I’ll pick up from here.
So by this point, you’re talking about faith and religion — you’re learning about the person’s faith background and beliefs. Maybe you’ve also shared a bit about your own faith and beliefs.
At this point, you’re at the part of the conversation where we can transition to proclaiming the Gospel. We’ve listened and befriended, and now we can proclaim and invite, using “One Good Reason.”
This is where we can ask them to consider our point of view. “Can I give you one good reason why I choose to be Catholic?”, or Why I believe in God? Or Why I believe that Jesus is Lord? …
… And the phrasing there is important – we want to say ‘Can I give you one good reason why I choose to be Catholic,’ — or ‘believe in God,’ or ‘believe Jesus is Lord,’ — as opposed to saying, ‘Can I give you one good reason why you should be Catholic?’ (‘or ‘believe in God’ or ‘believe Jesus is Lord.’)
The reason is, first of all, nobody likes to be told what they should do. Secondly, nobody can argue with your personal experience. They can’t say, ‘That’s not why you do that.’
When you ask someone if you can give them one good reason, 9 times out of 10 people are going to answer ‘yes.’ When they do, our responses need to be meaningful, truthful, and compelling.
First, meaningful: We have to tailor our reason to the person we’re speaking with. Obviously, if you are speaking to a Muslim, there’s usually no point in giving one good reason why God exists; and if you’re speaking to a practicing Buddhist, there’s probably no need to give a good reason to be kind to others. And if you’re speaking to an atheist, giving one good reason that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist also might not make much sense.
But then again — it might. What’s meaningful to the person before you depends on the person before you. That’s why it’s important to listen to them, and not accept a label for a story. In any case, let your one good reason be meaningful to the person before you.
Second, truthful: Don’t base your reasons on falsehoods or factual errors. For example, many Catholics have picked up on this idea that has spread that there are about 30,000 protestant denominations — they use the idea that when talking with Protestants about the dangers of the Doctrine of Scripture Alone. But the fact is, that number is false. It’s based on a misreading of the data contained in the World Christian Encyclopedia. In fact, there are thousands of independent Protestant denominations — still an embarrassing fact for Bible Alone Christians — but not 33,000. When studying apologetics to develop your good reasons, have a critical mind; if something seems questionable, or just critical to your argument, check your sources. Also, being truthful means don’t exaggerate elements of your testimony in order to surprise people into believing you. Keep it real.
Third, let your one good reason be compelling: that means that our reason has some force behind it – it has the potential to move and even change minds … It really is a “good reason.”
After we give our one good reason, we want to take stock of the situation and see if what we said made an impact, and so we ask more questions – “Does that make sense?” “What do you think about that?” We should be prepared to carry on the conversation.
The goal of this method is to invite people to change the way they look at something, whether it be God, Jesus, prayer or the Mass … whatever it may be, and pave the way for them to move toward discipleship.
[Example of “proclaim & invite” part of a conversation]
In our next lesson, we’re going to get into the specifics of what questions to ask and what reasons you might want to give. Until then, God bless you!