The New Evangelisation

Kristina Cooper reflects on Pope John PaulII's call for a New Evangelisation and what it might mean in practice

It was last spring and a small group of us were sitting in my front room having a meeting to discuss the Life in the Spirit Seminars we were running in the parish. Things were going reasonably well. We had a very good team, great speakers and music but at heart I suppose I felt a bit disappointed, that the numbers were not as large as I had hoped. Here we were, prepared to evangelise, giving our time and effort to do so, but not many people in the parish seemed to be responding.

As I went to open the door to let a latecomer to the meeting in, I saw that the corridors of the block of flats where I live were crawling with uniformed policemen. "What was going on?" I wondered. It turned out that some of the youngsters in the area had been harassing a couple of families and the police were intent on a crack down. I'm ashamed to admit that although I had lived in the block for five years, I didn't have much of a relationship with my neighbours and was oblivious to what had been happening. That things had deteriorated to such an extent that the police had had to be called in, pulled me up with a jolt. What had I been doing all the while? All I could think of was those famous chilling words "It is enough for good men to do nothing for evil to flourish."

When I had moved into the council block, the woman I had bought my flat from had advised me "to keep myself to myself and not get involved with the neighbours" cataloguing some of their shortcomings. I had only too readily accepted this advice, justifying myself on the grounds that I had a busy life, I often worked from home and I didn't have the time or energy to get involved with difficult or disfunctional people on my doorstep.

Yet with a sinking heart I realised God was saying this was no longer acceptable behaviour for a disciple of Christ and that he wanted me to get involved. I was petrified. Ironically in my 20's I had had a romantic desire to serve the poor, but a few bad experiences had shattered any illusions I might have about myself as the saviour of the underprivileged. Change didn't happen easily, I discovered and I found I didn't want to pay the price necessary. I concluded I was no Mother Teresa and so I settled to serving in the parish and things I could handle.

Now God was saying to step into the unknown and get involved with who knows what. The problems on the estate - apart from the young people's vandalism - were so complex that I couldn't even think of where to begin and how I could make any kind of difference. But I also knew that if this was God calling me, not just my own guilt, as so often in the past, He must have a plan and it was up to me to discover what this was.

Thus I began to pray for the courage to say yes and to trust God that what he was asking of me would not be too much, and that it wouldn't destroy me. This for me was a very real concern, as a couple of years previously I had experienced a time of terrible burnt out. I reflected on the irony of my spiritual life. I had begun a good Catholic girl. My family background had given me great confidence in my abilities and I felt very self sufficient. Since being Baptised in the Holy Spirit 18 years ago, however, my spiritual journey seems to have been all downhill and becoming aware of my sinfulness and weakness rather than any moral improvement. Although this sounds depressing, it has been a liberating journey because it has made me put my confidence in God instead of my own strength. As St Paul says, "When I am weak, then I am strong" and the more I have come to the end of my own resources thata more I have had to turn to God and been able to benefit from His all powerful help.

And I certainly was feeling weak now. After a few days praying (and worrying about the future!) I felt the next logical step had to be more prayer and a small group of us decided to set up a prayer group in the block of flats to pray for the situation and that God would release His grace to improve things. We decided to hold this once a fortnight in the flat of one of the Catholic families that had been subject to harassment.

We launched the new group with a house Mass celebrated by our parish priest. I remember the night he came, the block was very noisy, with all kinds of loud crashes and shouting, and we felt very much on the front line confronting the powers of darkness. Looking at the little group that was gathered there- all of whom had their own problems - I wondered how we were going to make any difference at all. But God is great and following the Mass a series of co-incidences led us to becoming involved with a Moslem refugee family from Somalia in the block, who our parish SVP then took under their wing and helped in many practical ways.

Knowing that God was asking me to get involved, gave me a new courage that He would also equip me for the task. So the next time I heard shouting and abuse in the corridor, instead of just turning up my music, as I usually did, I went out to confront it. This led to a very interesting conversation with some of the young people in the area. The upshot of this was that one of them, a 13 year old boy, volunteered - for a price - to tidy up my garden, which was overgrown and rubbish strewn. Through this and a painting job I organised for them, I got to know his friends too. Some of these have now taken to periodically dropping by the flat for a chat.

They are totally unchurched and are intrigued by my lifestyle and beliefs. They want to know why do I have so many bibles? Do I hear God when I pray? Do I believe in sex before marriage? and Am I still a virgin? What amazes me most is that it is not me who initiates these subjects but them. I have had the most wonderful and refreshing discussions with them about forgiveness, divine providence, prayer and sexual relationships. It has been a real opportunity to evangelise in a way I could have never imagined, particularly as I have always been rather frightened of teenagers and have had rather disappointing experiences helping out on parish confirmation classes in the past.

What I've found they like most are testimony stories from my own life or those of others.They were particularly struck by a story I told them recently (see page…) about a Brazilian girl, who I had come to know about, who developed AIDS after she was gang raped but who, with the grace of God, was able to forgive her abusers. They just couldn't imagine how someone could do that and that this kind of forgiveness was part of the call of being a Christian.

At the time of writing my latest project with them is to organise a nativity in the streets of the estate for Christmas. This too has been a great opportunity to get to know my neighbours better and I have met many lapsed Catholics through just talking about the proposed event. It has also brought me together with several local churches in the area and the project seems to be taking on a life of its own. But although at the moment everything looks very hopeful, I also realise things are also very fragile and I have no idea if in the end it will all blow up in my face in some way. I have come to realise, however, that this is immaterial in the end because the important thing is the process and being obedient to God's call. Once we learn to stop taking credit for our "successes", we can also relieve ourselves of the pressure of failure too. All is God's providence.

My experience has made me release how important it is to get involved in the local community rather than simply waiting for people to show up in church. We do need tools like the Life in the Spirit Seminars and Alpha but we also need to evangelise through relationship, opening up our homes and our lives more and having an evangelistic lifestyle rather than just evangelistic tools. How this works out in practice will be different for everyone depending on their personal circumstances. Evangelism, I have discovered, through my interaction with these young people, is about having the courage to be yourself and being open about your faith, even if it makes you seem a bit weird.

It can be a bit difficult being in an alien culture after so long in church settings. I remember the first time I prayed together with some of the teenagers on the estate. They kept sniggering and hitting each other. I didn't quite know what to do. I'm not a youth worker and I felt a sense of rejection. The eldest boy sensed my discomfort. "Don't get upset," he apologised. "It's just that we are embarrassed. We've never prayed before!" I brought the prayer to a speedy conclusion. But before I knew it they were insisting on switching off the light and lighting the candle one more time. "We want to try again," they said. And they did. Now that never happened at my confirmation class.