners ask of their leaders.  Disciples pray with passion.  Disciples worship.  Disciples love the Church and serve her with energy and joy.  Disciples give lavishly.  Disciples hunger to learn more about their faith.  Disciples fill every formation class in a parish or diocese.  Disciples manifest charisms and discern vocations.  They clamor to discern God’s call because they long to live it.  Disciples evangelize because they have really good news to share.  Disciples share their faith with their children.  Disciples care about the poor and about issues of justice.  Disciples take risks for the Kingdom of God.” – Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples

The Church uses a variety of ways to explain one’s journey of discipleship.  Consider other journeys in your life – the stages of grief when losing a loved one, the progression of a relationship from dating to marriage, and more.  While the details of many journeys we take are unique and unrepeatable, journeys follow identifiable patterns.  The path outlined in this session is a means of identifying common steps along the journey of discipleship with Jesus Christ.

• Aparecida Document – Latin American Episcopal Council
• I Once Was Lost – Don Everts and Doug Schaupp
• Discipleship Road Map – Fellowship of Catholic University Students
• Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults – USCCB
• Directory for Catechesis – Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization

This session puts the idea of living out one’s discipleship into action.  It helps participants look at where they have been in relationship with God and see how God has worked, is working, and will work in their lives.  All who form disciples must know and be able to articulate clearly to others something of their own spiritual journey, their own lived experience of their relationship with God.

Topics and documents covered include:

• “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” – 1 Peter 3:15
• “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” – Blessed Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World)
• Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It by Jennifer Fulwiler
• Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers that Even I Can Offer by Leah Libresco
• Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms by Holly Ordway
• Why I’m Catholic  – Here you will find authentic Catholic conversion stories from all walks of life.
• One Billion Stories – Inspiring stories from around the world.
• Real People, Real Stories from Catholics Come Home – Powerful, real stories from former fallen-away Catholics who have come home to the Catholic Church.

Jesus calls his disciples to make disciples of all nations (Mt 28).  This session covers the basics of what one must know to do what Jesus asked, with particular emphasis on the journey of discipleship.  These principles are applicable to every area of life – at work, at home, at church, and out and about in public.  What do you do when you meet a stranger in church? What do you do when you meet someone who is looking to grow in faith? How do you address those who drop their children off at faith formation class but do not attend Mass?  This session addresses what to do in these situations in order to lead others into discipleship.  Intentionally living out discipleship means leading others into discipleship.

Topics and documents covered include:

• “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” – Matthew 28:19-20
• “And what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” – 2 Timothy 2:2
• “There is no true evangelization if the name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God are not proclaimed.” – Blessed Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World)
• “Jesus had to acquire the disciples from God.  The same is always true.  We ourselves cannot gather men.  We must acquire them by God for God.  All methods are empty without the foundation of prayer.” – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Address to Catechists and Religion Teachers, Jubilee of Catechists, 12 December 2000
• Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell
• Making Missionary Disciples – Curtis Martin
• “Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey…a Church which realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return.  But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture.” – Pope Francis, Meeting with the Bishops of Brazil, World Youth Day 2013
• “At every time and in every place, God draws close to man.  He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church
• “Above all, you will have to pay the price yourself, not so much by rehearsing plays or giving up football games, as by stirring up in yourself a life of prayer.  The extent to which you yourself are able to live on the love of our Lord will be the exact measure of your ability to stir it up in other people.” – Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate
• Sharing the Faith that You Love – John and Therese Boucher
• How to Share Your Faith with Anyone – Terry Barber

Parishes that are centers for the new evangelization are parishes where everyone and everything is directed towards one goal: forming intentional disciples.  This session is meant to provide an understanding of the foundation on which evangelizing parishes are built.

Topics and documents covered include:

• “I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a New Evangelization…No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church, can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples.” – Pope St. John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer)
• “Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: ‘We have always done it this way.’  I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities.” – Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel)
• “If we wonder why, despite the millions of us who follow Christ, the world has not long ago been converted, we need not look far for one solution.  We are not perceived as men on fire.  We look too much like everyone else…At this moment our chief concern is credibility.  Apostles are salesmen.  They are selling something, and to sell one must persuade.  To persuade, one must be believable.” – Fr. Tom Dubay, Happy Are You Poor
• “I dream of a ‘missionary option,’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” – Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel)
• A New Pentecost: Inviting All to Follow Jesus by Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley
• Becoming a Parish of Intentional Disciples – Sherry Weddell, Editor
• Divine Renovation: Bringing Your Parish From Maintenance to Mission by Fr. James Mallon
• Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter by Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran
• The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
• Living as Missionary Disciples – USCCB
• Unleash the Gospel – Archdiocese of Detroit