Category: Skill Development

Effective Evangelization: Winning Souls for Christ

The Wedding Feast at Cana by Carosfeld

I came back to the Catholic faith at the age of 28 and, by 32, God lit a fire in my heart for the faith. I wanted everyone to experience Christ’s love for themselves. But I struggled to win any souls for Christ. I didn’t have an effective strategy and I didn’t know where I was going wrong.

Focusing on the Wrong Things

Looking back, I can see where the problem was. I was focused on what I wanted for them. I wanted them to love Christ the way I’d learned to love Him. I wasn’t focused on helping them with what they wanted.

Overcoming The Five Biggest Challenges in Evangelizing

1.   Not knowing what to focus on if not Christ

If you’d told me then that I was focused on the wrong thing, I’d have been shocked. Wasn’t the point to bring them to Christ?

The answer to this can be found in the Gospel of John Chapter 2 at the Wedding Feast at Cana. Watch as Mary effectively evangelizes the servants. She didn’t do this by focusing on Christ, but by focusing on the servant’s problems. She understood that those problems could be leveraged to lead them to Christ.

2.   Not knowing how to steer the conversation to Christ

I’m sorry to say that in the beginning of my efforts to evangelize, I was so eager to share Christ with them that I shoehorned him in to every conversation I had because I didn’t know a better way to steer the conversation to Him.

Again, Mary provides us the example to use. After listening to the servant’s problems, she assures them that Christ can help them solve that problem. And then she leads the way.

3.   Not knowing how to listen effectively to prospects.

As much as I thought I was focusing my efforts on Christ, when I look back at what I did, I realize that I approached evangelization too often with my own agenda firmly in mind. I knew what I wanted to achieve and I wasn’t listening to what they wanted or needed.

In 2016, when God first asked me to begin this ministry of teaching people to evangelize through entrepreneurship training, I threw a fit because it felt like God didn’t care about what I wanted. He wanted me to toss aside all my dreams to focus on His.

That afternoon, I went home and prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary as I struggled to follow Christ’s example and surrender my will to the will of the Father. When it came to the fifth Sorrowful Mystery, I put myself in the shoes of St. Peter.

He’d given up everything to follow Christ and now was forced to watch as every dream he’d sacrificed to attain was dying on that cross. But, without that Good Friday agony of witnessing His dreams dying on the cross, he would never have gotten to experience the glory and the joy of the Resurrection three days later on that Sunday morning.

I knew the Lord was giving me an important lesson. Until I was ready to put my dreams to death in the service of other people’s dreams, I was going to be too focused on what I wanted to actually achieve it. People don’t want to be used. They need to know that you care about what they want and are committed to helping them achieve it to the point of being willing to put their dreams ahead of your own.

Mary put the dreams of those servants and the hopes of that young married couple ahead of her own. She made those dreams and those hopes as precious to her as if they were her own, and did for them what she would have wanted someone to do for her own.

That’s why, when Christ challenged her by saying, “it is not yet my time” and asking, “Woman, what is this to us?” – effectively letting her know that if He did this for her, it was going to change the time table of the crucifixion and move it up – she stood her ground for them. She was willing to sacrifice the extra time with her son on Earth in order to help them.

That’s the kind of heart that got them willing to open up to her and trust in her in the first place. They knew she truly cared.

4.   Being worried about losing credibility if I admitted I didn’t have all the answers.

Another thing that held me back during my early years of trying to evangelize was my concern that people would be less likely to listen to me if I admitted I didn’t have all the answers. I hesitated to admit to my messes because I was ashamed of them and the person I’d been before Christ came into my life.

Again, we can look to Mary for the example on this. She didn’t pretend to have all the answers or to be able to help them on her own power. She admitted that she had nothing she could do for them except to lead them to Christ.

Her willingness to be open and honest with them about her limitations didn’t stop them from trusting her. It showed them that she was just like them and so, when she said Christ could help them, they believed her and followed her to Christ.

She allowed them to see how Christ worked in her life which gave them hope He could work in theirs no matter how big their mess or how impossible their problem seemed to be.

5.   Not knowing how to L.E.A.D. the conversation

I was trying to lead people to Christ, but I didn’t know how to L.E.A.D. the conversation. Nobody’d taught me the strategies required to get people to open up and listen.

Over time, God taught me that effective leadership begins with taking the L.E.A.D. in every conversation:

Listening to understand what people’s dreams, desires, hopes, problems, concerns, worries, and fears happen to be.

Empathizing with their situation and taking these things to heart as if they were your own.

Asking relevant questions to be sure that you fully understand their circumstances, their challenges, and so you can assess what you have to offer that will help them most.

Discipling your prospects by showing them the way forward.

That’s the exact strategy Mary employed to get the servants to open up to her so she could show them the way to Christ. She became a trusted mentor for them, helping them achieve their dreams, relieve their fears, and solve their problems.

She won those souls for Christ without coming across as judgmental or preachy. That reduced the friction and the frustration involved in evangelizing for both parties.

Learn to Turn Problems into Prophets

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Loving Evangelization: Sharing the Good News with Friends

In my last post, 5 Tips for Effective Evangelization, I shared strategies I’ve learned over the years of my efforts to evangelize other people. One of those tips is to lean on your story. To illustrate the power of that strategy, I’m going to share with you a story.

Signing Up to Serve

The story begins in July of 2022 when I signed up to volunteer at St. Ann’s parish in Coppell, Texas during a Diocesan Conference. I didn’t expect anything more than that I would do a few hours work and then return home.

After my time of service finished, they offered evening Mass. I decided to attend. What happened next changed my life.

Receiving an Anointing of the Holy Spirit

Dr. Mary Healy spoke before Mass and stated that, “Before every new level of ministry, you need a new anointing.”

She and her team, which included a priest, then proceeded to call down the Holy Spirit on the crowd and to anoint us all that we might go out and spread the Good News to all the world. Before that day, I loved my faith, but when it came time to share the Good News, I approached it with hesitation.

I didn’t want to start fights or damage relationships. I’d gotten quite used to going along to get along.On August 1st, I gathered up every ounce of courage I possessed and recorded a video entitled, “Abundance Is Your Birthright,” in which I shared what God taught me about abundance:

If you’re not receiving in abundance, it’s not because God doesn’t provide abundance for you. It’s because there’s something blocking the mechanisms that He designed to bring abundance to you and deliver abundance through you.

Evangelization: Daring to Share

It took a lot of courage for me to do what I did next, but I’m so grateful I did. I started sending that little video to select people on my email list. Among the list of people I selected to send it to, one of those was Joylynn M. Ross, the CEO and founder of Path To Publishing.

She also happened to be a business colleague of mine. I knew from many conversations that she believed in Christ but I also knew she wasn’t Catholic. I didn’t know how she’d receive what I sent to her. Would I anger her? Would she reject me?

With trembling fingers, I typed in this email, copied the link to the YouTube video I created, and hit the send button.
 
“I know that right now there are so many people worried about their money, about food shortages, and about their future.

That’s why I put together this short, five-minute video sharing a story from my own past. At a moment when I didn’t have the money for rent, I was facing eviction, and I didn’t know where we would go if the money didn’t turn up, I turned to God for help.

He didn’t send me money, but the message He sent me is worth sharing:

“Abundance is your birthright!”

If you don’t have access to all that you need and then some, it’s not because He doesn’t want you to have it. It’s because something is wrong with the system that brings abundance to you.

If you are looking for hope, if you need reassurance, if you’re worried about the future, I invite you to watch the video. If you’re doing well but you know someone who might need this message, please consider sharing it with them.

If you want to tap into the flow of abundance, but you’re experiencing some kind of blockage, I invite you to reach out to me and let me help you find the source of that blockage so we can remove it and you can enjoy the fruits of your inheritance.

Best wishes,

Brandy M. Miller

I didn’t know what, if anything, to expect from that effort.

The Answer to Prayers

That very next morning, Joylynn called me. The night before, she’d been tossing and turning in complete misery and confusion. She felt 100% clear on her calling, assignment, and purpose in life. She felt 100% confident she’d been operating in complete excellence while executing the tasks that needed doing in decent order and with integrity.

She felt something blocking her path to abundance but didn’t know what it was, she just knew it was something inside of her not outside of her. It felt so heavy.

She didn’t just pray that God help her figure it out. She demanded that He provide an answer in her inbox that next morning.

You can listen to her share her story here: https://youtu.be/FFB7KPhjpnI.

My act of obedience, of sharing a story about a moment when I turned to God because I couldn’t answer the challenge I faced and He answered me, became an answer to her prayers.

Psalm 145:10 – A Poignant Reminder

Before writing today’s post, I stopped to ask God what He wanted me to do. What did He want me to write?

The responsorial psalm for today’s Mass readings struck me. “Your friends make known, Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom.”

It’s pulled from Psalm 145:10 which says, “All your works praise you, Lord; your faithful people extol you.”

If I’m the Lord’s friend, how can I not make known the good things that He has done for me? How can I not sing His praises for all the great things that have come to me through Him?

Make a S.I.M.P.L.E. Invitation

As I explained in the blog post, “Planning for Success: A How-To Guide for Leaders,” the simpler we keep things for people, the more likely they are to get done. S.I.M.P.L.E. means “Show Implementation with Measurable, Practical, Literal Examples.”

In John 1:46, Philip made a S.I.M.P.L.E. invitation to Nathaniel that led him to Christ. He simply said, “Come and see.” And then he walked with Nathaniel, showing him the way to where he could find Christ.

That’s all we need to do. Just share our story and invite people to come and see. Christ will do the rest.

Bungling Things By Adding Unnecessary Complications

The invitation I made to Joylynn worked because it was S.I.M.P.L.E. As we worked together, the two of us became so excited by the results we were getting that we set up a website. We conceived a vision for a program that would help others tap into the flow of abundance.

In December of 2022, I hosted a webinar called “Abundance Now” that got 7 people – all protestant or “spiritual but not religious” listening in and gave me the chance to talk about my Catholic faith. Every single one of the people who joined that webinar stayed on for the full time – including one who registered a complaint that there was too much Jesus talk!

The funny thing is that she told me, during our discussion after the webinar, that the Holy Spirit told her to stay til the end despite the fact she didn’t want to hear about Jesus.

Nothing else went right with that program and – at the time – I didn’t understand why so I abandoned the project. I now know that the mistake I made with the program wasn’t the program itself. It was my mindset. I was trying to pour the old wine of money into the new wineskin God made for me with abundance, and doomed the project to failure as a result.

When your product is love – the secret to true abundance – adding money to the mix only complicates things and blocks the very flow of abundance you’re trying to break open. Love can never be a transaction. It must always be a free, voluntary, sacrificial gift.

Getting Back on Board with the Lord

Once I surrendered to Christ and put together the plan that led me to offer Turning Problems into Prophets, it became clear to me where Breaking Open Abundance fits into the picture and the purpose for which God led me to create it.

I’ll be revitalizing that program soon and will let you know when it’s ready and available for you. In the meanwhile, just know this:

Your stories about what God’s done for you in your life deserve to be told and shared. People need to hear that He has not forgotten them. Friends don’t withhold the Good News from friends. You never know whose prayers you might be answering by finding the courage to share.    

Learn How to Share Your Story

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Effective Evangelization: 5 Tips for Sharing the Good News

Effective evangelization doesn’t come without practice. I’ve been privileged to be part of God’s work evangelizing some of my friends and family members, bringing them either to Christ or back home to the faith. My husband is one of those individuals.

Effective Evangelization Mistakes

The miracle with my husband’s conversion isn’t that it took 18 years to happen. It’s that it happened at all.

Given the sheer number of mistakes and errors I made, the poor example I set, it’s a miracle that God could still intervene and open my husband’s eyes and heart to the faith. I offer these five tips based on what I learned from my humble efforts.

1. Let the Lord Lead the Way

“And began to proclaim: When you shall see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests of the race of Levi carrying it, rise you up also, and follow them as they go before:” – Joshua 3:3

It’s important to remember that your success is not going to come through hustling hard, being a genius, or being a really, really good person. You can be all of those things and fail.

This work does not depend on you. It depends on Him. Let Him lead the way. Let Him direct your steps and clear your path.

Allow God to leverage what your instincts tell you to hide: your faults, your failings, your weaknesses, and your mistakes to His strategic advantage. It’s hard, but it’s necessary to humble yourself and allow all the parts of your past to be used.

2. Keep Your Ego Out of This

It’s not about how good or how worthy you are, but about how Great and Worthy God is. The moment that you allow your ego to take over, you will end up tripping over your own feet. Love flees in the face of ego, and love is what is needed most for this work to be done.

3. Lean on Your Story

The story of how God worked in your life to conquer the giants you couldn’t will do the heavy lifting in the conversion process. You don’t need to be an expert or have all the knowledge. All you need to know is your own story and what God has done and continues to do in your life.

4. Become Comfortable with Your Imperfections

Don’t think you need to wait until you’ve got everything together. Don’t think you can only do this work when your life is where you want it to be. Don’t think you need to be perfect to do this work.

You’re never going to have it all together. Your life is never going to be exactly where you want it to be. You’re not God, so you’re also never going to be perfect.

God needs your honesty and your humanity, not your perfection. He doesn’t need your life to have everything together. He needs your mess. He doesn’t need you to be perfect. He will perfect you.

5. Be Patient, Be Obedient, and Wait on God’s Timing

The first conversion that must take place before He can help you convert someone is your own. God will take the prayers you’re offering on their behalf and use them to refine you into the person you must become to lead those you pray for to Christ.

The more obedient you can be to the Lord while you’re waiting, the quicker God can work through you to answer the prayers you’re offering. But ultimately, the timing belongs to God. He alone knows when the other person is going to be ready to open up to receive Him.

At one point, while waiting on my husband’s conversion, I asked God why He takes so long. His response? “Because what I build, I build for eternity. If I built it at the speed you want it built, it would not last.”

Learn Effective Evangelization Strategies with Turning Problems into Prophets

If you’d like more detailed strategies, we offer a free course, Turning Problems into Prophets, to help you get the steps you need to share your story and turn the problems in your life into tools for effective evangelization.