Guest Post By: Caleb Burbach, Founder of the Creedo App
For the past few years, I’ve worked as a Catholic missionary on a college campus. Most of what I know about evangelization has come from conversations with students in Bible studies, over coffee, after Mass, or sometimes just from walking up to someone on campus and seeing where the conversation goes.
At the same time, I’ve spent the last year building Creedo, a Catholic learning app. That has given me another perspective on the same question. I get to see what people actually want to learn about the faith, where they get stuck, and what gets them interested enough to keep going. I certainly haven’t figured out how to evangelize an entire generation, but I have learned a few things from trying.
You don’t need to have all the answers. You need to be willing to find them.
The other day, a student named Zach asked me a question about a dispute involving a papal election. It was obscure enough that I had absolutely no idea what the answer was. Fortunately, my friend Paul was nearby, so I called him over. Paul didn’t know either, but he knew his friend Gideon might. A few minutes later, we were calling Gideon, who actually knew what Zach was talking about and was able to answer his question.
I love that story because Catholics can be unnecessarily afraid of being asked something we don’t know. If you talk about the faith with enough people, eventually somebody is going to stump you. College students have asked me questions I never would have thought to prepare for, and pretending to know an answer usually doesn’t help anyone.
“I don’t know, but let’s find out” is a perfectly good answer. It shows someone that his question is worth taking seriously. You don’t have to become a walking encyclopedia before you can evangelize. Be curious with people, know people who know more than you, and be willing to make a phone call.
Most young people are more curious than we give them credit for.
It’s easy to talk about Gen Z as if they’ve collectively decided they aren’t interested in religion. Working on a college campus makes that hard for me to believe. I’ve had conversations with students about the Eucharist, dating, confession, suffering, vocation, Scripture, and all sorts of strange corners of Catholicism. Sometimes those conversations begin with someone who barely practices the faith. Other times, a student has been Catholic his whole life and suddenly realizes there is a huge amount about Catholicism he has never learned.
Building Creedo has made this even more obvious to me. One of the things that continues to surprise me is how much Catholic content people will voluntarily work through. People will sit on their phones and complete lesson after lesson about the faith because they actually want to know this stuff.
I’ve met plenty of young Catholics who know surprisingly little about their faith but become interested as soon as somebody gives them a chance to learn about it. A young Catholic may never pick up a theology textbook on his own, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about theology. Give him a place to ask questions or an easy way to learn something, and you may be surprised where it goes.
Give them Catholicism.
I’ve been surprised by how interested students can be in the parts of Catholicism we sometimes assume will scare them away. The Eucharist is interesting. Confession is interesting. The Magisterium life is interesting. The saints are really interesting. Even difficult Church teachings can lead to great conversations when you explain them seriously and give someone room to ask questions or disagree.
Of course, this doesn’t mean dumping the entire Catechism on somebody during your first conversation. There’s a time and place for everything. But young people appreciate being taken seriously. They spend all day being advertised to, and they’re pretty good at noticing when somebody is giving them a sales pitch.
We can be patient with people encountering the Church while still trusting them enough to tell them what the Church actually teaches. Some will disagree, others will surprise you with how receptive they are. Either way, there’s no reason to be embarrassed by Catholicism when we’re trying to introduce someone to it.
Make the first step easy.
One thing missionary work and building Creedo have both taught me is how much the size of the first step matters. Imagine someone who realizes at 19 that he knows almost nothing about his faith. Where is he supposed to begin? Someone might tell him to read the Catechism. That’s a great thing to do, but it’s a pretty big first assignment for someone who is only beginning to be curious.
This question is part of what led me to build Creedo. I wondered why learning about Catholicism couldn’t borrow some ideas from the apps and games young people already understand. You can complete a short lesson, answer a few questions, earn XP, and come back tomorrow. None of that replaces serious study, but it gives someone a place to start.
I see the same thing on campus. Asking a student to come to Mass with you this Sunday is a lot easier than handing him a complete plan for rebuilding his spiritual life. Once someone starts moving, you can help him figure out what comes next.
Learn their name.
I spend a lot of time thinking about technology and new ways to teach the faith because of Creedo. But when I think about the students I actually know on campus, most of the important stuff has happened through friendship.
I’ve never had a student tell me that he returned to the faith because a ministry had excellent programming. There’s usually a person somewhere in the story. Somebody invited him to Mass, somebody kept inviting him to Bible study even after he said no, a priest remembered him, or a missionary asked how he was doing and actually waited for the answer.
That’s also why I don’t think an app like Creedo, or any Catholic media project, can finish the job. I would consider it a failure if someone used Creedo every day but never became more involved in the actual life of the Church. Eventually you have to go to Mass, receive the sacraments, pray when your phone isn’t reminding you, and become part of a community where somebody notices when you disappear.
The longer I work with college students, the harder it is for me to be pessimistic about evangelizing young people. I meet plenty who know very little about Catholicism, including Catholics who grew up in the Church. But I also meet students like Zach, who will ask a question about an obscure papal election dispute that sends three of us scrambling to find him an answer. That’s a pretty good problem to have. I didn’t know the answer to Zach’s question. Paul didn’t either. We found someone who did, and Zach got his answer. A lot of evangelization is more ordinary than we make it out to be.
Related Links
Inspired by Duolingo, Catholic missionary launches Creedo faith app
About Caleb
Caleb Burbach is the founder and developer of Creedo, a Catholic learning app that makes growing in the faith engaging and accessible through short, gamified lessons. He also serves as a FOCUS missionary at Boise State University, where he works directly with college students in evangelization and discipleship. Through Creedo, Caleb hopes to help Catholics of all ages know their faith more deeply and confidently share it with others.
