Making Missionary Disciples

Introduction

I dream of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything…for the evangelization of today’s world…

(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium para. 27)

Is this missionary option your dream as well? Would you like to see your parish, apostolate, or family flourishing? Do you desire to have a culture of missionary disciples who serve with great generosity and joy? Are you prepared to welcome thousands of lost and broken souls into the merciful embrace of Jesus Christ and his Church?

There is a rising awareness among Catholics that we ought to become a Church of missionary disciples. Much is being said and many wonderful programs have arisen to help make that vision a reality. But what can each of us do to experience the needle-moving outcomes that would result in the transformation of which Pope Francis speaks and for which we all long?

The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew… I wish to encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the church’s journey in years to come.

(Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium para. 1)

Working with our bishops, and alongside amazing pastors and ministry staff on college campuses throughout the country, the missionaries and student leaders of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) have much for which to be thankful. In our 20 years of work on college campuses, we have been blessed to witness amazing fruit in the lives of young people. Beginning with just 20 students on one college campus in 1998, we have seen now more than 40,000 students who have participated in our program — and today, we are witnessing how the apostolate is having an impact overseas. We recognize that the numbers themselves are not overwhelming, since there are 70 million Catholics in the U.S. alone. There is a lot more work to be done, though the momentum and the quality of the individual stories points to something that offers great hope.

While we have made many mistakes along the way and still have much to learn, we pray that we will continue to help reach more souls by learning both from the example of other successful ministries and apostolates, and from our own shortcomings, successes, and failures. What I am about to share with you in Making Missionary Disciples is simply a summary of a few key insights and approaches we have taken in raising up missionary disciples that have been a tremendous blessing in our work. We hope you will find some helpful insights for your own work in evangelization as well.

The Priority: Forming Missionary Disciples

Working in an environment that could be called one of the most hostile to religion in our culture—the university campus—FOCUS has seen the Church flourish and grow. While programs are vitally important, our work has confirmed, over and over, that people are everything. Everything begins to change when a culture of missionary disciples is established (cf. Mt 5:13-16). As the saying goes, Culture eats strategy for breakfast. When a plan to foster missionary disciples is implemented in your parish, apostolate, or family, lives are changed, churches come alive, and poverty in all its forms begins to be addressed.

In the end, evangelization means to set out with Christ in order to pass on the gift we have received, to transform poverty of every kind.

(Joseph Cardinal