The Evangelization Mistake I Made For Years

Missionary discipleship isn't supposed to feel like this.

The Playbook for the Missionary Disciple

If you’ve been involved in church work as a Catholic at any point in the past 12 years, you have surely encountered the vocabulary of the “missionary disciple.” The language of both “mission” and “discipleship” found a new expression at Vatican II, most notably in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium and the Decree Ad gentes, both focusing large sections on the role of the laity in the Church’s mission in the modern world. Pope John Paul II tended to frame this idea in terms of the “New Evangelization.” Pope Benedict XVI after him emphasized the ideas of conversion and witness. In each of these cases, the essential thing remains the same: the Christian life is a dynamic experience of intimacy with Christ, who then sends us out to bring Good News to the world.

Pope Francis would popularize a new term expressing this reality: missionary discipleship. I personally did not realize until very recently that it was Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio who effe…