Fishing with C.S. Lewis and Robert Barron: YL Catholic Relations & the Art of Catching Nones

A friend contacted me recently to ask my advice about a good C.S. Lewis book for her husband. That’s a lot like asking me for the best Henri Nouwen book. They’re all so good it’s impossible to pick one (so I recommended the complete compilation of C.S. Lewis signature classics, of course!). But it prompted me to pull my own copy of Mere Christianity off the shelf and refamiliarize myself. 

I was immediately struck by the description of Lewis’ original motivations to write what would become a timeless spiritual classic for Protestants and Catholics alike: “Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times.” Somehow from the beginning, Lewis intuited that the world needed an articulate presentation of Christianity’s heart, not its peripheries, its center of gravity, not its disputed boundaries. 

His ecumenical instincts were beautifully attuned to the signs of the times. He rightly observed that disputes among Christians were, first of all, often matters of high theology suited only for real experts. But he also noted that discussions about controversial points hadn’t the slightest chance of bringing outsiders into the Christian fold. He chose to “fish” for men and women (Mt 4:19; Lk 5:10) with the proposition of “mere” Christianity, a term he borrowed from the oft-forgotten 17^thcentury figure Richard Baxter. By “mere” he didn’t mean minor or measly, but essential and foundational, the very core of the Christian tradition.  

Fast forward to the 21^stcentury and we meet another towering evangelical fisherman, Bishop Robert Barron. Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire Ministries, Barron’s effectiveness in proclaiming the Gospel to the postmodern generation can be aptly compared to Lewis’ influence on the generation of moderns before him. Like Lewis, who never hid his Anglican convictions, Barron is solidly Catholic, but he also knows that focusing on the divisions isn’t going to win any converts.

“You’re not going to get a lot of nones coming back to church if you’re ranting and raving,” Barron says. “You have to be more inviting, finding positive things in the culture you can identify with.”[1]Noting the influence of Saint Pope John Paul II, one of his heroes, Barron exhorts, “You should never be browbeating, aggressive, prideful, and all that. Never impose, always propose.”[2]

Why is this missionary strategy so effective (note Barron’s online videos have been viewed over 30 million times and his Facebook followers now number over 1.5 million)? It’s because Bishop Barron is sharply attuned to his audience. He knows that we are living in the age of widespread secularism, skepticism and unbelief. Like Lewis, Barron’s evangelical strategy begins with the kerygmatic core of Christianity, that positive, Christocentric message that Jesus Christ is the thing our restless hearts most yearn for. 

This same approach is at the center of the growing movement of Young Life Catholic Relations. Beginning with what Pope Francis calls “the essentials, that which is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing and most necessary”[3]we seek to address the startling rise of “the nones”, those who aren’t arguing about this denomination or that but who have no religious affiliation at all. How? With a winsome proclamation of Jesus Christ, with real relationships and a steady ministry of accompaniment, and with a spirit of partnership that stacks hands on that “center, rather that Someone, who against all divergencies of belief, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks [to us] with the same voice.”[4]

To find out more about how you can participate in this growing movement of unity and evangelization please click here.

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[1]Robert Barron, To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age (Image Books, NY: 2017), 124.

[2]Ibid, 115.

[3]Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 35. 

[4]C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity found in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics  (HarperCollins: NY, 2002), 8.

"What Can We Do Together?"

“What can we do together?” Pope Francis asked this week in Geneva during his address to the World Council of Churches, representing 350 Christian denominations and over 500 million Christians worldwide. It is a question which echoes through my mind after spending a week with delegates from Catholic dioceses and parishes from around the US at the 6^thAnnual YL Catholic Adult Guest Camp at Timber Wolf Lake. We’re all asking, “What can we do together to reach young men and women who are struggling without a sense of worth, belonging and hope that can only be found in Jesus?” 

We begin with spiritual friendship. Spending time together throughout the week made us realize that underneath the titles and positions, we are all human beings with names and families, joys and hopes, hurts and frailties. We listened to one another. We prayed over each other. We laughed our heads off at club and we cried through so many beautiful moments. We tackled the ropes course together and we heard the gentle voice of Jesus beckoning us forth. This week we became not merely co-laborers in the Lord’s harvest but friends in Christ.

Second, we committed to a common path. With eyes focused on Jesus, we stacked hands on introducing kids to Christ and helping them grow in their faith. We honored our differences without getting mired in disagreements. We chose a path of graciousness and trust rather than arousing suspicion and putting up walls. We discovered that we want the same things – for kids to know Christ, to place their trust in Him as the source of their lives, and to reconnect to the Church, each according to his or her tradition. 

Kathy Goller, Director of Youth & Young Adult Ministry at the Diocese of Buffalo, NY shared, "My experience at the Catholic Adult Guest Week convicted me more than ever that the Catholic Church can, and needs to, partner with Young Life to reach our young people with the hope and love of Christ. Further, it gave me clear ideas and a plan for how to transform those convictions into actions for our diocese!"

Third, we leaned into hope. We all know the state of affairs today. We know that faith is out of fashion and that for every 1 who enters the Church 6 leave. We know what kids are exposed to through social media and modern “entertainment.” Yet the power of the Resurrection compels us forward with hope. God is writing a beautiful story. We saw it right before our eyes. The victory of goodness over evil is real. Walls are coming down. Reconciliation is happening. Lives are being transformed. “The best of Young Life is yet to come,” Jim Rayburn proclaimed in his last days. And I believe that includes widespread partnership with the whole body of Christ – Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox. 

“What can we do together?” A lot, it turns out. And the best is yet to come. 

Sunset on Timber Wolf Lake

Big Dreams, Big Impact in the East

“Right now God is doing something special and I think it is going to have a significant impact on the future of our Church,” says the young man in his late 20s. When you look at that impact in western Massachusetts, Steve Fydenkevez is a big part of it. Steve is helping Young Life and the Catholic Church come together on the ground level, developing relationships that will yield fruit in local parishes and dioceses for years to come.

Steve grew up attending St. Mary’s Catholic parish in Longmeadow (Springfield MA Diocese) and was exposed to Young Life through the parish youth group’s annual summer trip to Saranac Village, a YL camp in the Adirondacks. “The relationship I had with my YL leader (who is now a Catholic priest actually), absolutely played a significant role in my development as a Catholic adult,” he says. The memory of those experiences at YL camp helped to spark a passion in him while sitting in Mass one day:

I remember one particular morning looking around the church and realizing that my wife and I were the only ones under forty who were not with their parents. I knew that if we didn’t do something more to reach our middle school and high school friends now, this entire generation would be lost. This is the future of our Church, I could not do nothing! I knew right then that what our Catholic youth needed is what Young Life works so hard to develop in teens - relationships with Jesus Christ.

Steve is recently married and works in the insurance industry just south across the Massachusetts border. He came back to Saranac in the fall of 2016 to attend a Young Life leader weekend. After hearing more direction from the Lord and talking with other YL staff who are trying to bridge the gap between the Church and YL, Steve began to direct his passion toward St. Mary’s the and opportunity he saw there.

Since then, God and Steve have been laying groundwork to establish a fruitful model for YL in a Catholic parish. The process has been intentional and broad in scope, including people of influence from the parish and the diocese. “Through the open lines of communication both sides have continued to grow closer in the vision of working alongside one another to reach kids,” Steve says. The recruitment and training of college leaders has been a strong focus and Steve notes a real symbiotic relationship between YL and the Church:

There are five colleges within a 15-minute drive of the church. This is a very Catholic part of the country. A stand-alone Young Life area would have a very difficult time getting into these schools and reaching potential leaders. Working with the Catholic Church however, we have a legitimacy that otherwise would not be possible. On the other hand, Young Life has the tools and resources to prepare these young leaders to reach kids in a way that the Catholic Church doesn’t have. It’s a real win-win! 

As Young Life begins to gear-up for FORWARD, our dream is to take kids “into the deep” as they walk with Christ, and working with parishes like St. Mary’s is a natural fit. “My dream is that we would see a Young Life Club and Campaigners happening at St. Mary's,” Steve says. But it’s more than just Catholics in Steve’s vision. “It’s time for us to come together as a Christian community. We want Catholic leaders alongside Protestant leaders reaching out to all kids in town. We’re talking about high school kids receiving the Sacraments for the first time - being Baptized, receiving the Eucharist, and being Confirmed - because they were introduced to Jesus Christ through the love of a YL leader.” 

Steve is changing the missional landscape in western Mass, but the process is also changing him. Rather than directing his attention solely to his career path, Steve is now pouring his energy into starting YL in Longmeadow and collaborating with St. Mary’s. “God is absolutely present in this,” Steve says. “In all my life I have never felt Him so much. I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve all laughed together at the obvious presence of God in all of this.”

Having a significant impact on the future of our Church… that’s a great dream.  Having a significant impact on the lives of young people… that’s a great dream too.  What a gift that we get to walk alongside servants like Steve who are rolling up their sleeves to make both dreams happen. 

Steve and his wife Francesca

Missionary Discipleship: What Protestants and Catholics Are Learning from Each Other

It was perhaps a curious coincidence that I was reading James Smith’s recent work on discipleship, You Are What You Love, as I participated in the Convocation of Catholic Leaders last week in Orlando. I scratched my head to find Smith, a Protestant theologian from Calvin College, talking about liturgy, ritual and sacrament as the transformative framework for discipleship while I was in the middle of a Catholic gathering where “going out”, “meeting people where they’re at”, and “building authentic relationships” were the catch phrases of the day. The crossfire of foreign tongues made me feel part of a new and entirely ecumenical Pentecost.

Two words really capture the essence of the convocation in Florida: missionary discipleship. Pope Francis used these words to describe the vision of Catholic evangelization in the world today. We need to be true disciples of the Lord, authentic followers of Jesus who then go out and engage the world with the overflowing joy of Christ. “[We] should never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral!” Pope Francis jests. Missionary disciples rejoice always in the Lord and bridge the distances which separate people from the mercy of God. Missionary disciples “take on the smell of the sheep” and happily accompany people on their journey to Christ. It was both sensational and strange to hear a room full of Catholics talking like Evangelicals!

Then I read Smith who reminds us that the first question Jesus ever asked is not “What do you believe?” but “What do you want” (Jn 1:38). It is our heart’s desires and not our mind’s convictions that constitute real discipleship. We are not what we think, Smith says, a remnant of our overly Cartesian (“I think, therefore I am”) mentality. We are what we love. We are what we desire. We are what we long for. In other words, Jesus is not a lecturer-in-chief. To be a disciple of Jesus is to enroll in a veritable school of love. We are more defined by what we desire than what we believe. And, scary thought, “We might not love what we think.”

It is entirely possible, Smith notes, to believe in all the right things but be habitually carried away by “secular liturgies.” After all, we don’t think our way into consumerism, gluttony, objectification and individualism. Nobody convinced us with a compelling argument about how donuts and distraction will make us happy. But we find our desires taking us in those directions because we virtually bathe in cultural practices that calibrate our heart’s desires toward these rival kingdoms. And whether we’re hooked on Minecraft or microbrews, heroin or high fructose corn syrup, Parks and Rec or pornography, our tangible and repeated practices leave a powerful (albeit unconscious) mark on the kind of story our hearts are living into. “We are what we love,” it turns out.

Smith’s remedy is surprising coming from a Protestant scholar. Interestingly, he advocates a return to ancient Christian practices that aim to recalibrate the heart ostensibly through the body. “Our loves need to be reordered by embodied, communal practices that are ‘loaded’ with the gospel and indexed to God and his kingdom,” Smith says.[1] Far from the novelties of contemporary Protestant worship, Smith beckons us back to the “catholic” wisdom accumulated by the body of Christ through the centuries – liturgy and lectionary, ritual and repetition, confession and the Book of Common Prayer. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Smith opines. The Church’s sacraments and sacred liturgies have the power to rehabituate our hearts for heavenly desires. Once again, strangely sensational to hear a Protestant speaking like a Catholic!

This experience leaves my heart strangely warmed (to borrow a Wesleyan phrase) by what Protestants and Catholics are learning from one another today. We are seeing the wider Church in all of her diversity embracing the many parts as members of one whole. Boston College theologian Peter Kreeft describes the mutual stoking of heavenly fires when Protestants and Catholics come together as one Body of Christ:

Catholics discover the fire, and Protestants discover the fireplace. Catholics discover the essence of Evangelical Protestantism; a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Protestants discover the essence of Catholicism; Christ own visible, tangible Body. . . In this meeting, both parties change by addition, not by subtraction. No one gives up anything. Both recover what they used to have together.[2]

Let us continue to learn from one another and may the fire of the Holy Spirit burn!

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[1] James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2016), 58.

[2] Peter Kreeft, Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), 29-30

Second Catholic Bishop Signs Missional Agreement With Young Life

On Monday, April 25, the Most Reverend William Francis Medley became the second U.S. Catholic bishop to enter into a collaborative agreement with Young Life to reach a world of kids together. Nearly one year after a similar agreement was reached in Brownsville, TX, the Diocese of Owensboro, which covers the western third of Kentucky, acknowledged “the simplicity and purity of the mission of Young Life” and highlighted Young Life’s methods – going where teens are, building real relationships, and earning the right to be heard – as inherent to the Catholic tradition and essential components of the new evangelization.

“This agreement is so important,” noted Melinda Prunty, Director of Youth Ministry for the Diocese of Owensboro. “We might do well with those kids who come to us, but we need help reaching those kids we don’t even know are out there.” Melinda played a critical role in the nearly three-year process that culminated in Monday’s signing. “We have so much to learn from the deeply relational approach to Young Life’s ministry,” she continued. “This is about introducing kids to Jesus and helping them grow in their faith. I pray that our Catholic clergy and youth ministers see the broader vision and walk side-by-side with Young Life.”

Chris Dillbeck, the local Young Life area director in Owensboro, has been a tireless force for bridge-building since he started Young Life there in 2012. His winsome spirit and ecumenical vision forged relationships that transcended denominational affiliation. One former youth minister in the diocese, Danny May, tells the story with great joy and wonder. “Three years ago, Chris walked right into my office, introduced himself and to the ministry of Young Life. From our first conversation, I could see that he was building bridges with the Catholic community.” Since then, the two have become good friends and partners in the mission to reach lost kids. “Young Life enabled me to reach students in the public schools that I would not have had without Young Life. That’s why I volunteered to help Young Life freshmen orientations and club events. That’s why my wife and I support Young Life to this day.”

Dillbeck believes this is more than a practical agreement to reach kids. “This is another step in unifying the Bride of Christ, the Church. I truly believe this pleases the Lord.” He also hopes it will draw more Catholics into a permanent state of “going out”, putting everything in a “missionary key,” as Pope Francis has exhorted. “This agreement opens the door for Catholics to be a part of this dynamic mission, and gives us a template for partnership moving forward,” he said.

Paula Schmidt, Coordinator of Religious Education at St. Pius X in Calvert City, could not be more excited about this new spirit of partnership. “When I first heard about Young Life coming to Kentucky, my first and only thought was ‘AWESOME’!” Paula was raised Catholic, attended Mass with her parents, and eventually got confirmed. “But my experience with Young Life helped me see my faith in a new light,” Paula says. After attending many weekly Young Life clubs, she went to summer camp at Frontier Ranch in Colorado. “Young Life planted a seed of faith and helped it to grow. That same faith is now flourishing as I serve the Church today!”

Brett Hersma, Young Life Senior Vice President over the Midwest Division, attended the historic signing in Owensboro and concluded by saying, “This agreement helps to formalize what we already believe – we all care deeply about kids, and we want them to be alive in their faith. It’s important for more communities to see that Young Life and the Catholic Church are making strides in working together for the sake of Christ and kids.” Our prayer is the same as that which Jesus prayed on the night before he was betrayed, that we may be one, so the world would know Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Every kid, everywhere, for eternity.

Chris Dillbeck (left), Michael Havercamp, Bishop Medley, Brett Hersma, and Jack Nikcevich