Arranging a “Divine Appointment”
It’s time to set aside your fear, and engage in conversational evangelization. This practical activity is meant to help you build confidence in engaging in conversations leading, if the Lord wills it, to conversion. It has 4 steps:
- Pray to the Lord for a “divine appointment.” Ask Him to send you an opportunity to have a fruitful evangelizing conversation with someone — someone you know, or someone you don’t know. Here are words that you might use:
Jesus, thank you for making me an evangelist and for blessing the activity that I am about to take part in. Please send your Holy Spirit right now to be with me, to fill me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. Without your Holy Spirit I will fail in my task, but with your Spirit I know I cannot fail. Jesus, please set up a ‘divine appointment’ for me right now, someone to whom I can listen and speak, that I might share the faith with them. Who is it that you want me to speak to, and what do you want me to say?
Take a moment to listen to the Lord. What is the Holy Spirit saying? Follow His direction. If nothing comes immediately to mind, that’s okay. Pray, “Thank you for helping me plant a seed and, even if only in a little way, watch it grow. Protect me as I go out, and set your angels around me to keep me from all evil and all harm. Amen.” - Have an evangelizing conversation. Go forward with confidence that God is soon going to use you to evangelize. First, decide on an ice-breaker. If you plan on giving a gift like a Miraculous Medal, keep one with you for that purpose. Have a tentative plan, based on the methods taught in this lesson. Be on the lookout for opportunities to enter into an evangelizing conversation, and take advantage of an opportunity when it comes up. In all of this, be attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
- Don’t forget to pray with the person, if appropriate. You may pray in your own words, thanking and praising God, asking the Lord to give the person the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There may be some unique situation brought out by the conversation, for which you will want to pray. As usual, you may just pray the Lord’s Prayer — an “Our Father” — sincerely from the heart.
- When you are ready, please also post in the Community Forums about your experience doing this practical activity. There is a specific topic created for this. Also, give a constructive question or comment about the lesson, or somebody else’s post on their experience doing the practical activity. All of this is required for your basic certification!
This practical activity might be the most difficult for you so far. There is a lot of practical experience needed to get good at conversational evangelization. Your first “divine appointment” might be an opportunity to make a mistake and learn from it. You should do this practical activity a number of times and gradually get better at it. Don’t forget to share these experiences in our forum, as well.