Go and Make Disciples

Objectives

1. Know that we are commissioned by God to do mission

2. Appreciate our privilege to take part in sharing the gospel

3. Commit to evangelize and do mission

Expanded Outline

I. Introduction

We are missionary families of Christ. Our identity, our call and mission are already in our name. It is who we are and what we do. We need to be reminded all the time of our call. We always must go back to our evangelistic nature and not to turn off our missionary mode. We stay true to our identity by responding to God’s call to be missionaries sent to the ends of the earth.

II. The Great Commission

“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 behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:19

The great commission, Jesus specifically instructs the disciples and the early Christian believers to go out and proclaim. They are commissioned by Jesus to do mission and evangelize. This same calling is passed on in the church to every baptized Catholics. 

As a community, we also embraced this by making it present in our MFC Core values. One of the seven core values that we have is Evangelistic and Missionary. Through this core value We respond to the calling of evangelization. 

Evangelistic and Missionary. We are called to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the whole world (Mk 16:15). We are his witnesses (Lk 24:48). Every MFC member is an evangelizer, in the normal day-to-day environments of our lives. We look to doing mission beyond our own environments to the very ends of the earth. (See MFC Core Values Core Values - Missionary Families of Christ)

This is who we are, evangelizers. Our life is a proclamation of God’s love to the world. Thus, as MFC, we exist to evangelize, be bearers of the Good News and share it. We do not share a program, a talk, or an activity but rather, we share someone – We share Jesus Christ.

III. The Great Challenge

Despite the clear commission of Jesus to proclaim the gospel and the core values that we have as MFC to evangelize and do mission, we still face the reality that it is difficult to evangelize. There are a lot of challenges today when it comes to evangelization and in making Christ known.

What are the challenges we face when it comes to being evangelistic and missionary?

a. State of sin. One big challenge that we have is when we are in the state of sin. When we are in this state, we are away from God. This prevents us from being in the state of grace. Instead sharing God’s love, we may tend to share our own glory. The message might be clear, but the messenger is distracted and is away from the Lord. When we are in a state of sin, we can serve and talk but it will never be enough because we are not in a state of grace.

b. Being afraid. Fear is a common factor that hinder us from sharing the gospel. In the bible, we can read stories of different prophets and apostles who were afraid at first when it comes to doing the work of God. Even Saints have their own challenges and fear in the proclamation of the gospel. Fear cripples us and allows us to thin of our shortcomings and weaknesses. But the Lord is clear in the gospel (Matthew 14:27) “do not be afraid”. 

c. Laziness / complacency. Often, we just miss the call to evangelize because we are complacent in our life and in what we do as community. We become content on the circle that we have in our household or chapters. We become procrastinate in evangelization because we always think that the people that needs to be evangelized are just around the corner; that we can approach or start anytime anyway. Worst would be because we are just too lazy to talk about Christ and share His good news to others. It may seem to be so much of an effort for us and we find ourselves dragging our feet in doing evangelization.

These three challenges are real and is currently happening in some or most of us Catholics. But we need are called to be more than this. We need to rise as Holy Warriors and live out our missionary calling.

IV. The Great Response: Evangelistic and Missionary

“So, then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” – Mark 16:19-20

In the Gospel of St. Mark, as Jesus ascend into heaven, He took his seat at the right hand of God while the disciples “went forth and preached everywhere”. They responded to the call to evangelize and to share the Good News. It was first taken by the disciples and then passed on to the early church from person to person, generation to generation and up to the present time. We too embrace this mission and command from the Lord. We never stop in proclaiming until the Lord returns once again. That’s why it is important to strengthen our works and efforts in evangelization. How can we continue to commit in doing evangelization?

a. Prayer. We cannot share what we do not have. If we share Christ, then we should be sure to ourselves that we connected to Him. Thus, we strengthen our prayer time, our prayer life. How is your prayer time? Are you still praying intentionally for the people that we are to evangelize? Do we receive sacraments regularly? It is a great time to be reminded of the basic calling to be connected to the source – our God.

b. Create new ways to evangelize. (LCSC, social media, person-to-person, etc.) We now live in a world where it is so easy to communicate. We can be online and chat anyone, anytime anywhere. We can utilize this opportunity to strengthen our evangelization efforts. We can use social media to proclaim the good news. We can use our LCSC pillars to reach those who are seeking for God. We can still use our person-to-person evangelization by telling our story of conversion. 

c. Be intentional. When Jesus gathered his disciples, He intentionally prayed for them and called them by name. We too are called to be intentional in praying for the conversion of souls and for the people that we are to evangelize. List their names, offer them in your prayer time and in Holy Mass. Pray for them and ask God for the perfect time to invite them in an activity, CLS, LBS etc. In being intentional, we can show are conviction to share Jesus to them.

V. Conclusion

We are MFC, called to be a missionary. Our activities should be evangelistic, our lives should be evangelistic. This is who we are, this is what we do. May all our efforts in evangelization be strengthened through prayer, having new and innovative ways and by being intentional. We are here because somebody evangelized us. Now it’s our turn to embrace and do our calling – evangelistic and missionary.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the challenges that I face in our work of evangelization?

2. How can we strengthen our evangelization work as a couple? As family? As community?