The Christian message is viewed the same way people view door-to-door salesmen, Powell told 850 Christian university students attending CCO Rise Up 2013 Dec. 28 to Jan. 1 in Ottawa. Even if the salesman has a great product, we are “reticent,” Powell said.

“He has not earned our trust.”

A 2007 Pew Research study in the United States showed only 30 per cent of those raised as Catholics were still practising as adults, he said.

Thirty-eight per cent hang on to the Catholic label, but they are cultural Catholics with little to no religious association.

And 32 per cent of those who no longer consider themselves Catholics identify as having no religious identity, Powell said.

Of those raised Catholic who leave, 79 per cent have done so by the age of 23, he said.

“You are right in the heart of the storm,” he said, noting this generation will be the “most consequential” for ensuring the Gospel is passed on.
“We have to engage the world in a new way,” he said.

Building trust means we must be “better at pre-evangelizing,” Powell said.

“Evangelization takes place in the context of relationship,” he said. “When trust is high, communication is easy.”

Powell said a key way to build trust is to make and keep promises.

“We want to be people of our word,” he said.

In the Church world, the negative effect of breaking our promises has been most evident in the clergy abuse scandal, where individual people and lives have been horribly affected.

“The first threshold of trust has never been more important or more difficult,” he said.