Hi Joe, you seem like a bright, earnest, and well-meaning Catholic man. God bless you. I clicked on your video because the title of your video is something I have discussed at length with people in the past; it is a statement with which I fully disagree. I can’t help but comment, so please forgive me. While I think there is some practical wisdom in what you offer here, there are several points you make that are worth pushing back on, or least cautioning: The first and foremost is that the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is not one commodity among many. It is not something to be sold or bought. This kind of approach around something that sacred and mysterious comes across as irreverent, which I know is not your intent. A problem here is that when we treat our beloved Catholic Faith as one thing among many, it conveys the idea that God is one being among many, rather than Being itself. To your point on comparing evangelization to sales, the problem there is that the conversion of hearts is fundamentally dependant upon God’s agency, rather than our efforts. YES, He uses us as his instruments, and wills to bring about His Kingdom through the hands of men, but, it is not us that do the converting, it is Him. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, not a product of skillful storytelling. In your own words “all salesmen do is tell stories.” Evangelization requires more; it requires us to lay down our lives. You make a good point on being socially attractive, and I agree, this is important for Catholic men. But you make no mention of personal holiness in this video. How can we possibly expect to be effective evangelists without a relentless devotion to conform ourselves to Christ? We just cannot speak of evangelization without mentioning this. We do have a tradition of using familiar experiences to convey the message; think Jesus’ analogies of shepherds and farmers, Paul’s analogies of athletes, etc. But, if our our very lives are not permeated by the Love of Christ and the genuine love of souls, such that we are willing to suffer and die for their salvation, we become useless. Though there is a certain use in making analogies based on our own field of work, sales in your case, to say that something as all-encompassing and transcendent as Catholicism and the work of evangelization is “just like sales,” is wrong. Take the example of St. Jean Vianney. He had zero human gifts: he was not physically attractive, he was weak, sickly, a lousy preacher, and barely passed school. But, his holiness was so powerful that in the midst of his stuttering sermons his parishioners would weep with contrition and run back to the confessionals. You, brother, are also called to this level of holiness, and think of how powerful that could be with your obvious human gifts. There is a fundamental difference between sales and evangelization I would like to point out: Though similar methods may at times be used in both, they have different ends. While yes, both involve the breaking of former beliefs, in the case of sales it is so that you can sell them a product and make money, but Evangelization is about winning souls for Christ. Sales would not be sales if you were doing it for free I could go on, but there is just one more point I will make. You say, “you can break people’s beliefs in life by telling them stories similar to stories they’ve had, but with a different epiphany at the end of the story.” If only it were so easy. There are people out there who are so wounded and calloused that the only possible way to bring them back to God is to enter with them into the depths of their suffering, and be a witness to Christ in the midst of it. There are certain demons only prayer and fasting can cast out (Mt 17:21), sometimes a story doesn’t cut it. If good stories and arguments were all it took to win back souls for God, then Christ would not have had to become man, and Christianity would be useless. Again, sorry for the unsolicited message, but just as you felt your thoughts worth sharing, so I feel the same. Though not all of us are called to be salesmen, we are all called to holiness and to be witnesses to Christ even unto death. You have obvious gifts and talents, I am sure you can , will, and do put them to use in His service. God bless you.
Godbless you brother. Please read and consider a reply. Breaking beliefs. A salesman. I am coming back to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Through repentance, reading scripture and prayer. How can you sell me the Catholic Church? Now a good general salesman is surely beneficial for feeding the flock (1 Peter 5:2-3) but surely it’s better of more profit to feed them with which you freely received. 🕊️ Some other verse to think of ⬇️ Luke 23:34 James 2: 14-26 Luke 12:1-3 Matthew 18:6 Matthew 10:8 1 Corinthians 13:1 Matthew 7:15-20 Matthew 6:24 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Godbless you brother. Please read and consider a reply. Breaking beliefs. A salesman. I am coming back to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Through repentance, reading scripture and prayer. How can you sell me the Catholic Church? Now a good general salesman is surely beneficial for feeding the flock (1 Peter 5:2-3) but surely it’s better of more profit to feed them with which you freely received. 🕊️ Some other verse to think of ⬇️ Luke 23:34 James 2: 14-26 Luke 12:1-3 Matthew 18:6 Matthew 10:8 1 Corinthians 13:1 Matthew 7:15-20 Matthew 6:24 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Hi Joe, you seem like a bright, earnest, and well-meaning Catholic man. God bless you.
I clicked on your video because the title of your video is something I have discussed at length with people in the past; it is a statement with which I fully disagree. I can’t help but comment, so please forgive me. While I think there is some practical wisdom in what you offer here, there are several points you make that are worth pushing back on, or least cautioning:
The first and foremost is that the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is not one commodity among many. It is not something to be sold or bought. This kind of approach around something that sacred and mysterious comes across as irreverent, which I know is not your intent. A problem here is that when we treat our beloved Catholic Faith as one thing among many, it conveys the idea that God is one being among many, rather than Being itself.
To your point on comparing evangelization to sales, the problem there is that the conversion of hearts is fundamentally dependant upon God’s agency, rather than our efforts. YES, He uses us as his instruments, and wills to bring about His Kingdom through the hands of men, but, it is not us that do the converting, it is Him. Faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit, not a product of skillful storytelling. In your own words “all salesmen do is tell stories.” Evangelization requires more; it requires us to lay down our lives.
You make a good point on being socially attractive, and I agree, this is important for Catholic men. But you make no mention of personal holiness in this video. How can we possibly expect to be effective evangelists without a relentless devotion to conform ourselves to Christ? We just cannot speak of evangelization without mentioning this. We do have a tradition of using familiar experiences to convey the message; think Jesus’ analogies of shepherds and farmers, Paul’s analogies of athletes, etc. But, if our our very lives are not permeated by the Love of Christ and the genuine love of souls, such that we are willing to suffer and die for their salvation, we become useless. Though there is a certain use in making analogies based on our own field of work, sales in your case, to say that something as all-encompassing and transcendent as Catholicism and the work of evangelization is “just like sales,” is wrong. Take the example of St. Jean Vianney. He had zero human gifts: he was not physically attractive, he was weak, sickly, a lousy preacher, and barely passed school. But, his holiness was so powerful that in the midst of his stuttering sermons his parishioners would weep with contrition and run back to the confessionals. You, brother, are also called to this level of holiness, and think of how powerful that could be with your obvious human gifts.
There is a fundamental difference between sales and evangelization I would like to point out: Though similar methods may at times be used in both, they have different ends. While yes, both involve the breaking of former beliefs, in the case of sales it is so that you can sell them a product and make money, but Evangelization is about winning souls for Christ. Sales would not be sales if you were doing it for free
I could go on, but there is just one more point I will make. You say, “you can break people’s beliefs in life by telling them stories similar to stories they’ve had, but with a different epiphany at the end of the story.” If only it were so easy. There are people out there who are so wounded and calloused that the only possible way to bring them back to God is to enter with them into the depths of their suffering, and be a witness to Christ in the midst of it. There are certain demons only prayer and fasting can cast out (Mt 17:21), sometimes a story doesn’t cut it. If good stories and arguments were all it took to win back souls for God, then Christ would not have had to become man, and Christianity would be useless.
Again, sorry for the unsolicited message, but just as you felt your thoughts worth sharing, so I feel the same. Though not all of us are called to be salesmen, we are all called to holiness and to be witnesses to Christ even unto death. You have obvious gifts and talents, I am sure you can , will, and do put them to use in His service.
God bless you.
Godbless you brother. Please read and consider a reply.
Breaking beliefs. A salesman. I am coming back to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Through repentance, reading scripture and prayer. How can you sell me the Catholic Church?
Now a good general salesman is surely beneficial for feeding the flock (1 Peter 5:2-3) but surely it’s better of more profit to feed them with which you freely received. 🕊️
Some other verse to think of ⬇️
Luke 23:34
James 2: 14-26
Luke 12:1-3
Matthew 18:6
Matthew 10:8
1 Corinthians 13:1
Matthew 7:15-20
Matthew 6:24
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
audio uneven
Godbless you brother. Please read and consider a reply.
Breaking beliefs. A salesman. I am coming back to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Through repentance, reading scripture and prayer. How can you sell me the Catholic Church?
Now a good general salesman is surely beneficial for feeding the flock (1 Peter 5:2-3) but surely it’s better of more profit to feed them with which you freely received. 🕊️
Some other verse to think of ⬇️
Luke 23:34
James 2: 14-26
Luke 12:1-3
Matthew 18:6
Matthew 10:8
1 Corinthians 13:1
Matthew 7:15-20
Matthew 6:24
1 Corinthians 6:19-20