JOY Alive in Our Hearts

The joy of conversion, Christian community, and the Catholic faith

JOY Alive in Our Hearts

JOY Alive Blog

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Evangelization / Holy Spirit / Joy / Scriptures / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Three Ways We Glorify God by Sharing Our Faith Story

Evangelization is part and parcel of being a Christian, but sharing our faith is not simply a chore to be carried out. When we share our faith stories with others, not only do we grow as Christians, but we encourage others and give glory to God.
We are not evangelizing for our own glory, but to glorify God. Sharing our story is not about showing how pious or holy we have become, but how God’s love for us has transformed us. We acknowledge his power and might in showing how he has been able to bring good even out of our neglect and sin.

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Evangelization / Jesus / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Three Ways We Encourage Others with Our Faith Story

When we share our story, we nourish and encourage those who hear it. God uses our story to nourish others with his loving presence. People around us are attracted to the slightest hint of the Lord in our testimony amid our myriad of weaknesses. Why? Because they can relate to our imperfections as well as our humility. God’s infinite power and glory contrasts with their great need and lavishly fills it.
And what an audience we have! Good people everywhere are striving for peace and longing for hope—both online and offline.

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Evangelization / Holy Spirit / Joy / Sacraments / Scriptures / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Six Ways Sharing Our Faith Story Helps Us Grow

I was first baptized as a Protestant and later conditionally baptized as a Catholic (as was the custom before Vatican II). For me, the effects of baptism have been a tremendous source of joy. That’s when I was adopted as a beloved daughter of God, equipped as a follower, commissioned to witness, freed from original sin, made a temple of his glory, empowered by the Holy Spirit, welcomed into the Church, and lovingly placed into the river of my faith story.
My baptism gave me my identity in Christ and began God’s work in my life. May I never “dry out” and turn away from being his beloved daughter, whom he continues to transform.

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Catechism / Evangelization / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Why Share Our Faith Story?

In love, Jesus commanded us to evangelize to bring others to the salvation he offers everyone, to enlighten those in error, and bring them in union with God in Heaven. The Lord’s message is unique and two-fold: God loves all people and wants them to be saved, and God has established Christ and the Church as the “universal sacrament of salvation.” We know Christ’s love and want to share it freely with everyone without discrimination.

Conversion / Evangelization / Holy Spirit / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Testimony: A Jewish Physicist’s Conversion Story

I must emphasize that this whole process was one of rational decision-making—no visions, no voices—whence “Top Down to Jesus.” I envy those who have had visions of our Lord and heard his voice. I have heard firsthand accounts of such from some of my friends, but this was not my good fortune.
Of course, conversion is an ongoing process—study, service, prayer, adoration, retreats, all the tools and fertilizer to make the fig tree of faith bear ever more fruit.

Jesus Loves Individual by Danny Hahlbohm (Flickr)

Conversion / Evangelization / Jesus / Joy / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Defining Your Galilee Moment

I have found that faithfully keeping a spiritual journal keeps me always ready for any opportunity to share my conversion story and ready to convey the compassion and mercy of God to others.
To know our faith story, we need facts and clarity about our faith life. For example, what was that first defining moment when you knew that God was real, that he loved you? That’s the most important experience. Focus on the God-moment that changed you.

Conversion / Evangelization / Jesus / Joy / Living Your Faith / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Testimony: Sharing Your Galilee Moment

I have never forgotten the encounter I had with Christ that day. It was as if I had been told all my life about the Lord, but this day I knew I had experienced something so amazing and wonderful. He didn’t ask me to start going to church and stop living the way I was living. He just showed me, unconditional love, by giving me an assurance of peace that I had never felt before.

Conversion / Family / Jesus / Joy / Quotes / Sacraments / Saints / Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story

Testimony: Learning to Love the Cross

When I look back to see how the Lord has been working all my life to draw me closer to Himself, I am reminded of a scene in The Silver Chair, one of C. S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles: two children have been sent by Aslan (the Christ figure of Narnia) on a perilous quest to rescue the lost prince of Narnia. Aslan gives them instructions on how to complete their quest but, in the hardship of their journey, they get so tied up in their own discomfort that they forget to look for the signs he has told them to watch for. Only after much struggle and danger do they happen to look back over the way they have come; now they can see clearly that a series of troublesome trenches through which they have struggled are actually a message carved in the earth, spelling out one of Aslan’s instructions for anyone to see who cares to look. What the children in the story couldn’t see at the time is plain in hindsight—but they have left it almost until too late before they look back.