[John Kohli]

Went out for my first street evangelization experience on Friday night. We were in the downtown area art walk with lots of different people from all backgrounds. We spoke to a girl who says she is part of the LBG community. I really tried to follow the method especially with listening to her background. She probably had some difficult formative years, so it made my heart softer and I had a lot of compassion for her. I did try to Befriend her and we exchanged contact info and maybe will have another opportunity to talk. It brought up a lot of good questions and points for me to consider myself for my own faith journey. I haven’t had too many opportunities to share that and it was good to have the chance to possibly help someone else. I used the One Good Reason method to share why I believe in a personal God who created me and loves me in order to share my experience instead of having a debate since I’m not comfortable when I’m feeling attacked with opposing viewpoints. It seemed to keep the conversation friendly and focused on my personal experience as a Catholic rather than an academic debate on Church doctrine.

[John Kohli]

You hit the nail on the head. Thanks for that observation and suggestion. Starting to incorporate the examen into my prayer and boy does it bring up some weaknesses to bring to the Lord.

[John Kohli]

I started and finished the activity and have been inspired to learn more about being safe and prepared for street evangelization. The group I go to mentioned that there’s a Church ministry to train parishioners in de-escalation techniques and I want to learn from them about their methods. I had heard that a street preacher in Glendale AZ was shot in the head and I assumed he had died. The Holy Spirit encouraged me to research his story and I heard he survived and has made what seems like a miraculous full recovery. https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/i-should-not-be-here-right-now-valley-street-preacher-sits-down-with-abc15-after-being-shot-in-the-head I was amazed with his story and inspired with the power of God to intervene. I think I will avoid the higher crime areas in our city and suburbs to ensure that we are not putting ourselves into unnecessary risk. I’m also considering taking some self defense classes not to physically engage with people on the streets, but in order to increase my level of confidence to relieve my anxiety. I know God will protect me and lead me where I need to go.

[John Kohli]

Daily prayer has been a consistent part of my life for the past year, but I will continue to make sure it’s a non negotiable daily activity. Praying in the Adoration Chapel is one of my favorite ways to spend time with Jesus and some of the best inspirations come during that time. I have to be more consistent with my daily examen since I can put it off later in the evening and become too tired to spend quality time with God at that time.

[John Kohli]

Your experience of praying for God to remove your dog’s pain is really inspiring. I have a cat who does not always cooperate with me, as cat nature tends to be more independent. I will definitely remember to ask the Holy Spirit the next time I am trying to give him his medicine.

[John Kohli]

My experience involved sitting on a plane next to a lady. We made some small talk and I learned that she had just lost her sister to cancer and she was flying back from the funeral. I told her I am Catholic and I asked her if she was, too. She said she had been raised Catholic, but she was going to a non denominational church now. She talked more about the last days with her sister and I actively listened to her. I told her that if she wanted I would pray with her and unfortunately she seemed to think I meant that I would pray with her on my own later. I didn’t clarify and I think I was just showing my discomfort with spontaneous prayer and my lack of will power. She told me that she appreciated talking with me and that she was less anxious for it and I thanked God for the opportunity. Next time I hope to me more clear about saying a prayer in the moment and fight the doubts I have about my ability or a person’s negative reactions.

[John Kohli]

I was able to practice this with my roommate and he gave me some good feedback about how to improve it. He’s interviewing to become a firefighter, and he shared with me how they give their answers to interview questions. They describe it as running baseball bases where home plate is answering the question and rounding the bases is adding a personal story and how it relates to the job. It was slightly similar to sharing how I was personally affected by hearing and believing in the kerygma as a sinner in need of salvation. Taking a chance to practice this was helpful to me to see where I needed to be more personal in the message.

[John Kohli]

In the first situation, I would give the man encouragement that his impulse to love and be loved is a good thing and that comes from God because He is love. I would challenge him to see that the design for marriage can be viewed as a sign of the way God is love in the Trinity, involving a Father, or lover, Son, or beloved, and a union of the two in the Holy Spirit. Focusing on the way God loves us and wants the best for us as a father does I would try to explain that God’s plan for His children is for their best and faith is trusting in His plan even if we can’t see it in the moment. I would also give my own personal testimony of coming out of the gay identity into one where I am viewed as a child of God first and foremost. Doing my best to show him that there is hope for those who want to leave behind the lifestyle, I would ask if he wanted to pray and ask for God to show him the truth in his heart.
The second scenario involves being truthful to the teachings of the Church, by explaining the Catechism and encouraging them to read the paragraph speaking to homosexuality. When it comes to the sentence on the disordered nature of those acts, we can go over the statistics as they relate to mental health, disease, and general life expectancy and trying to be mindful that they will probably have reactive responses from the contemporary culture emotionally refuting those claims. I would try to listen to their experience and actively rephrase what I hear them say, so that they know that I hear them. I also would try to pray with them and ask for understanding of the meaning of their lives in Christ.

[John Kohli]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have shared my story many times and I’d like to be able to do it from a more Catholic perspective. There is a Catholic in Recovery group in our area now, so that has helped give me that safe space to be both Catholic and a recovered addict/alcoholic.

[John Kohli]

In the first scenario, I would express how sorry I am that she is has a son in active addiction and empathize with her on how difficult it must be. I would offer to pray with her for her and her son by following the ACTS format: adore, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. Finally I would tell her the truth that her son will need to find the will to recovery on his own through a personal relationship with God, but that there are many resources available to him through 12 steps and inpatient treatment when he is ready. I can offer her a miraculous medal or rosary to continue to pray for her son’s recovery.
In the second scenario, I would start with a personal testimony or my own recovery from addiction, sharing both the struggles and the successes. I would offer to pray with him right on the spot to ask thank God for bringing us together and asking for the grace to forgive ourselves for the harms we have done. In closing, I would recommend he attend a support group and give him some good suggestions for places to continue his recovery.

[John Kohli]

I watched a Trent Horn video on fundamentalist Catholic’s views on Church authority when it comes to natural family planning (NFP). I would argue that we should respect the authority of the Church from the stance of its indefectibility with regards to error in faith, morals, authority and sacraments. Since the Church was established by Jesus to be the truth with regards to morality and teachings, we should not be in the business of privately interpreting the Bible or Church Father’s writings. Although we can criticize charitably or make our needs known to the pastors, we should have confidence in what the Magisterium teaches and hold faithful to it. It does seem that as opposed to contraception, NFP is open to life and protective of virtue so there is no harm in following those methods as a faithful Catholic.

[John Kohli]

I think it is a good point that the Apostles nurtured the Church as established by Jesus and left us the Bible and other documents of tradition so that we can continue to this day. It does seem that the Protestant interpretation of the rock to mean the entire Church instead of Peter is an error that continues to this day. In the Chosen episode where Jesus is quoting this verse, the actor does appear to be looking around to the disciples and not specifically at Peter when speaking. I think a more Catholic teaching would have made the actor grasp Peter and look at him directly in the eyes when saying those words.

[John Kohli]

Shared my testimony with my coworker and she shared hers. We both were really amazed at how different in details they were but similar in spirit. Our themes were peace of mind and heart despite the turmoil in our external circumstances.

[John Kohli]

Unfortunately I didn’t have the courage to say anything specific to him about his faith, although we did talk about God in general when discussing the current political climate. Maybe I need to review the initial prompting questions and pray more.

[John Kohli]

My family members are on the top of the list. My cousin Andrew came to mind and that was surprising to me because I hadn’t thought of him in this way, but also we will be meeting at a reunion this weekend so I will have an opportunity to talk to him.

[Author]

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