Customer Reviews

Search and Rescue: How to Bring Your Family and Friends Into or Back Into the Catholic Church

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Absolutely phenomenal work. Patrick Madrid gently takes you by the hand and shares his experience and wisdom in sharing the Gospel. Addressing the unique scenarios of people who 1) have never been in any church, 2) are in a Protestant Church and are hostile to the Catholic Church, and 3) used to be in the Church, but are now "ex-catholics" who fall into either category (1) or (2) above, Madrid equips you to handle almost any situation, to be able to interact with almost any person.

In each chapter, Madrid looks in depth at each unique situation, shares his experiences, practical wisdom, suggested reading, and a few spiritual exercises to boot. Each chapter ends with a time of reflection for you, a time of prayer (with specific printed prayers at the end of each chapter), and a list of "next steps," which cover such things as "pray the rosary once a day for a month for the person you're witnessing to," or "spend one hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament, praying for your potential convert." He also provides examples from saints, such as St. Francis DeSales, who were successful in the work of evangelization.

Madrid places the focus where it should be: not on impressing your potential convert with head-knowledge, but on personal holiness that will allow you to exhibit a loving, caring attitude towards this individual, so that your very life, not just your words, will be an invitation to join the Church.

However, Madrid does not forget the intellectual side of the preperation, and he gives a very helpful step-program, with a list of books at the end of his book that you should read for further study. He breaks this up into several phases, reading lighter material in the early phases, moving into heavier theology in the later phases.

All in all, a very practical, very helpful book. All it needs is a support group for people using Madrid's methods... (...)

Search and Rescue is a practical, hands-on style, guide to evangelizing. Patrick Madrid takes the reader into the specific steps that they need in learning how to DO evangelization. He deals with using opportunities to talk to strangers, friends, family, door-to-door evangelists, and especially the bitter ex-Catholic person that most will deal with eventually. Madrid shows you that in order to evangelize you needn't be a theological expert, but that you MUST have a proper mindset towards evangelization and the people that you are trying to evangelize. He warns that our pride and arrogance can get in the way of the best laid arguements. In fact, there are entire chapters of this book dedicated to: making sure that we are doing it for God and not for glory, not treating people like scalps to be won for the faith, making sure that we ARE sincerely friendly and loving to people (and not just trying to come across that way), and recognizing that the Holy Spirit does the true converting and that we are but tools of that conversion.

Useful ideas that will be especially gleaned by the reader of this book: making sure that you talk more to God about the person you are trying to convert than you talk to the person about God, be constantly aware of the tendancy to pride and the subsequent need for consist visits to the sacrament of confession, and being reasonably prepared to deal with common arguements.

Search and Rescue is NOT an apologetic or theological work. It is a how-to manual for APPLYING apologetic and thoelogical studies. The author gives lots of great references for where to find good study guides for the faith and apologetics, including a strong emphasis on person daily prayer and scripture reading.

This is an awesome work that will teach people how to evangelize those around us in the world, as well as how to deal with the painful situation of a close friend or family member who leaves the Church over 'issues' or because of a conversion to protestantism. Those looking to become serious about evangelizing people in the world, or those confused about what to do about the family member being wooed by charismatic protestant church members NEED this book.

In this, Patrick Madrid's newest book, the author gives some practical advice from personal experience, the wisdom of the saints, and the Word of God itself.

Some of the things which are dealt with are preperation, examination of personal motives and conscience, and different situations one will deal with in the field of apologetics. Moreover, Madrid instructs the reader in dealing with frustrations, remind them always that it is the Holy Spirit, not the evangelist, who does the actual conversions, and therefore trust must be put first and foremost not in self, but in Him.

One of the better features of the book is the recommended reading list at the end. Divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced, it should prove to be very useful to budding apologists and those who simply have a desire to learn.

My only gripe is this: the text is poorly formatted. The right-hand columns are not justified, which makes the book look unprofessional, and this is really unheard of from professional publishing houses. Hopefully they will fix this for the next printing.

Patrick Madrid takes you step by step, situation by situation, into the nuts and bolts of what it means to witness to others. He teaches with a gentle prodding to stop making excuses and get out there to bring the true faith to others. He systematically breaks down all the requisites one needs in order to be an apologist who is "always ready to make an account of the faith that is within him." If all of that were not enough, at the end of the book he compiles a comprehensive reading list from beginner to advanced so that one may slowly become familiar and acquainted with both theology and the prevailing anti-Catholic, anti-God, and secular humanist arguments that most Catholics are faced with at one time or another in their life.

This book is an excellent introduction to apologetics, and lays out a very clear and concise list of "steps" one should take in learning, re-learing, and witnessing their Catholicism to others. Madrid leaves no stone unturned and definitely prepares the new recruit for a battle unlike any the world has ever seen. However, I would also recommend this for the more advanced apologists as well that they may remind themselves of what they might have forgotten in the midst of their constant battles.

I highly recommend this book and guarantee you will find it quite informative, not to mention, an excellent reference book when you move from beginner to more advanced.

God Bless

One night my sister invited a friend for dinner and I beat him over the head with questions about being Lutheran. I was so ashamed of it later...I only wish I would have read Search and Rescue earlier! I love being Catholic, I just did not know how to share my joy with others properly. This book gave advice straight from the Bible and the saints on how to share our faith. The descriptions about fallen-away Catholics were just like MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY. The book not only told me what aspects of a person's background to take into consideration, but it also helped me examine my own motives. Best of all, Search and Rescue outlines a "Reading Plan" for Preliminary and Intermediate sources, which I plan to dive right into, so I can start filling in the information I am missing about my faith.

Search And Rescue: How To Bring Your Family And Friends Into (Or Back Into) the Catholic Church is the first practical volume to provide specific help to Catholics who want to win back friends and relatives who have become inactive in the Catholic faith. The message is that rank-and-file Catholics need not be biblical scholars or learned theologians to operate as effective spokespersons for the Catholic Faith and still win souls to the Catholic Church through the use of prayer, friendship, and common sense. Search And Rescue is highly recommended for anyone seeking effective strategies for apologetics and evangelization with respect to friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members.

This is the one book that really opened my eyes to the reality of the issues about most non-catholics. This book is the practical guide to anyone who always wanted to share their Catholic faith to non-catholics but don't know how. Offer lots of Prayers for the conversion of non-catholics and then follow what this book says. It is not our clever arguements that converts people but the loving grace of Jesus Christ our God. As St. Francis said: "Evangelize always using words only when necessary." This 'Search and Rescue' book really shows 'How to Bring Your Family and Friends Into, or Back Into, the Catholic Church.'

We hear a lot of talk these days in Catholic cirlces about "evangelism" and "the new evangelization," and ask ourselves "OK, how?" Madrid's new book "Search and Rescue" answers that question quite handily. Before reverting back to the Catholic faith from a long stint in evangelical Protestantism I had become familiar with any number of books (and programs e.g. "Evangelism Explosion") written by Protestants for Protestants on how to share the good news of Jesus with others. As a Protestant I often found books of that genre quite helpful. When I came back to the Catholic Church this past year I was disappointed at the dearth of like books written for a specifically lay Catholic audience. With Madrid's new book he has provided lay Catholics who want to share their faith a much-needed guide as to the what-to-do and what-not-to-do's as the opportunities present themselves.

My only disappointment (a minor one) was that in his otherwise thorough bibliography of recommended reading in the back of the book he did not include any of Lorene Hanley Duquin's excellent books such as "When a Loved One Leaves the Church" (published by Our Sunday Visitor Press) or "Could You Ever Become a Catholic?" (published by Alba House Publishing). Although not written as handbooks for evangelism per-se, they provide a very broad overview of the many reasons Catholics leave the Church, or why those outside convert. [...]

The title of this review says it all. I have consumed several books on the Catholic Faith and apolgetics, but this is the frosting on the cake.

Madrid gives the reader advice on the in's and out's of Catholic apologetics with a level of compassion that is greatly appreciated. Suddenly, after reading this book, I have a renewed sense of love for my faith and a desire to share it with others in a more passionate and charitable way.

Search and Rescue is a thought-provoking and compelling book that should become required reading in every Catholic high school. As Catholics, many of us do a very poor job of sharing our faith with others. We're either reluctant to get into discussions with our Protestant friends, or we may have a condescending attitude about our faith that pushes others away. This book will prepare, encourage, and empower you to share your Catholic faith with family, friends, and others, and could quite possibly help to bring them into or back into the Catholic Church.

From his many years as a successful apologist, Patrick Madrid shares his experiences with why you should evangelize, what your mindset needs to be for God to work through you, evangelizing without words, how to prepare yourself mentally and spiritually to engage in discussions, how to approach others about your faith, how to endure failures, and, ultimately, how to trust the process to God, who is the only One who can truly bring non-Catholics back to the Church. Additionally, Search and Rescue is filled with inspirational quotes and prayers from some of the greatest saints, popes, and evangelists in the Church's history, and ends with an excellent reading plan for improving your skills at being God's messenger.