Being a Christian is not meant to be a spectator sport

There are almost 5 million people living in the state of Alabama.  There are approximately 85,000 Catholics in the southern half of the state.  This half of the state is the Archdiocese of Mobile.  There is not an exact distribution of citizens or of Catholics, but for ease of conversation we can say that approximately 3.4 percent of the residents in our archdiocese are Catholic.  There is a lot of room for us to evangelize.
To evangelize means to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.  It is not primarily the role of the clergy to evangelize.  It is our duty, we the laity.  Pope Francis once referred to the Church as a field hospital.  I would like to take this image one step further.  The Church is also the mess hall.
We, the laity, go out and live in the culture.  We should be in that culture but not of that culture.  Going out and engaging the secular culture is like a battle for us.  We seek to make the Kingdom of God present and the world rejects this.  It is a battle.  We the laity need to be ministered to.  The Church, in the persons of our clergy, minister to us.  They tend our wounds, like any good field hospital (Confession and Anointing of the Sick), but they also feed us. 
We are fed regularly from the Lord’s Table, but this meal is not meant to simply be for our enrichment and enjoyment.  This meal (of the Word and the Eucharist) is to strengthen us for a particular mission.  The mission is one that was given to us at our Baptism.  By virtue of our Baptism we are obligated to evangelize, to share the Good News.
We have different ways of doing that.  Some of us directly teach the faith.  Some of us clean the restrooms in the Church.  Some of us organize the food pantry.  Some of us give their lives to intercessory prayer for the salvation of souls.  We all have different roles, but let us never forget that we are obligated to use our gifts to spread the Good News of our redemption!  Being a Christian is not meant to be a spectator sport or a passive reception.
Ita, Missa est!  Go, you are sent!
— Pat Arensberg is the Director of the Office for Evangelization and Family Life. Email him at [email protected] 
For more information concerning the events of this office, visit us at mobilefaithformation.org