This July, New Evangelization completed its 15th year in existence. It has been an amazing and challenging opportunity to serve the Lord. Most of all, it has been extremely humbling for me. The constancy of the challenge to “live what you preach” has given cause to cry out to God for help. Not primarily during the difficult battles, but in the day-to-day obedience of God’s will.

Early on, I was asked to start preaching evangelistic missions by parishes who were looking for help to get their parish ignited once again their faith. As I preached, I witnessed the Holy Spirit lighting hearts on fire. This is always an amazing experience. However, as I would follow up a few weeks later, I was getting the same reports. “The Parish was on fire for three or four weeks and then it just fizzled out.”

What became clear was that the Spirit was moving in hearts of those in attendance, but the parishes had nothing planned to follow up. I began to feel guilty about that and knew that something had to change. God, as usual, goes ahead of us and touched a simple soul to get me moving.

While in Idaho, preaching at another parish that had no follow up prepared, God confronted me through a man named Henry. He was a seventy-three-year-old farmer who heard the homily, was intrigued, and decided to attend one night. He was, after all, too busy to go all four nights.

When the first night was done, I was speaking with two women in the front row when I saw Henry walking up the center aisle. He had an angry look on his face, and marched up the aisle as if he was going to explode on me. Honestly, my heart started beating rapidly in fear.

When the ladies were done, Henry stepped and said in a very firm voice: “Deacon, I need to meet with you. How about tomorrow at 1 o’clock pm?”  I said that would be fine and we agreed to meet at the parish office. Then Henry turned around and walked away as intentional as when he came in.

The next day, Henry joined me in the office conference room. I sat across from him and braced myself for a difficult conversation. Then he launched into his statement. “Deacon, I gotta tell you that you lit my heart on fire last night.”  My heart calmed down as I looked at his face which turned from stern to excited. “I want to know how to keep this fire going because I don’t want to lose this.”

I simply told him to go to his parish staff and ask them for help. He rejected my advice and informed me that I was going to do it now. He then proceeded to pull out a little spiral notebook and a pencil. Caught off guard, I started praying and asking the Holy Spirit what to do. The Spirit responded with “What did Ron do?”

Ron was a Youth Evangelist that helped me not only encounter Christ, but also trained me up in the four fundamental disciplines of a disciple of Jesus Christ. For six amazing months, Ron met with me weekly and taught me how to follow Jesus with the Holy Spirit. He held me accountable and made sure that I was praying and studying Scripture daily. He encouraged me to join a group of other young men and share our discipleship journey with each other and he encouraged me to go to Mass.

I simply shared each of those disciplines with Henry and ninety minutes later, we were done. Henry asked if I had this information written down in book format. Once I responded with no, Henry’s face turned from excited to stern. He immediately replied with “You need to get that done.”

Seven months later, I published our first booklet entitled “Pick Up Your Cross and Follow Me.” Since that time, we have sold over fifteen thousand copies and the they keep selling.

I have had the opportunity to return to places I have been in the past and talk with people who have purchased this little tool that Henry inspired. What I have found is that there is one common theme that every disciple struggles with. Keeping the daily disciplines going.

When I work with my disciples, I am constantly asking them to give me an account of their daily disciplines. Why? Because no matter how many years you have been walking with the Lord, Satan’s first point of attack is to get you to stop praying, studying God’s Word and applying it. He can’t lead you into greater sin until you break communication with God.

The first and most important death of a disciple is to die the death of daily prayer. This is the reason why this simple little booklet of instruction and accountability was given that name. We pick up our crosses and follow Jesus to His death. This means we pick up our crosses and go to our little deaths.

I am convinced that every disciple will encounter struggles in this area throughout all their lives. No matter how devoted one can be to the Lord, their consistency in prayer can wane over time. No one can go full speed all the time. We tend to go in cycles. This is a discipline (cross) that is most often dropped and we need to be vigilant about maintaining our communication with our Lord and Master.

Let us re-engage in our discipline to pray. Let us remember that we must deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily and follow the King!