The Art of Educating the Evangelist

Exploring the Word on Fire Institute’s Certification Tracks

Recently, Tod Worner, the Editor in Chief of Evangelization & Culture, had the opportunity to chat with Word on Fire Institute Assistant Director Joshua Bitting about a new offering from the Word on Fire Institute known as certification tracks.

This interview first appeared in Issue 24: “Music” of the Evangelization & Culture journal.

Tod Worner: Joshua, it is great to spend this time with you. Let’s start with a little background about you. How did you find your way to Word on Fire, and in what role are you currently serving?

Joshua Bitting: My pathway to Word on Fire has been somewhat circuitous, though filled with blessings and providential surprises. I was raised Southern Baptist in Wichita, Kansas, where I received a strong biblical foundation that has served me well throughout my life. In 2003, after a two-year period of intense study and fervent prayer during my last two years of college, I was received into full communion with the Catholic Church on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi at Holy Name Catholic Church in Winfield, Kansas.

After becoming Catholic, I had the opportunity to move to Steubenville, Ohio, to begin a master’s program in theology at Franciscan University. This time of deep intellectual formation accompanied by deep prayer and growing intimacy with Christ was a true grace! While at Franciscan, I met my soon-to-be wife, Amanda, and formed lasting friendships. After graduation, Amanda and I were wed in her home state of Virginia. Since then, God has blessed us with seven wonderful children and one more on the way!

For the past twenty years I have served the Church in a variety of capacities: Catholic school teacher, parish director of religious education, diocesan director of faith formation, and program director for a Catholic nonprofit. My first exposure to Word on Fire was Bishop Barron’s YouTube movie review on The Departed by Martin Scorsese. When the Catholicism series came out, I made use of it in RCIA and adult formation to great effect. What struck me about the Catholicism series was the panache with which then–Father Barron showed forth the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Catholic faith. Soon I began reading everything I could get my hands on from this master evangelist and teacher and found inspiration and encouragement to proclaim the Catholic faith with renewed vigor and enthusiasm in my own capacity as a lay leader in the Church.

When the position of Assistant Director of the Word on Fire Institute was announced, I jumped at the opportunity to help further Bishop Barron’s evangelizing movement. When I was invited to accept the position on the feast day of St. John Paul II, one of the great patrons of Word on Fire, I received it as a sign that God was calling my family and me to go out “into the deep” in order to advance Word on Fire’s mission to proclaim Christ in the culture.

The Word on Fire Institute was launched in 2018 and has been thriving ever since with tens of thousands of members. What exactly is the Word on Fire Institute, and what purpose does it serve?

The Word on Fire Institute was founded by Bishop Barron to advance Word on Fire’s mission to proclaim Christ in the culture. The Institute embodies and advances this mission by providing intellectual and spiritual formation within the Word on Fire ethos that equips evangelists to communicate the beauty, goodness, and truth of the Catholic faith. Through our app and website, we are a community of communities, a place to be and become Catholic with and for others while also learning and growing in the faith through the highest quality educational, formational, and evangelical resources.

The evangelist must be evangelically agile in order to engage with the challenges to Christian faith that come their way.

The Institute is built on three complementary pillars: (1) a wide variety of courses; (2) consistent access to Word on Fire professors, fellows, and staff; and (3) numerous opportunities for you to participate in lively and thoughtful formation communities with like-minded evangelists.

Over the past five years, the Institute has expanded to thirty thousand members strong and growing. Through an extensive array of courses, interactive live seminars, and series events, complemented by dynamic communities of like-minded evangelists, the Institute has become the place to drink deeply from wells of the Catholic faith and to be sent forth boldly to proclaim the Gospel of the risen Christ to a culture thirsting for meaning and purpose.

There are two reasons, in particular, for having such a diverse assortment of offerings. First of all, as Bishop Barron has pointed out, the Catholic evangelist must have many tools at his or her disposal in order to proclaim Christ in the culture. The evangelist must be evangelically agile in order to engage with the challenges to Christian faith that come their way; consequently, there is a need to engage with a diverse range of topics and areas of study in order to build their evangelical tool kit.

Second, each evangelist discovers their own particular vocation within the circumstances of their life. The apostolic field of the medical doctor will be distinct from that of the school teacher. Likewise, spouses and parents have a different calling by virtue of their state in life than that of a parish priest or a religious sister. For this reason, though all of our offerings are evangelically oriented, they also represent the different audiences to whom the Gospel is addressed as well as the distinct yet complementary states in life of our members.

Among the courses offered by the Institute, two in particular come to mind. The first, Evangelizing Post-Christian Cultures, is a recently launched course by Brenden Thompson, our UK Program Director. Brenden does a masterful job of providing the thirty-thousand-foot view of the culture while at the same time offering concrete strategies for evangelists that give them the confidence to share the Catholic faith with others. The second offering is our first-ever Lent Retreat, Return to the Heart, offered this past Lent. Robbie Ocampo, our Institute Communities Manager, along with our wonderful production crew, crafted a series of twenty-minute segments featuring Fr. Boniface Hicks—a Benedictine monk who is an acclaimed author and speaker—as the retreat master. Each week of Lent, a new video was sent to Institute members along with questions for discussion and prompts for prayer, encouraging them to journey together through Lent and to draw near the heart of Christ through the deep mysticism of the Catholic faith.

Word on Fire certificates are something new. What is a certificate, and why does it matter?

The idea for Word on Fire Institute certificates arose as a response to Bishop Barron’s call for an army of evangelists dedicated to fruitful and effective apostolic engagement in the context of daily life. In order to proclaim Christ in the culture, Word on Fire evangelists need formation that will equip them for mission in the midst of the world. There will eventually be eight distinct certification tracks to assist evangelists in deepening their own missionary formation. These different certificates will form evangelists in the Word on Fire ethos in several distinct areas of expertise, including theology, philosophy and apologetics, the arts, Catholic education, prayer, and the sciences.

Our desire for these certificates is to use them as a vehicle to form and mobilize zealous apostles of the risen Christ for the twenty-first century.

Each certificate includes a curated sequence of eight to ten courses, which include video segments followed by short quizzes that guide participants progressively deeper into a distinct area of expertise. Those who complete the full sequence of courses and successfully pass all of the quizzes will receive a certificate from the Word on Fire Institute honoring their achievement and their commitment to ongoing formation. These certificates matter because they provide a solution to the problem of a dumbed-down Catholicism by immersing participants in the richness of the faith through the greatest thinkers, saints, artists, poets, and teachers in the Catholic tradition. They also provide an avenue for intellectually rigorous and spiritually sustaining formation for those who are not able to pursue a degree program. Our desire for these certificates is to use them as a vehicle to form and mobilize zealous apostles of the risen Christ for the twenty-first century.

Let’s talk about what you have envisioned as the inaugural certification track: The Evangelical Ethos of Bishop Barron. What courses would be included in this certification track, and what would be the objective you would seek for those who participate?

The inaugural certification track appropriately focuses on a representative collection of ten classic Bishop Barron courses. This first track will guide evangelists into an exploration of Bishop’s characteristic approach to communicating the splendor of Catholicism—its worship, art, architecture, literature, music, intellectual heritage, and the holiness of the saints. These courses will initiate participants in the distinctive ethos of Word on Fire by (1) focusing on reaching the disaffiliated, (2) leveraging the new media, (3) proclaiming the Gospel with joyful confidence, and (4) engaging the culture (both high and low).

The courses included in The Evangelical Ethos of Bishop Barron certificate are:

8 Principles of Word on Fire
Catholicism
Catholicism: The New Evangelization
Catholicism: The Pivotal Players
The Mystery of God
The Creed
The Mass
Conversion
7 Deadly Sins, 7 Lively Virtues
Untold Blessing: Three Paths to Holiness

Participants in The Evangelical Ethos of Bishop Barron will come away with a renewed appreciation for and commitment to the genius of the Catholic faith and its all-encompassing vision.

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This strikes me as a very good idea as it thematically organizes a collection of outstanding Institute offerings that many would not have assembled themselves. Have you been heartened by how much good material there is to support a particular theme?

In short, yes, it has indeed been a heartening experience to curate these courses! There is in fact a deep inner logic to the fifty-plus offerings that make up the Institute course collection. As I viewed each of the courses in turn, I couldn’t help but marvel at the ways in which the beauty, goodness, and truth of Catholicism shine through them. It is astounding how much excellent content Word on Fire has produced, and my hope is that these collections of courses will provide Institute members a guiding thread through significant themes central to Catholic faith and life.

Who do you anticipate will be the primary consumers of these certification tracks? Do you anticipate that these tracks may serve as strong points on a resumé or continuing education for those whose daily work involves evangelization?

Participants of every level of knowledge will find a track appropriate to them. One that I am particularly excited about is called Evangelization 101: Getting Started. As the title suggests, this is a great place to begin for those new to the Institute or seeking to gain a basic grasp of what it means to evangelize. Another track, Catholic Education for Evangelists, offers formation for Catholic educators of all types, including teachers, parents, and school principals. The Theology for Evangelists and Philosophy for Evangelists tracks offer an opportunity for those engaged in the work of teaching within these disciplines to receive continuing education in their respective fields. My hope is that these certificates will provide a clear roadmap and encouragement for all who desire to share the Catholic faith but often do not feel confident to do so.

Is there some kind of quiz or assessment that accompanies these certification tracks?

Yes! After each lesson, there is an accompanying quiz that assesses knowledge of the course content. The aim of these quizzes is to help participants to measure their own grasp of the material. There will also be an opportunity for a deeper dive into the content by journeying along with a community within the Word on Fire Institute app and website.

What other certification tracks can Institute members anticipate? And how soon will they be available?

As mentioned above, the first certificate will be The Evangelical Ethos of Bishop Barron, which will launch this summer. This is appropriate, since Bishop Barron’s style of evangelization is most clearly and comprehensively unpacked in his courses. It is also the most wide ranging in that it draws from several different disciplines to show forth the genius of Catholicism: theology, philosophy, art, architecture, literature, Sacred Scripture, the liturgy, and the saints. Subsequent certificates will then drill down into many of these disciplines in a more particular way. We plan to launch at least one certification track per season, with four tracks being released each year. The certificates, in order of release, include:

Evangelization 101: How to Begin
Catholic Education for Evangelization
Theology for Evangelization
Philosophy and Apologetics for Evangelization
The Arts for Evangelization
Faith and Science for Evangelization
Prayer for Evangelization

Finally, Joshua, how do you think these certification tracks will help people in evangelizing the culture?

These certification tracks will provide a much-needed road map for evangelists who seek to proclaim Christ in the culture intentionally, intelligently, and with ardor. They accomplish this through putting participants in touch with the best that has been thought, written, spoken, and created in the Catholic intellectual tradition. As Bishop Barron has said many times, our tradition is both rich and multifaceted. It is the tradition of Augustine, Aquinas, and John Henry Newman. It is also the tradition of Fra Angelico, G. K. Chesterton, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Georges Lemaître. By immersing themselves in this rich and living Catholic tradition, evangelists will be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to engage both high and popular culture by drawing out the “seeds of the Word” in order to renew and transform the culture through Christ, in Christ, and with Christ.