[Book Review]: Forming Intentional Disciples

This review is on a book called Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry A Weddell; you can find the book on Amazon here. You can find the website for the Catherine of Siena Institute, an Institute dedicated to helping lay people learn to live as Disciples in daily life at this link. If you want to read reviews I've done of other books, you can find those under the "My Library" tab or by clicking this link. 

Forming Intentional Disciples: 

The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus 

Sherry A. Weddell
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division 2012

As you can probably guess from the title, this book is about the call of the lay person to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ, and how you can follow this call. The author, Sherry A. Weddell, is a lay Catholic woman who started an institute called the Catherine of Siena Institute with a priest named Fr. Michael Sweeney, O.P. in order to address the issue of the lack of discipleship in Catholics in the United States. What she has found in her time traveling the country to teach on discipleship is contained in this book, where she lays out the problem of the normal Catholic in today's world and then the solution to help that normal Catholic become an intentional disciple of Jesus Christ.

The Basics of the Book

Sherry starts this book with an entire chapter on statistics, showing the fact that Catholics in the U.S. are leaving faster than they are coming, and that even those who are sticking around are not actively engaged in living their life as Disciples. After giving the statistics, which in many cases are quite shocking, she starts to lay out what she thinks is the problem. The crux of this problem, Sherry says, is that cultural Catholicism isn't working anymore, and until we start calling our people to intentional Catholicism, and specifically intentional discipleship, we won't stop these trends. The key, she rightly observes, is that discipleship is not seen as normal; what is seen as normal is the cultural norm of going to the Church you were raised in, and yet this is not enough to sustain a person in times of difficulty or even simply times of curiosity. 

After laying out the problem, she does a wonderful job of showing the quest that most people will go on to eventually deciding to become disciple, through the various thresholds they need to experience and finally into them choosing to be intentional disciples. After walking through the thresholds, Sherry spends the last few chapters of her book talking about what those trying to evangelize others can do well, from the big picture of presenting the Gospel to the programs which have worked in various parishes and might work for yours too. 

What I Really Liked

This book does some incredible things which I think will be VERY helpful for any person who wants to spread the message of the Gospel in the modern world. I think she says a lot more than I could ask anyone to listen to me explain, so I will simply choose a couple of things I really liked, and encourage you to read the book to find more!

One thing which I think is very helpful in any difficult situation is to understand what you are up against, and Sherry does a great job of explaining the problem she is addressing. We have all seen what she is talking about as the big problem: even the people going to Church see just going as the end of their relationship with the Church, and don't ever think about living their life for Christ. If the people inside the Church don't live their lives for Christ, than why would someone from outside the Church want to join? Why would people inside the Church who have a genuine hunger for truth want to stay? The call to discipleship must be talked about and reinforced, and the people must learn who Jesus is and be given the chance to accept Him and start to live for Him. 

The other thing which I specifically want to mention is her continued emphasis throughout this book on the need to tell the Kerygma, the story of Jesus, the Gospel message. She quotes Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, who stated that "Faith as such flowers only in the presence of the Kerygma, or the announcement," and explains that announcing the Gospel has to be the start of all of our evangelistic efforts. This, I think, is what will help any person who wants to evangelize others; start with the story of Jesus, help that person see how the story of Jesus applies to them, and let that be the reason the person starts to think about the faith. When people in our parishes seem disinterested, it is because this story hasn't taken root in them; if we allow it to, then something will begin to change! 

My Main Critique 

I know that saying anything negative about this book is kind of crazy because everyone loves it, and for very good reason, but there was one specific thing which I think could be improved/changed. I should preface this by saying that I enjoyed reading this book, and I learned a lot, but I was a bit distracted by this one thing which came up a couple of times. 

The issue that I have centers around the Eucharist and the Sacraments, which she describes, as "central moments in the relationship with Christ" (p. 66). While I get the point of that part of the book, which is calling for the Gospel message to be central, what scares me is the thought of the Sacraments as moments in our relationship-I think they are much more than that. The Sacraments, and most specifically the Eucharist, should be where our life as Catholics comes from and goes to. In another part of the book, she speaks about a parish where the observation is that the central call of Discipleship brings people back to the Eucharist, and I think this is exactly right-the Sacraments aren't there as moments on our path to relationship, but they are the living out of our relationship. In an attempt to call people to really appreciate the Sacraments and to go after a relationship and not just assume that the Sacraments will take care of it, I think she misses a big part of what the Sacraments, and specifically the Eucharist, do. 

Sherry wants to make the point that we need the proper interior disposition in order to properly make the Sacraments, something for which she finds support in many Church documents, and so of course I won't argue with that. Where I grow weary, though, is in her presentation about the Eucharist as "Source and Summit" (Lumen Gentium 11); this is of course very true, but my issue is that she seems only interested in it being the summit. Since it is a summit, she says, we need to understand that in order to get to the summit we need proper preparation. While I again obviously agree, I think it is important to not that Lumen Gentium also said that the Eucharist is the source to show us that in even our preparation and growing in our faith the Eucharist has to be central. The Eucharist is not something that we have to somehow work up to being ready for-if we do, none of us could ever get to that great mystery. We do need a proper belief in order to have reverence, but the journey of our faith is not only a journey to the Eucharist, but also a journey from and with the Eucharist. I think that Sherry might agree with this, but I found it lacking in her presentation on the Sacraments, and thought it was worth noting. 

Please Read this Book

If you are someone who works for the Church, loves the Church, and wants to bring souls to Christ, this book is well worth reading. Sherry helps us to see something which truly is a problem in our world-we are not actively calling people to the Discipleship that is what Christ wants from us, and we are even surprised when people decide to live as Disciples. Instead of being surprised, she helps us see here how we can train ourselves and those we work with to understand Discipleship, and therefore be able to trust that the Holy Spirit will work, that God will call people to Discipleship, and that their lives will be radically changed. 

Again, go pick up this book-if nothing else, it will rejuvenate you in your desire to win souls for Christ and His Church. Buy the book from her website by clicking this link.