Rescue Marana: ‘What if there is a different story?’

By Carissa Krautscheid

Every community needs some degree of spiritual rescue. St. Christopher Catholic Church is stepping forward to help ‘rescue’ Marana by offering The Rescue Project to the parish and diocesan community, to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. 

 

“We are all shaped by a story. The choices we make, the way we live, the things we believe - the way we see life itself - are the result of the stories that we have accepted as truthful accounts of reality. Our modern world presents the story that we are personally liberated, no longer connected to anything beyond ourselves, free to do whatever we like. And we have never been more unhappy. The Rescue Project proposes a simple question: What if there's a different story - a story that engages people to answer the deepest cries of the human heart?” 

 

Fr. John Riccardo and his team at Acts XXIX developed The Rescue Project to “propose a different story,” said Fr. Riccardo. “It’s known as the Gospel. The most urgent evangelistic task is the compelling proclamation of the Gospel in such a way that people are overwhelmed and brought to a decision to entrust themselves to Jesus Christ. This task is all the more urgent with every passing day.” 

 

Alongside small groups and meals, the multi-week series “tells the story that is the Gospel, offers an opportunity for a Spirit-filled response to what is proclaimed, and catapults us out into the world on mission to go and rescue others.” 

 

“The Rescue Project is very impactful and is growing by leaps and bounds,” explained Mark Lenox, office manager at St. Christopher. “Fr. Edson and I are very excited! I have run it here before, as the inquiry period of OCIA, and will be doing so again. It was also used very effectively in the prison ministry in Marana before the prison was closed.”

 

Lenox says the experience builds over the course of the series, “Our Response to the Good News will always be in proportion to realizing how explosive the Good News really is, which is the Rescued part of the series. Stepping back from that, many or most of us don't comprehend that the Good News is really overwhelming news because we don't fully understand just how bad the bad news is. This is the Captured part of the series. None of that matters at all without an understanding that we each see life through lenses which came to be through the stories about life we have come to believe are the truth, reality. The series proposes a different story from the one offered by the world: the Biblical story. Through this, we come to accept and believe that we were Created by a God who is all-powerful, all-loving, and takes action in our lives.” 

 

Beginning this week, St. Christopher Parish will be offering The Rescue Project series from October 20 until December 15. If you aren’t able to attend this season, the parish will be offering it again during Lent, or you can ask your pastor about ‘rescuing’ your parish community as well. 

 

We all need rescuing, and we all need the truly good news of the Gospel.