Posted September 19, 2014 Book: Evangelizing Catholics: A Mission Manual for the New Evangelization Author: Scott Hahn Our Sunday Visitor. Huntington, IN. 2014. Pp. 175 An Excerpt from the Jacket: That's a fact. To be Christian is to be an evangelizer. When the Catholic Church calls us to a "New Evangelization," that's simply a reminder to us of what has always been true. The good news is: You can do it --- you can evangelize --- and Scott Hahn shows you how. In this very practical "mission manual" Dr. Hahn equips you with: --- A guide to understanding what the New Evangelization is, and who it's really for --- A road map that leads you to where it all happens (hint: it's closer than you think) --- A simple beautiful message to share --- in words and actions. You don't need esoteric knowledge. You don't need to master a new set of skills. Evangelization, for Catholics, is simply friendship raised up to the highest level. Enter a deeper friendship with Christ, and you'll want to share his companionship more and more with a wider circle of friends. An Excerpt from the Book: The New Evangelization isn't just about shipping off missionaries to foreign shores or sending out mendicant preachers to proclaim the Gospel to pagans. Nor is it evangelization strictly in the sense that many Protestants conceive of evangelization – sharing the Good News with an unbeliever, getting him to confess in Christ, and then moving on to the next unbeliever. Rather, the New Evangelization is the work of the whole Church --- lay, ordained, and consecrated. It's about friends, claiming the truth of Christ using all available means --- conversation, personal witness, media, and the vast array of intellectual and spiritual riches the Church has built up in her two-thousand-year history. It's about simple acts of kindness, simple challenges issued in love, and simple questions asked with sincerity. More fundamentally, the New Evangelization is more for the baptized than the unbaptized. It's for those who've been inadequately catechized but all too adequately secularized, and it's for those who've been de-Christianized in the very process of being sacramentalized. And make no mistake, there are more than a few of those Catholics. Table of Contents: Understanding the new Evangelization 1. The New Evangelization: A bird's-eye view 2. The New Evangelization: a common vision 3. The New Evangelization: a "Catholic thing" 4. The New Evangelization: a mission for the whole church 5. The New Evangelization: the work of a lifetime Models and methods for the New Evangelization 6. The Catholic gospel: lessons from the first evangelists 7. The Catholic life: lessons from the early church 8. The primary field of evangelization: the Christian family 9. Farther afield: the lay apostolate The Message The Content of the New Evangelization 10. Fallen from grace: the nature of sin 11. Restored to life: the work of atonement 12. His by covenant: the family of God 13. Transformed by love: form supper to sacrifice 14. Love and fidelity: what matters most