{"id":5007,"date":"2013-06-17T23:37:13","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T05:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/?p=5007"},"modified":"2020-09-10T15:15:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T21:15:42","slug":"power-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/17\/power-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Tap the Power of Death in Your Evangelization"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"telegraph-death-life\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The toughest thing in evangelization is grabbing\u00a0attention.<\/p>\n

Time is a precious commodity.\u00a0Only the urgent gets attention.<\/p>\n

If people don\u2019t perceive an immediate need, they blow it off. Unfortunately, that\u2019s often what happens with religion.<\/p>\n

Kids, job, household needs, and just surviving…those are immediate needs. It’s not clear how faith impacts life right away so it can go on the back burner and just be forgotten.<\/p>\n

So how do you make Catholicism urgent?<\/p>\n

Recently, I read some advice to writers that got me thinking about a way.
\n<\/p>\n

On writing and death<\/h2>\n

Joe Bunting helps writes about writing. In a recent post, he talked about writing and death:<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about the last five novels you read. In how many of them did a character die? Good stories often involve death. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Charlotte’s Web, The Lord of the Rings, and more all had main characters who died. Death is the universal theme because every person who lives will one day die. Tap the power of death in your storytelling.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is really true isn\u2019t it? Great stories involve meaningful themes like death.<\/p>\n

I think another powerful theme is human fulfillment and the longing for a deeply satisfying life. There\u2019s a huge New Age spirituality market that taps into that desire and captures a lot of imaginations and checkbooks.<\/p>\n

But thinking about death\u00a0comes back to life and how to live. How are we to spend our time well? How are we to act in order to make our time on earth fulfilled and meaningful. The theme of death taps into that.<\/p>\n

Why religion gets the back burner<\/h2>\n

I think one of the reasons people put\u00a0religion out of their minds\u00a0is because no one thinks they\u2019re going to die anytime soon. Honestly, who does want to think about that?<\/p>\n

We all know we\u2019ll die someday, but usually not in the foreseeable future. So, we don\u2019t need to think about that now. There\u2019s more important stuff to think about\u2026like making enough money to actually live.<\/p>\n

But a large portion of Catholicism deals with death and what happens after. Essentially it’s preparation for heaven and eternity.<\/p>\n

Death and a better life<\/h2>\n

The Saints regularly say it\u2019s a good spiritual practice to consider your death regularly. Considering your death helps you live a better life. Sometimes people wait until they\u2019re dying to really live.\u00a0Like that movie The Bucket List<\/em>, they take time for the things that are most important…before time runs out.<\/p>\n

Urgencies are usually not the most important or what we most want. They are the things that take hold of us and occupy our time.<\/p>\n

But like the author said, we\u2019re all going to die. Sometimes it might be beneficial to point that out to people, to make it real in their lives.<\/p>\n

This is something I don\u2019t really do that much. I\u2019ve always thought it\u2019s a bit morbid and perhaps slightly heavy-handed. But I\u00a0think I’ll use it more from now on…or at least more often when it seems like the right time.<\/p>\n

I definitely don’t think you should hit people over the head with it, but perhaps a healthy dose of final end consideration\u00a0could be just the ticket. I mean, could all those Saints be wrong?<\/p>\n

Evangelization Takeaway<\/h2>\n

Tap into the power death in your evangelization efforts.<\/p>\n

You might break through to people caught in the urgency of life and help them to consider a new life in God.<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: stevendepolo<\/a> via Compfight<\/a> cc<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The toughest thing in evangelization is grabbing\u00a0attention. Time is a precious commodity.\u00a0Only the urgent gets attention. If people don\u2019t perceive an immediate need, they blow it off. Unfortunately, that\u2019s often what happens with religion. Kids, job, household needs, and just surviving…those are immediate needs. It’s not clear how faith impacts life right away so it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelization-2","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"yoast_head":"\nTap the Power of Death in Your Evangelization - Marc Cardaronella<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/17\/power-of-death\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tap the Power of Death in Your Evangelization - Marc Cardaronella\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The toughest thing in evangelization is grabbing\u00a0attention. 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