Instead of just telling people to evangelize, Mark is on a mission to teach people to evangelize with a new program—The 99. Featuring Fr. Mike Schmitz, Fr. Josh Johnson, Leah Darrow, Sr. Miriam James Heidland, and more, the program will help parishes start a movement of evangelization in their communities. See more at evangelization.com.

Snippet from the Show - “The Church is an organized religion, but we’re painfully disorganized on a parish level.”

SHOWNOTES

Quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi - “Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary, use words.”

Mark’s 4 Practical Tips

1. As part of your morning prayer, ask the Lord for greater awareness of the people he’s putting in your path that day.
2. Pray an examination of conscience at the end of the day (consider using Romans 12).
3. Put your phone down more often to be present to those around you.
4. Instead of texting someone, call them and leave a voicemail if you have to.

One last tip from Gomer and Dave: Buy The 99!

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Snippet from the Show:
Your testimony is your journey with God, your lived relationship with Jesus, and how it all started.

4 Basic Principles of Writing Your Testimony:
1) Remember your testimony is not actually yours. You do not own it, it is God’s story of what he has done in your life.
2) Being specific about the amount or gravity of sin, does not usually add to your testimony. Be careful not to glorify the sin, it robs the limelight from God.
3) Your testimony is about God’s pursuit, and your cooperation and surrender. Remember, he plays the primary role and you play the secondary role. We should try to showcase what God has done rather than on what we did to follow him.
4) Writing a testimony can be a bit like writing an examination of conscience. There may be a part of writing it that calls you to repentance.

Practical Steps to Prepare Your Testimony:

1) When you begin writing, start broad and then get specific. Write about everything from the first moment of your life up until the present day. Use words or sentences that would describe you before you became an intentional disciple of Jesus. Here are some questions you could ask yourself: Did you have a life philosophy that you lived by? What were the basic principles you used to govern your life? Did you have an unsatisfied inner need?
2) Describe your identity before you became a serious disciple of Jesus. This gets to the end goal of your conversion—be broad. Who did you want to become?
3) Focus on what made that conversion possible. What made you serious about following Jesus? Again, be broad.
4) Then focus on how you would describe yourself immediately after the conversion.
5) Then describe how you are different now. Write down five to ten sentences or words that describe who you are now as opposed to then.
6) Then write down any Scriptures, quotes, or stories that had particular meaning to you during your conversion process or that mean something to you now. This can sum up your story.
7) Then put it all together in a twenty-minute testimony. Only after you master the long testimony should you cut it down to a shorter version.

Remember: Don’t lie or exaggerate.

5 Practical Takeaways:

1) Read Acts 26 - Listen to the Apostle Paul giving his testimony.
2-5) Take a few days to write your twenty minute testimony using the four basic principles listed above.

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