The third habit is Clarity and Conviction about Spiritual Multiplication.
"I'm going to work with a few people, get very intentional about knowing about Christ, following Christ, living for Christ, and then inviting them to go out and invite others to do the same," Martin explained. "You impart not only faithfulness, as essential as faithfulness is, you impart fruitfulness, which is exactly what Jesus did."
On the theme of investing deeply in a few close friends, Martin again drew the conversation back to the methods Jesus used to proclaim God's Kingdom. Martin said Jesus taught his apostles, first and foremost, to love by investing deeply in them and sometimes only them.
"The Savior of the entire world...His methodology was to find twelve guys and go camping for three years," Martin reflected. "He invested profoundly, deeply, in twelve guys in order to reach the whole world, but he imparted not just faithfulness, He imparted fruitfulness. And those twelve men, by the power of Christ, changed the world. And we can do the same by returning to the Method Modeled by the Master."
Jesus, Martin said, regularly rendered the extraordinary as ordinary, by performing miracles on a daily basis. However, Jesus also rendered the ordinary extraordinary by "loving beautifully" in the Holy Family, with Mary and Joseph, for the first 30 years of His life. Martin said no one since Adam and Eve have been able to love each other as much as Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did.
The Church has that capacity for love, Martin said, and saints "come in groups."
"It's really hard to become a saint by yourself," he said. "To be able to walk toward Christ with others allows us to fulfill that great command to love God and love neighbor."
Martin said his organization conducted research on FOCUS alumni, who are now no longer college students or full-time missionaries, but rather full-time parents or full-time professionals. Martin said they're now living the "normal life," but they're "living the normal life extraordinarily well."
In a certain sense, Martin said, this makes sense: college students are at the height of frivolity in their lives, distracted by such things as video games, alcohol, and even recreational drugs. As a result, as a group, college campuses are often not receptive to the Gospel.
"[College students] also happen to be at one of the most pivotal times in their lives," Martin said. "Whereas when you move a few years down your life, and all of a sudden you're a married [person], maybe you've got a few kids, and you meet someone who's living for Christ."
Martin argued that a father or mother, or a husband and wife, who are struggling with communication, balancing their budget, raising their children, or praying, will be more likely to seek the advice and companionship of a radiant Christian person.
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For this reason, the "ground is much more fertile," Martin said, in a parish than it is at a university.
The book, "Making Missionary Disciples: How to Live the Method Modeled by the Master" is available this week from FOCUS.org and from Amazon.
Jonah McKeown is a staff writer and podcast producer for Catholic News Agency. He holds a Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has worked as a writer, as a producer for public radio, and as a videographer. He is based in St. Louis.