Called
Becoming an Everyday Disciple in a Post-Christian World—A Five-Week Guide
by Kevin Cotter
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
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Pub Date Oct 26 2018 | Archive Date Dec 03 2018
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Description
Do you feel uncertain about how to share your Catholic faith with others, especially as society increasingly rejects religion? Why not follow examples from the scriptures and saints to guide you?
In this five-week guide to becoming a daily disciple of Jesus in a post-Christian culture, Kevin Cotter--executive director of The Amazing Parish and experienced FOCUS missionary--presents thirty-five brief and engaging meditations that provide Catholics with the conviction and tools for sharing Jesus with others.
Called is an accessible guide to evangelization for the average Catholic. Through short and simple daily mediations, you will gain everything you need to begin sharing the Gospel, including the conviction that you can and should be evangelizing their faith.
Based on the principles of evangelization taught by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS)—where Kevin Cotter served as senior director of curriculum—Called invites you to delve into powerful scenes from Jesus’ life, plus stories from the lives of saints such as Augustine, Mother Teresa, and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, as you explore how the call to discipleship is at the heart of scripture in ancient Israel, the life of Jesus, and the apostolic Church.
Cotter leads you on this five-week journey as someone who understands the challenges of talking about faith with friends and the sacrifices needed to invest in others. He encourages you to step outside your comfort zone as you open your eyes to Jesus’ call to discipleship.
· Week One: As you reflect on Jesus’ initial call of his disciples and how he calls you to radically love and follow him in your everyday life, you deepen your relationship with God and complete the first stage of becoming his disciple.
· Week Two: You examine the characteristics of a daily commitment to discipleship—daily prayer, submission to God’s will, regular Confession, frequent reception of the Eucharist, acting in love.
· Week Three: You discover how our current culture, which places little value on faith, compares to the world Jesus faced. You develop, like Jesus, the desire to save our world and draw others to God.
· Week Four: You unpack the tools Jesus used to touch every person he came into contact with. Through Jesus’ example, you will become equipped with what you need to reach others for him.
· Week Five: You learn that you are called not just to be a disciple but to be one who makes disciples of others.
You will come away with the understanding that being a disciple of Jesus is not optional for Catholics: it is essential to our identity as members of a missionary Church. Jesus showed us how to evangelize and called us to be his disciples. Now, more than ever, it is time to be just like him.
Advance Praise
“You hold a treasure in your hands. While we can’t all walk with Kevin in person and on a daily basis, we can all walk with him through this book for the next five weeks. We can all allow him to be a mentor who guides us over this next month, but whose wisdom and insight will carry us far beyond one simple month and into eternity.”
From the foreword by Fr. Mike Schmitz
Director of youth and young adult ministry for the Diocese of Duluth
“Kevin Cotter has given regular people like me an immensely practical guide to doing something I’ve always wanted to do but felt unqualified and unworthy of doing—making disciples. Anyone who loves Jesus can, and must, help others love him too. There is no looking back.”
Patrick Lencioni
Author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
“Everyone is called to evangelize. But the first step is learning to walk with Jesus as a disciple. This engaging, practical guide is sure to inspire and encourage you on your spiritual journey from being a disciple to becoming a disciple-maker.”
Edward Sri
Catholic author, speaker, and theologian
“If you think of your faith as a private matter that you should to keep to yourself, this book will change your mind! Kevin Cotter combines his deep knowledge of the faith with his love of Jesus to inspire us all to take our spiritual lives to the next level and help others do the same.”
Jennifer Fulwiler
SiriusXM radio host and author of Something Other Than God
“Kevin Cotter provides an anointed combination of practical tips, personal stories, and deep spiritual insights that will challenge, inspire, and motivate you to evangelize the world. Seriously, take this journey of discipleship with him and Jesus, you won't be disappointed.”
Pete Burak
Director of i.d.9:16 young adult ministry
Author of Divine Renovation
“If you dare to call yourself a Christian today, you need this book. Kevin Cotter offers clear, reasonable steps in evangelization and discipleship. Called takes you step by step in becoming a closer disciple of Christ and a herald for the Good News!”
Leah Darrow
International Catholic speaker and author of The Other Side of Beauty
“Kevin Cotter has spent the last fifteen years immersed deep in discipleship. You will find in these pages many rich insights to aid your efforts in becoming an everyday disciple—there is no greater commission than becoming a disciple of Christ and leading others into discipleship!”
Curtis Martin
Founder and CEO of FOCUS
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781594718519 |
| PRICE | $13.95 (USD) |
Featured Reviews
Elizabeth O, Reviewer
Catholics get a bad rap for being inward worshipers (and they cringe at a word like that). We've spent too many years trying to make sure we look Catholic and sacramental that we've lost the priority of encountering Christ daily, filling our hearts with Him, and sharing Him with others because those hearts of our are overflowing. As an introvert, I thought I had a good excuse to know not quite how to manage evangelizing. This book guides you to encounter Him (we must begin there) and then guides you through the steps of sharing Him with others through the structure of Win-Build-Send.
I read this book (which I received for free from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review) in a couple of days, rather than over the course of five weeks, as it is intended to be read. The structure is that of a daily devotional that builds on itself. The daily reflections are never the same from one day to the next: an anecdote and questions or scripture readings and a call to pray about one aspect of it, or another combination. The variety is refreshing and I can see how this would effectively call the reader to enter into a deeper relationship with Christ.
The timing of the publication of this book in our recent Church history can't be ignored. Before I sat down to read it, I asked myself if it would hold up against what we face as a Church in light of the PA grand jury report and Cardinal McCarrick scandals (abuse and cover up). In fact, not only do I believe the book holds up, but its entire premise thrives in the wake of such dark news. We, Christ's brothers, sisters, children, workers, disciples, etc, are the Church. The work of the Church begins with us and this is as grassroots as it gets. Reading this book and truly reflecting on your encounter with Christ will cause you to share Him with others (using his suggestions and tips, quelling that Catholic anxiety about evangelizing!). That's what we need right now and that's what we'll get from this book.
I look forward to rereading it as it was intended, day by day, building a relationship with Christ in order to share Him with others. He has no hands but ours and we are the Church.
