There is a temptation that beleaguers many of us, when we come to the subject of evangelization. It seems that there are many of us who confuse evangelization with apologetics. In fact, for a long time, I was one of them. Possibly one of the reasons for that is that the society around us is becoming increasingly hostile to the message of the gospel, and we could be persuaded that the way to drown out the insistent roar of the world is to shout louder. In other words, so we don’t become the doormat of the western world, we feel we have to fight back through convincing argument. Some of us go so far as to attempt to school ourselves in scripture and the doctrine of the Church, just so that when the time comes, we will have a ready answer to those who are attacking all that we stand for.

There is certainly a place for standing up for what is right and true, especially if the matter at stake is the slaughter of innocent unborn children or agreeing that marriage is something other than the exclusive domain of a man and a woman. Here, the purpose of our interjections is to correct error and state God-given truth.

Evangelization, on the other hand, is not about arguing the case for Christianity. There must be a very small number of people who were ever converted to Christianity by losing an argument to a Christian! Instead, the purpose of evangelization is to lead someone to an encounter with God. When we are speaking with someone in order to evangelize them, our main argument in the question of, say, whether God exists or not is not philosophical proofs, but our own experience. You should be able to say, “I know that God exists because I have met him, and he has changed my life.”

This is borne out by the experience of the disciples. All of them had met Jesus, spent a lot of time with him, and heard all of his teachings. But none of them had a “life-changing” encounter until the day of Pentecost. Similarly, we can be well-versed in Scripture, the Catechism, and the Code of Canon Law. We may even maintain what looks like a healthy spiritual life: regular Mass attendance and confession, reciting the rosary, reading or serving at Mass, and so on. But unless we have had that deep, personal, and unique encounter with God and have come to believe how much he loves us, what do we really have to offer the person who is the object of our evangelistic efforts?

That ongoing personal relationship with God is not just a tool to help us convert someone to Catholicism. It is the very thing that enables us to persevere in the spiritual life and opens to us the path to holiness and, ultimately, heaven. One of the most effective tools in evangelization is the witness of our own lives. When people look at us, they should notice that we are different from other people — more joyful, more peaceful, less hedonistic, more able to resist the life of sin. They should be wondering: what is that person’s secret? And: how can I find the same happiness and fulfillment?

If you haven’t experienced that life-changing encounter with God, then that is definitely something to pray for. There is very little effort involved in meeting Jesus. The main attitude we need is simply openness to whatever God wants to do and persistently asking God to meet us where we are. All we need to do is pray that we will experience our own personal Pentecost and leave the rest up to God.