Do You Panic when asked about your faith?
Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story: Tools, Tips, and Testimonies is here!
Every baptized Christian is called to evangelize, yet many Catholics find personal evangelism intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be! In Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story: Tools, Tips, and Testimonies, I show you that evangelization can be simply a matter of letting others know how God has worked in your life.
As I explain the importance of being able to bear witness to God’s love by sharing your faith story, I share my own story of lifelong conversion and show you how to recognize the ways God has been drawing you closer to him throughout your life. You’ll also get ten tips on how to share your story in a way that is natural, effective, and un-intimidating.
In the second part of the book, you’ll read more than thirty personal faith stories by Catholics from all walks of life—converts and “reverts,” clergy, religious, and layfolk who tell their own unique stories of how God has drawn them gradually closer into his loving embrace. These authors include women and men from the United States and Canada. Plus I share my conversion and renewal stories and Gary Zimak tells a stirring story in the Foreword to the book.
The testimonies
You’ll find first-person testimonies written by Julie Davis, Virginia Pillars, Michael Fraley, Cheryl Ann Wills, John Chomistek, Robert Kurland, Jeannie Ewing, Elizabeth Reardon, Cynthia Gill Bates, Tima Borges, Lisa Nicholas, Karl Erickson, Greg Wasinski, Colleen Spiro, Neil Combs. Sr. Anne Marie Walsh SOLT, Jennifer Fitz, Lyn Mettler, Virginia Lieto, Brian Gill, Melanie Jean Juneau, and Kevin Luskus, all experienced authors and bloggers.
For Margaret Reveira, Bill Alexander, Rob Brull, Bishop Mark Seitz, Gloria Castro, Cyndi Lucky, Marie Therese Kceif, and Diane Roe, this is their first publication experience.
Faithful witnesses
All the contributing authors are faithful, enthusiastic Catholics serving the Church in the Faith Formation, RCIA, Christ Renews His Parish, ACTS Ministry, Youth Ministry, Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Knights of Columbus, Marriage Encounter, and diocesan ministries.
Many are Catholic schoolteachers, and the faithful parishioners you will see as lectors, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and willing volunteers. They have unique tory to tell you about how God has transformed their lives.
If you’ve ever wished you could be a more effective witness to God’s truth and love, you can learn to share YOUR Catholic faith story. You have a story only you can tell, and someone needs to hear it!
Purchase Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story for $14.95 from TheWordWorks OR Amazon.com.
Sharing Your Faith Story Seminar
Now on DVD
My most popular presentations are Sharing YOUR Faith Story talks, seminars and workshops on evangelization. With my Sharing Your Faith Story Seminar DVD you can lead your Catholic group in the seminar.
- Explains why baptized Christians are meant to be evangelists
- Demonstrates through examples how to know, prepare and deliver our faith story
- Provides strategies and resources for evangelization through our personal witness
- Guides you through workshop exercises to write your faith story
- Gives ten tips for sharing a conversion, reversion or renewal story
Part 1 – Sharing Your Conversion Story
The Sharing Your Faith Story seminar on DVD answers the question: “How do I give my personal witness?” As I tell my conversion and renewal stories, I demonstrate how to witness effectively and authentically. Workshop exercises get you started in preparing your faith story.
Part 2 – Sharing Your Renewal Story
Then I explain tips and cautions to help you focus your story and tell it succinctly. These tips also apply to stories of healings, miracles and answered prayers.
Part 3 – Ten Tips for Sharing Your Faith Story
The seminar concludes with many ways to share your story in person, in print or online.
$19.95 from TheWordWorks OR Amazon.com
Sample an excerpt from Sharing Your Faith Story on YouTube with encouragement to evangelize through your personal witness.
Use the DVD for:
- Clarifying your faith story
- Coffee time sharing
- Peer ministry and mentoring
- Days of renewal
- Evangelization workshop talks
- Parish staff formation
- Parish missions
- Training leaders of parish ministries
- Men or women’s formation
- Faith Formation teachers training
- RCIA follow-up sessions
The DVD is available on Amazon.com and from the JOYAlive.net SHOP tab
19.95 from TheWordWorks OR Amazon.com
Nancy is a seasoned writer who has a heart for sharing the joy of the Gospel with all those around her. In everything Nancy writes, she shares a part of herself. Her work embodies the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15, “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” Now Nancy has given us a tool to help us do the same.
Evangelization may be an awkward word to say, but it doesn’t have to feel awkward to do. Nancy’s DVD can help us learn to tell our faith stories, and that is the beginning of converting this culture.
We need the right tools to help us evangelize. Nancy Ward has created a seminar on evangelization that’s designed to help those of us who feel we don’t know how to share our faith. Nancy’s gentle presentation motivates viewers to persevere in prayer and to listen to the encouragement of the Holy Spirit to discover and share their faith. I’m looking forward to sharing this with the members of our Secular Franciscan fraternity. The lessons in Sharing Your Faith Story will help members of our group share our faith more effectively–both within the group and outside it.
Nancy’s sharing of her journey gives me encouragement that I, too, can get through the arid deserts of life and find renewal through the Holy Spirit. Nancy’s tips are the best for developing a sense of ease in sharing your own faith story.
The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion
A Book of Daily Reflections
Edited by Lisa M. Hendey and Sarah A. Reinhard, with four reflections by Nancy Ward
Created by moms for moms, these hope-filled meditations touch on the issues and concerns you face as you try to get through the day with a sense of God’s presence in your life. Each day begins with a brief quotation from scripture, saints, recent popes, or important spiritual writers. A personal reflection focuses on some dimension of your spiritual, emotional, intellectual, or physical life. Each day also includes a brief prayer and a question or thought to ponder throughout the day.
$16.95 from The WordWorks
An Author’s Take on The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion
It was such fun to meet many of the co-authors of The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion at the book launch at the Catholic Marketing Network Trade Show. What a thrill to be one of the authors of this classic book of daily reflections! When my copies of The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion arrived in my mailbox, I was elated. What a joy to have this in my hands and leaf through it to see the abundance of wisdom flowing from these CatholicMom.com authors to moms everywhere. I looked up my pages that I had written a year ago to review the dates that I selected for my personal reflections. When I read what I had written, I remembered typing those words, editing them, and sending them to Sarah Reinhard. Reading them now gives me a little chill of excitement and a dose of humility. Why? I realized that these reflections were not my words, but like the quotes that begin each entry, those of the Holy Spirit. He inspired me with the words he gave me to inspire others. I can unabashedly recommend this precious book because I believe the Holy Spirit inspired the other authors as well. I selected January 2, the Feast of St. Seraphim of Sarov, because I loved his devotion to the Holy Spirit. One of his sayings, “Acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will acquire salvation” is as challenging as it is mysterious. For April 7, “Today’s Good News,” I began with a favorite quote from Pope Francis, well known as the Pope of evangelization.“Jesus wants evangelizers who proclaim the good news not only with words, but above all by a life transfigured by God’s presence.” Pope Francis (Evangelii Gaudium no. 259)August 12, the feast of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, gave me the opportunity to get to know her better. She inspired me to write, “Leave the Doing to God” with this theme:
Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him. That is all the doing you have to worry about.That date is also “Middle-Child’s Day” and I had fun reminiscing about my role as the middle sister. My fourth contribution comes up on November 7 with “Name Your Battles” and a familiar scripture for that day, Philippians 4:12-14.
I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance. In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need. I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.How fitting for this group of writers who were empowered with the strength of the Lord and the leadership of Lisa Hendey and Sarah Reinhard to produce this impressive volume. Join me in a year of special moments we can treasure together as these passages unite us in the Spirit, no matter where we are reading them. You will find the Prayer Companion at https://joyalive.net/shop/, and also at AveMariaPress.com, Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com.