Introduction

      We have been blessed to travel the country speaking about the joy of spreading the Gospel and training individuals, parishes, and dioceses how to effectively evangelize. We have had the opportunity to meet many Catholics who are truly living the Gospel dynamically. Those who are actively sharing their faith with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers seem to have the most joy. We see in them the experience that we have felt in our lives as well: living the Faith brings joy to our lives, sharing the Faith brings joy to other people’s lives, and that in return increases our own joy.

      We designed Casting Nets to help you reach out in joy and love to those you want to draw to Christ and the Church. We base our vision for evangelization on the story of Jesus and the great catch of fish in Luke 5. He instructed His fishermen friends, who had fished all night with no success, to “put out into the deep” and cast their nets for a catch. And they caught so many fish their nets were breaking. Jesus used this experience to announce that from then on His disciples would be fishers of men (and women). That’s what we want to help you achieve. We want to inspire you to put out into the deep in all your relationships and “catch” people for the Lord with your joy and love.

      In Casting Nets we present seven essential—tested and easy-to-implement—ways of bringing others to Christ. For more than a decade we have taught thousands of people these “Seven Pillars of Effective Evangelization.” We have shown them that successfully sharing the Faith depends on our understanding and application of these principles, or “Pillars”: Prayerful, Invitational, Hospitable, Inspirational, Sacramental, Formational, and Missionful. Casting Nets explains the principle and the practice of each of these Pillars.

      If you have picked up this book then you must have some sort of desire to evangelize others. Maybe you have already decided to share the Good News with a particular person, family member, friend, or co-worker. Maybe you just want to be able to spread the Faith to anyone who God might bring to your attention.

      The Seven Pillars of Effective Evangelization will help you with either of these desires. But first we need to reflect on this desire to share your faith, a desire that was placed there by the Holy Spirit. This desire is something very good, something that must be grown. And it is something as true disciples of Jesus Christ we have a moral obligation to respond to.

       Scripture and the Moral Obligation to Evangelize

      Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, became man with one very specific goal in mind: the salvation of humanity. However, after Jesus suffered, died, rose from the dead, and before ascending to the Father, He gave His Spirit to the apostles. And He commanded them to continue His mission, saying, “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21), and “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

      Thus the task of bringing salvation to the world was given by Christ to the apostles and through them to all members of the Church. The laity, in particular, fulfill their Christian vocation by participating in this apostolic mission within the world. That mission includes not only living in holiness according to the teachings of Christ and the apostles (see Acts 2:42), but also bringing the Good News of Christ’s salvation to others.

      St. Paul stands as the first and finest example of this mission of evangelization. He understood the urgency of sharing the Good News with others. As he said: “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). Likewise, all the faithful within the Church must do their part in this mission according to their unique role within the world. “Woe to [us] if [we] do not preach the gospel!”

      In the Gospels we read a story of Jesus coming upon a fig tree while walking toward the city of Jerusalem (see Mt 21:18-22; Mk 11:12-14,20-25). Apparently Jesus was extremely hungry, because when He found no figs on the tree He cursed it, saying, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” (Mt 21:19). This curse proved to be the death of the fig tree.

      Why was Jesus so severe with the fig tree? What was so terrible about it? After all, wasn’t it a living tree? Perhaps it provided shade from the hot, summer sun for passersby or a home for birds to nest. However, this fig tree lacked one very important thing: figs. This tree failed to produce fruit.

      The fruit of Christ’s salvation grows when we live a life of prayer, follow the teachings of the Church, and live a sacramental life. This life is a gift of God and is itself a proclamation of the Gospel to others in our social environments. However, we must always strive for more. Can we ever say that we love God enough, that we give enough glory to God, or that we are holy enough? We must challenge ourselves to more. We must do our best to produce more fruit. If this new life in Christ is truly “the pearl of great price” (Mt 13:46, NABRE), we can expect to want to share it with others both in word and deed. Our proclamation sheds light on the cause and significance of this new life in Christ.

      The Gospel of Mark provides us with another interesting detail to this story: “it was not the season for figs” (Mk 11:13). So what does that tell us? Jesus expects us to bear witness to our faith, to produce fruit in season and out of season. We must share our faith when it is easy and when it is difficult, to the stranger and to the friend, at work and in the home, times when we feel close to Our Lord and times when we feel distant from Him. There is no vacation from the obligation to evangelize, for we never know when the Savior of the