The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Super. Natural. Evangelization.

Episode Date: September 1, 2017

You might think you need to be well-versed in theology to be an evangelizer, but Jeff wants you to know that evangelizing is easier than you think. To demonstrate how opportunities for evangelization naturally present themselves in the midst of normal life, he shares a moving story from his most recent motorcycle trip through the mountains of Montana.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show. Episode 31, Super Natural Evangelization. It's easier than you think. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general.

It's the Jeff Kaven show. Welcome to the show. good to be back with you. I am fresh off of, officially, I guess you would say, the longest motorcycle ride of my life. Last year, I took a ride with a bunch of buddies of mine, some priests, about 3,800 miles. We've got to beat this year by a couple hundred miles. We went 4,000 miles in a week on our big motorcycles on my Harley Davidson. We had some Hondas and Kalasaki's. Had just a wonderful time. And we started. started in Minneapolis and went on through South Dakota, on to Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Spokane, Washington, all the way up to British Columbia, and then over through Alberta to Bampth and on our way home through Saskatchewan and North Dakota. Wonderful time. Two priests with us had mass every day in hotels, spoken six churches, had a wonderful time.

In fact, we did it again. We took our barbecue truck into some of the churches and even a pretty, in Calgary. A bunch of us with our leather vests and our chaps went into a juvenile prison and they were 13 to 18 year olds and they were in there for a pretty serious crime. You know, anything you can think of. They were in there and we went with our motorcycles, went to the prison and we fixed them lunch and then spoke to them. Had a wonderful time with these young men. Pray for these young men who are in prison and they'll be in there for some time. But we had a great trip. And on the the trip we had an opportunity to talk to so many people at gas stations and stores and and you know our goal is in riding across the country was not just to have a vacation and ride around but we we literally were looking for opportunities to be disciples of jesus we were looking for opportunities to share the good message of the lord and to put into practice some of the things that i'm going to mention on today's show today's show is called super natural event

evangelization, not supernatural, supernatural evangelization. It's easier than you think. And my, my contention is that, that folks, we make this so hard. We make it so difficult to evangelize and to share the gospel with people and to encourage people. We think we've got to know everything, you know, about the topic. And we've got to have our speeches down. We've got to be able to defend the faith. And we've got to know a little Latin and Greek and Hebrew and all of that. Nothing could be first. from the truth. In fact, all the people that we encountered on our trip, on our motorcycle trip, I don't think we ever brought up Hebrew or Greek or Latin or any paragraphs from the catechism or anything else, but it was super natural evangelization. And you can do it. I'm going to talk to you about how to do that at work in your neighborhood, among family. It's easier than you think. We're going to get to that in just a moment. We've got some really good feedback this week in our email box, and my crack producer, Marisa, has been giving me all of the email that's been coming in, and we've been reading that. I want to thank you. Tristan writes in and says,

thank you for your podcasts. I listened to a couple of them recently, and both times you read emails from people commenting on your isolating spiritual discipline shows. So I sat down and listened to that today, and I'm one that is totally scattered. And I share your age. D.D. I'm sorry to say that I felt a bit better when I heard that coming from you. Well, Tristan, I've been cured. I'm just kidding. It's something I have to deal with in my own life. Stay focused. And when I'm going to grow spiritually, I've got to isolate the disciplines, go after them, and spend about a month doing it. And Tristan goes on and says, do you have any insight on how I might change my attitude into one of a confident, hopeful disciple?

Well, I can tell you one thing, and that is that if you want to be a confident, hopeful disciple, you've got to be around someone who is confident and hopeful and learn from them. And I would suggest that person would be Jesus Christ. The more time you spend with the Lord, I think the more hopeful you become because that hope is the reason you are so joyful

and so filled with peace. And Peter said, you know, St. Peter, put it this way in his epistle, he said, you always need to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is within you. And that hope comes from what we call the theological virtues, three major doses of spiritual stuff given to you at baptism, and that is faith, hope, and charity. And I think the more you walk in those baptismal promises and in the power of confirmation, the more hopeful and the more confident you will become. I've got another one here. here. Marisa. No, yeah, no, and Marisa didn't write it. Let's see. Who do we have? Les wrote this.

Les writes in and says, we're trying to identify a Bible study oriented for 20s to middle-aged women. Would you know of a study specifically oriented like that? Yeah, that's a good question, Les. That's a very good question. Two things I'd tell you. One is that in the great adventure lineup of studies, and I'll put this in the show notes, by the way, a connection to it, We just launched not too long ago a new study that I did on wisdom, on wisdom for everyday living. And we divide wisdom up by using the wisdom literature like Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. And we teach on topics like the nature of wisdom, wisdom in Christ, wisdom in decision-making, wisdom in money, wisdom in old age, wisdom in relationships.

We really go after topics. And I think that any group of women in their 20s and 30s are going to get an awful lot about that. Because my guess is that women need wisdom just as much as men. So that's good for men. That's good for women. Also, I want to turn you on to a ministry that I think is making a big difference in women's ministry today. And that is wine, women in the new evangelization. It's an acronym, Wine, Women in the New Evangelization.

evangelization and you can go to their website at catholic vineyard.com. They've got a couple of studies now for women and they're doing a bang-up job. I think that you're going to want to check that out. They are really, really doing a very, very good job. So I appreciate you writing me and if you have a question, you can write me too and you can write me at the Jeff Cavan Show at ascensionpress.com. Let me say that again, the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com. You got an idea for a show. You got a comment.

Have you been putting some of these things into practice? I would love to hear from you. Well, today we're going to be talking about super natural evangelization. It's easier than you think. I got to thinking about this as a result of the motorcycle trip that we just took. I'm going to tell you a story that happened at a gas station that is something that you could do. I mean, if I can do it, you can do it. And it's an example of supernatural evangelization.

And so I'm going to share from the trip. But I also was reading again a wonderful, I guess you could call it a pastoral. It's sort of a vision paper that Archbishop Vigneron from Detroit wrote as a result of his Archdiocesan and Synod on the heels of the Amazing Parish Conference in Detroit. which I participated with, with Pat Linceoni. And this is a wonderful, wonderful document. In fact, I'm going to put the link in the show notes. It's called Unleash the Gospel, Archbishop Vignoran from Detroit.

And he's got some really good insight about going out, evangelizing, and along with what I'm saying is, hey, don't make this more complicated than you need to. Oftentimes, when you encounter people at work, at the store, at the restaurant, at the car dealership, wherever it is, guess what? They're not looking for heavy theology. The people that you're encountering that are experiencing problems in their marriage and problems with their teenagers, problems with anxiety and depression, financial problems, whatever it might be, trust me.

They are not driving around your city thinking, God, put me in touch with someone who can give me deep theology to figure this out. It's just not happening. they're looking for a friend, they're looking for a good word, they're looking for direction, they're looking for maybe a little nod to do this, read that, whatever it might be. I am convinced that the majority of evangelization, at least pre-evangelization, and our initial discussion with people, is very natural. And you can do that.

You know what? If I spend some time with you right now, I would find out what you get excited about. you might be excited about the Chicago Bears. Why? I don't know. But you could be excited about the Chicago Bears. You could be excited about ice skating. You could be, you know, figure skating. You could be excited about hunting.

You could be excited about cosmetics. You could be excited about selling Tupperware. You could be excited about bull riding or raising little ducklings or whatever it might be. And you will tell people all about it. What could possibly be more exciting than leading? people to the one who created them and the one who died for them, the one who loves them, Jesus Christ. So don't make this too difficult. Now, here's the story that I want to tell you. We were riding, the first day that we rode, we rode 742 miles the first day. Then the second day,

we rode from Gillette, Wyoming, over to Billings, Montana, and then on to Idaho the next day. We all rolled into a gas station, and I suppose it looks a little different to have 10 guys in leather and chaps riding in on Harley Davidson's at the gas station. And we were hot and sweaty. And we're filling up our tanks. And this lady walks over to me at the gas station and she has a piece of paper in her hand and she says, do you think that any of you would be interested in buying another motorcycle? Which we all said, no. I don't know what I'm going to do with that. We all like our bikes here. And now here, listen to this. One of the keys to evangelization at the simple level is ask questions. Otherwise, the discussion's over. You guys want to buy a motorcycle?

No. All right. Bye. That's it. Don't waste the opportunities. Don't waste the opportunities to evangelize. Keep a conversation going. At least if you have the time, because you might discover a need in a person's life that you can be a part of meeting. Jesus can continue his mission through you. So I said to her something very easy. I didn't learn it in my undergrad classes. I didn't learn it in my graduate classes. And I never read it in an encyclical. What did I say?

Why do you want to sell it? Man, is that deep or what? Don't try this on your own. Why do you want to sell it? And you know what she said? She said, I have fourth stage breast cancer. and it has metastasized throughout my body and my husband and I can't go biking anymore and we thought we just need to get rid of it. Wow. Now get that. Look at what happened and my gas

tank, it only takes five gallons, wasn't even full yet. She tried to sell me a motorcycle and within one minute I found out that this woman has fourth stage breast cancer. It's metastasized. Her and her husband's lives have been turned upside down. She wants to unload this, and we happen to be there. Now, I can just walk away and say to her a number of things. I could say, well, I'll pray for you. Or remember, go to church. God loves you. Smile. Jesus loves you. Or whatever. I could have said anything, I suppose. But when she told me that, I recognized an opportunity to witness to her, an opportunity to love her, an opportunity to step aside and to say, instead of we need to get back on the road here, we got 500 more miles to go to build some margin in my life and to say, I want to talk to this lady for a few minutes. So you know what I said

to her? I asked her a question. After she told me she had the breast cancer, I said, could all of us pray for you? I said, we're Christians. We ride together. We're Catholic men. And there's a priest among us. I said, would you, would you mind if we prayed for you? you. We actually asked her for permission. Could we pray for you? And you know what she said, which I have found to be consistent every time I ask people, if I can pray for them? She had a smile on her face, and she said, wow, yes, I wasn't expecting this. Please, yes, I could use your prayers. And these 10 guys got around this woman. We dressed in leather with our boots on and our bikes there, and we surrounded her and laid hands on her, and we began to pray for this woman.

And at the end, Father gave her a blessing, and she was so touched. She said, I just want to thank you. I had no idea that this was going to happen today. Now, I want to tell you, because the first thing you're going to think of in your mind is, well, Jeff, you know what, you've been doing this a while. You probably are a good prayer. You probably had, in fact, a good motorcycle prayer. No, I didn't. I had no idea how I was going to pray. You know how the prayer went? It was something like this. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for our friend here, and I named her name. And Lord, I ask you to touch her today. She has found herself in a difficult situation. And I'm asking you to touch her and to touch her body and to heal her and to comfort her

and to show her that you are her Lord and Savior and the great physician who loves her. I thank you for touching her husband and protecting them and giving them hope. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. There's nothing particularly articulate about that. There was certainly nothing greatly, deeply, you know, profoundly theological, other than I was bringing her to Jesus in a way that she could understand. Well, anyway, that had a big impact on our day, and that was just one day on the trip. Now, I use that to encourage you to

step out of the boat and to use these opportunities that come your way to do something simple, not complicated, not deep, not long, but something simple to convey the love of God to the people that you meet. Now, Archbishop Vigneron in his pastoral called Unleash the Gospel, more of an Archdiocesan strategy plan, if you really want to know the truth, it's in the show notes. He says, the gospel is most effectively shared in person-to-person encounters. Such personal on-the-spot evangelization can be prepared for and enhanced by programs and processes in media, but it cannot be replaced by them. You get that?

See, that encounter at the gas station with the lady with cancer cannot be replaced by a program or a process or media. It took a person to person on the spot. Encounter. He says, being a disciple means being a constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others, and this can happen unexpectedly and in any place. Well, Archbishop, except a gas station. No, even at a gas station.

Any place on the street in a city square, during work on a journey. What a great message that Archbishop Vigneron is giving us there. By the way, folks in Detroit, you've got a great Archbishop. Next time you see him, tell him hi, and that we're big fans of his on the Jeff Kaven show. He goes on and he says, in the Great Commission, Jesus did not direct his disciples to stay inside and simply welcome those who show up at the church's door, but to go out. go and make disciples of all nations.

The new evangelization cannot be accomplished from within the walls of our churches. Jesus himself did not remain in the synagogues where they were already devout people. He also went out to places where tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners could be found. As Pope Francis has urged, Pope Francis said, let us go forth. Let us go forth then. Let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ. The Holy Father says, I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty, because it has been out on the streets rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. If someone should rightly disturb us and trouble our consciences, it is the fact that so many of our brothers and sisters are living without the strength, light, and consolation born of friendship with Christ.

The Archbishop went on and he said that in recent history, our way of sharing Christ has been primarily through the church's institutions, but now is the time for our evangelization to become more intentional. That's a big word now these days, isn't it? Intentional and more person-to-person. Every individual in the Archdiocese, especially that's his, especially lay people, are called to consider how the Lord may be calling us to go out. beyond where we may have gone before, even to the most unlikely places to share the good news of Jesus with those who may never have heard it. Wherever the time and circumstances are right, sharing the gospel also includes inviting people both fellow parishioners and outsiders to join in the activities of the church. So I'm going to take a break, and when I come back, what I want to do is I want to share with you some suggestions on how to engage. in supernatural evangelization in your daily life.

And this is one of those shows that I hope you share with all of your friends. And I hope I hear back from you on how you are doing this. Because today, after the show at the end here, I'm going to give you an assignment. Now I'm not the Lord, but I am going to send you out with an assignment and on a daily basis to take notice of the opportunities that are going to come your way. I'm going to pray that God's going to give you opportunities this coming week. We're going to talk about all that when we come back. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show.

Hey, guys, this is Shana from Ascension. I don't know if you've heard, but with the Sension's new digital delivery platform, you can start a study with anyone anywhere. Here's how to do it. First, go to Ascensionpress.com and create a free online account. Once you're there, preview any of our study program. for free and choose the one you'd like to leave. Then, find at least three friends, family members, or co-workers who want to do the study with you.

Once you have your group, make sure everyone registers to receive their study materials. Then you're ready to go. Meet with your group in person, online, or both. It's that simple. Welcome back to the show, my friend. We're talking about super natural. evangelization. It's easier than you think. That's the opportunity that you get throughout the week to do kind of a micro evangelization. It might be just a word and encouragement, whatever it might be.

Trust me, if you engage in this kind of evangelization, it can make a difference in your life. It really can. It'll make a difference in your own spiritual growth. Now, what do I mean by kinds of simple evangelization, natural evangelization. Well, one right off the bat is a simple act of kindness, you know, an act of kindness opening a door for a person, helping them carry their groceries, whatever it might be, if it's appropriate, you know, it seems right at the moment. Random acts of kindness oftentimes take people by surprise. And when people are taken by surprise by your love, concern, and attention to detail, they oftentimes will say something to you,

which in itself is an open door of that's so nice of you. Why did you do that? You know, or you didn't have to do that. Now, when someone's, if I do something nice to people, which I've done before, I did one back in 1987 and one in seven, no, I'm kidding. But if you do something nice for someone, sometimes they'll ask you, they'll say,

they'll respond with, you didn't have to do. that? What an opportunity. No, no, I didn't have to do that. But you know what? I serve the one who didn't have to die for me, but he did. And he loves me. That's Jesus. And I like to imitate Jesus and try to help other people. And there's nothing wrong with saying that. There's nothing weird about saying that. In fact, most of the things I say to people in airplanes and other places, they don't come it doesn't come across weird it comes across natural it's see this is super natural evangelization it's real people saying really nice things to other people that opens up a door so a random act of kindness is a is a marvelous way to extend peace and grace and love to other people

another one is a prayer now i mentioned to you the woman in idaho at the gas station that we prayed for uh with cancer but literally almost every day at least several times a week, I get an opportunity to talk to someone or bump into someone at the store, the gas station, or whatever it might be, that a topic comes up. And I can simply say to them,

do you mind if I pray for you? Now, let me address something right here. Can I just for a second? What I hear sometimes from people when I say pray for someone else is they say this. That's not me. I can't do that. I'm nervous.

I'm shy. Okay? Listen. The whole thing behind discipleship and being a disciple of Jesus is that by reordering your life, reconfiguring your life around Jesus in a relationship, transforms your life. The whole idea, my friend, is that you couldn't do it. any of this stuff. You needed Jesus to give you the courage and the boldness. You needed him to give you that impetus to take a step out of the boat. Evangelization is exactly this. It is you

taking a step beyond yourself. You come to your limits and you say, Lord, I'm going to trust you, I'm going to say something, I'm going to do something that I've never done before. And to say, let me just pray for you can be the simplest of prayers and if you're not that comfortable with it right now you can at least say to them what is your name i'm going to pray for you tonight in my evening prayer but i would encourage you to begin to learn to pray for people wherever you're at and in conjunction with that and an act of kindness here's one thing i recommend as well I recommend that you make little cards like a business card with your parish name, the phone number of your parish, the times of the masses, and if you feel that it's appropriate, you can write down your own email there depending on who you talk to. Ladies, be careful. Use your head. Don't be foolish about just giving out information about yourself, but if you feel that things are safe,

can give out your husband's email or your own if you if you want to. I'm just saying give people something where they can take the next step, the name of your pastor on the card to say to them at the gas station, if you want to go further with this, if you have any other questions, I want to give you this. Call our church. And you can call your church yourself and say, hi, I'm Jeff. I hand out cards at gas stations. I hand out cards at Target and Walmart. And if anyone calls and says, A guy gave me a card to call because I'm interested to know more about the Lord. Guess what? I am he.

And just do that. You would be surprised. You know what I used to do in the 80s? You're going to think this is odd, but I did it. Back in the 80s, when people needed to make a phone call, this is in the 70s and 80s, when people needed to make a phone call, they went to a public phone booth. Now, I know you're saying, saying, well, what does that look like? Google it.

phone booths. They used to have phone booths everywhere. You could just pick up a phone publicly, you know, and put a quarter in and call. And if you put in 50 cents or a dollar, it'd give change. It had a little change deal. Well, I typed up a whole bunch of these little pieces of paper that said on one side, looking for change. And then on the other side, I gave the name of our church and the phone number, and I stuck those in these coin return things. Tacky, maybe. But I did get calls, so people are going in there. People are always searching for change in these things and you know they put their hands in there and you try to get a quarter and you know after a day of doing 10 of them they might have 50 cents well they got my little

card looking for change and we got calls from it but back to my point if you want to make a little business card for the lord to just leave with people that you talk to do it do it absolutely so you got acts of kindness you got prayer one of the other things i would encourage you to carry around with you in the car is a couple of books that have helped you. There are books of testimonies like My Life on the Rock, My Own Story, Surprised by Truth, the story about a number of people who have converted to the Catholic Church. Scott Hodden has Rome Sweet Home. Depending on the topic that you feel you might want to talk to people about, I would have two or three titles on hand in your car and a couple of copies. And by this, by doing this, you can always say to

someone. I got a book for you that I want you to read. Now, it might be a book. It might be a pamphlet. It might be a pamphlet that describes how to go to confession or something else, you know, some other topic. But I would consider this kind of a field kit, you know, an evangelization field kit. You're ready at least to give them something if they want to go a little bit further or certainly a card that points them to your pastor and to the church if they would like to to take that take that next step but my point in saying all of this to you today is look when it comes to evangelization stop making this so complicated it's super natural to do this stuff and don't look for complicated programs and initiatives just do it

yourself and you'll be surprised at what God brings to you. Now here's a principle that I ran into and I discovered long ago and that is that those who are responsible for a little will be responsible for more. God will give them more. But if you're not responsible for the little bit that you have, even what you have will be taken away. It's a biblical principle. Jesus teaches this. So if you have opportunities to witness to someone or an act of kindness, ask for prayer, a book, whatever it might be, something super natural. If you don't do that, you're going to stop looking for those things. But guess what happens? When you start doing this, when I'm talking about, Lady at the gas

station, whatever it might be, you will start looking for opportunities. And guess what? Walla, they're there. Walla isn't a Greek word or anything. So just bypass that. But they'll be there. The opportunities will be there. Isn't it. funny that people who look for opportunities get more opportunities. I have found this all throughout my life. So here's your assignment. I want you to pray that God will give you an opportunity this week. Why don't we start with just this week, huh? Let's just start with this week. Let's pray that God will give you an opportunity to do something, to interact with someone. And I'd love to hear from you.

You can email me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. Let me know the opportunity that you encountered this week. Look, look for that opportunity for one encounter. I would say one encounter a day. I mean, I'm making it easy one this week. You know, I was thinking of my conversations with people. And oftentimes when I have an opening statement with someone. one and I, you know, I get to know them a little bit, and, uh, and I want to carry on a conversation

with them. I have what I call big, uh, big questions of life questions, you know, big life questions that I, I ask them. And as I, I'm going to give you three of them right here, three or four, three or four of them. And as I, as I mentioned them, you might initially think, oh my gosh, that's kind of a personal thing, isn't it? But what I have found is, in sincerity, people actually answer the question if you're sincere. If you're coming across like a salesman pitching something, people ignore you. But if you're really interested in people and you love them, as Jesus does, they will answer your question. For example, here, I've asked people this question before as I've been speaking to them, you know, at the mall,

at the standing at Dairy Queen or whatever it might be, and we're into a conversation and find out where they work and all of that or an airplane. And I will, I'll ask them this one. what's the biggest obstacle that you're facing in your life right now you say well that's a huge question isn't what's the biggest obstacle that you're facing in your life right now you would be amazed at how many people tell me they tell me what the biggest obstacle is and then boom we're in a conversation it's so easy another one as you look forward is there is there anything that you are really worried about in the near future you know as you watch the news and everything or is there anything that you're really worried about in the near future?

Or number three, if you had the power, what's the one thing you would change in our country? If you had the power. People love to talk and to share with you, you know, their opinions about things. One question I've asked some people before, but it's usually not the leading question, but I sometimes get around to it, is what's the one thing in your past that you regret? and a lot of people become emotional at that point and they will say something that they really do regret and we're into a whole new conversation at that point well this has been good talking to you I just wanted to share this week with you I wanted to share with you this week about you know

how how super natural evangelization is really easier than you're making it and it's easier than I ever understood, and I'm into it more and more and more, and I think it is something that is very natural and that we need to do it in our everyday life. So that is your assignment, my friend. That's your assignment this week. Look for the opportunity to act in kindness, pray, hand someone a book, pamphlet, give them a card, word of encouragement, whatever it might be. And I think you're going to be surprised that God is going to give you that opportunity. But I want to hear what happens, okay? So you need to, you need to write me. Well, it's so good spending this time with you. I encourage you to go to iTunes if you're watching it on iTunes and rate the show,

give me your feedback, and also on ascensionpresents.com forward slash podcasts, where many of you are hearing this show, we'd like to get your comments and feedback as well. It actually helps us in the ratings. It helps the whole cause for the kingdom for podcasts to go up in rankings, and for more people to hear about it. Think about a couple people this week that might need to hear this message. Pass the link onto them. I appreciate it. And I want to close in prayer with you.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you for my friends listening today. And I pray, Lord, that you would bless them, bless my friend, and give them opportunities this week to share the goodness of life in the kingdom. I pray you give them boldness and courage. sincere heart as they move out this week to encounter the world. We also ask for the intercession of St. Paul, who is a great evangelizer, who went into cities that were completely opposed to the kingdom of God, and he was successful. St. Paul pray for all of us today in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, have a great week.

Thank you.