[00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome to the Quip Cast. So today I'm gonna share with you a talk I gave at the Big Focus conference. Seek 2025 out in Salt Lake City this January. It was a great time, a lot of fun to be out with, uh, old friends, uh, to connect with people from around the country. A lot of folks from the Archdiocese of Omaha that came out.

I gotta talk about what it takes to build a culture of missionary discipleship in your parish. Uh, it's the big picture, the role of mission and vision, organizational health, and of course the role of building a clear path of discipleship. It was a lot of fun. There's a great, great crowd and, uh, awesome chance for me just to highlight and give some shout outs to the work of parishes here from the Archdiocese of Omaha.

Alright, I think you'll enjoy it. Take a listen. Oh, and if you wanna know more about the next set of big focus conferences, uh, seek 2026. Check out the show notes. Hey everybody. [00:01:00] Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission.

Let's go.

My lovely wife Kim, and I have been married for, I'm getting choked up anytime I think about her, uh, for 23 years. Please don't be distracted by the black halo over her head. She's really a lovely person. Uh, our oldest, uh, JP John Paul. He's the one on the left. Yeah. He just accepted a position as a focus missionary, so that makes him like just of a handful of second generation missionaries.

I served as a missionary and now he's gonna start on campus this fall, uh, as a missionary. And I wanted to start this way, one, because it's always a great way to start talks by showing pictures of cute kids, but I think it's relevant to our topic [00:02:00] because by God's grace. All of our children have a missionary heart, and I say that it is totally by God's grace.

There were a lot of really dicey times, but as I reflected on this talk and I reflected on some of the beautiful things that God has been doing in my family, this one thing came shouting out of all the things that we did to try and teach our kids the faith, to try and even teach them about mission and zeal for souls, the most important thing that we did.

Was we actually lived as missionaries because it turns out that culture is shaped by what we do. So if you take nothing else away from this talk, remember that culture is shaped by what we do. So I'm gonna be honest with you right up front. It's really hard to build a culture of missionary discipleship in a parish.

It's not rocket science. It's not complicated, but it's hard because it involves change, and change is hard. The good [00:03:00] news is I'm gonna share with you some things, uh, a synthesis, if you will, from parishes that have actually done it. 'cause it's not common. Most parishes haven't, right? It's fits and starts and there's pitfalls along the way and there's lots of discouragement.

I'm gonna share with you three keys from parishes that have actually developed a culture of missionary discipleship. And this is honestly really personal for me. Part of the, the motivation of this, you know, I was blessed to work on some of the most fruitful campuses. That focus has, and I got to work alongside Hall of Fame, all star missionaries.

I was blessed to be teammates with servant of God, Michelle Dupan, and here's the crazy thing. Because of my unique circumstances staying in one place for the entire time, I'd only saw them come to campus, get their life changed by the Lord, become amazingly fruitful, courageous, fearless missionaries. I got to see them land in parishes.

I got to see them start their families. And there were some parishes where we'd have 2, 3, 4, [00:04:00] even a dozen former student and staff missionaries in a parish. And you know what would happen when we would get that many missionaries together at one parish? Almost nothing. And I was kind of disappointed by that.

I'm like, what's going on? Well. Turns out, and there's a lot of things going on there. And to be clear, right, they were faithful Catholics and that is not to be assumed. And they're trying to raise their kids Catholic. And that's not to be assumed either. That's something to be grateful for. But we wanted more than that.

We wanted them to be salt and light. We wanted them to change their neighborhood and their place of work, and we wanted 'em to go get their fallen away family members. And they were members of the pastoral council and they were singing in the choir, but they weren't making disciples. As it turns out, making disciples is, it's like being a fruitful vine or an apple tree.

You're just gonna make [00:05:00] grape. You're just gonna grow grapes. You're just gonna make apples. But for a missionary disciple to be really fruitful, or for a vine to be really fruitful, it needs a trellis. It needs a structure so that it can bear the most fruit. So that's what I'm gonna be sharing with. I'm gonna talk a little bit about how do you build a clear path to discipleship.

So we're gonna start this talk. I'm gonna, we're gonna talk about what is a, what does a culture of missionary discipleship look like? Then I'm give the three keys of how to build it. So here we go. What does a culture of missionary discipleship look like? First off, I think it's outward looking right?

Mission means to be sent. And so there, it's looking outward it, it's interested in outsiders. It's a place where pre people freely talk about their relationship with Jesus and they freely talk about the mission of Jesus. It's a place where there's an expectation of growth as a disciple, and there's an expectation for mission, right?

For personal apostolate. It's [00:06:00] a place that celebrates conversion because culture is what we celebrate and what we tolerate. It's the, the sum of what we value. All the things that we do, whether we like it or not, whether it's helpful or not, they communicate who we are and what we value. So I'll give you some metaphors here.

A a, a parish with a culture of missionary discipleship might feel a little bit like a fire station or a military outpost or maybe a hospital. Where the health and feeding of the staff and the members there isn't just for their own sake, right? It's not a resort, it's not a cruise ship, it's a battleship.

The health and care of the members is at the service of the non-members because we exist as parishes, at least in part. For our non-members, [00:07:00] we have a mission to make disciples. So how would you measure that? Like what would that actually look like? Well, mass attendance is helpful and that's not a bad metric.

'cause if we're honest, unless you're in a large suburban parish where the real estate market is booming and there's more people moving in faster than people are leaving, or maybe your parish is blessed with immigration and you have a lot of new families coming in that way, chances are your mass attendance has been declining.

But you gotta look deeper than mass attendance. I mean, mass attendance matters, but what you're looking for is the fruit of changed lives. What you're looking for is that your parishioners have made, disciples have drawn people to the Lord from their friends, their family, their coworkers, and their neighbors.

That's what you're looking for. Alright, so I'm gonna ask you to get involved here. I'm gonna ask you to hold up your hands. Scale of one to five. Five meaning like we are nailing it. We are a parish where missionary [00:08:00] discipleship is our culture. One is not so much you pick, right? 2, 3, 4 in the middle. So scale of one to 10, five is, we're nailing it.

One is, eh, maybe not. Okay. Ready? Hands up. I wanna see here. Okay. Lot of twos, lot of ones, lot of threes. Are there any fives? Okay. I'm glad you're here. Let's jump into this. Okay. Key number one, clarity about the mission and vision. Listen, like we have to know why we're here. So mission, sometimes we use these two interchangeably, but mission is all about what we're sent to do, and that's very universal.

Jesus at the end, I mean, literally the last thing he does before he like lifts off from the earth is, I, I know it didn't look like that, but like the last thing he does before he lifts off the earth, he's like, go therefore and make disciples of all nations. And it doesn't matter [00:09:00] what parish you're in, it doesn't matter what church ministry you're in.

You are under that mission to go and make disciples. I love the way, uh, Saint Pope Paul, the six translates this, he says, evangelization is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the church. Her deepest identity, she exists in order to evangelize. Now, if he wasn't a pope and a saint, you might think he's exaggerating.

He's just translating what Jesus said, right to like, to evangelize is the making and maturing of disciples. And there could be a, we can have a broad definition of evangelization. Lots of things can fit in there, but evangelization is our core identity. And although way Pope Francis picks up on this 'cause when he talks about you like, okay, what would it mean if we actually began to live this out?

He, he refers to it as a [00:10:00] missionary impulse. What if there was a missionary impulse that began to transform the church? He says, I dream of a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything so that the church's customs ways of doing things, times and schedules, languages and structures can be suitably channeled.

Wait for it for the evangelization of today's world rather than for herself preservation. There is very little that should not be affected by this missionary impulse. And I love the way Pope Francis said this, but I mean this is culture. It's all the stuff that we do that communicates who we are and what we value.

So why does it matter? Well, it matters 'cause there's only two kinds of parishes, right? That would be four. There's only two kinds of parishes. On the one hand, you have parishes that [00:11:00] have made missionary disciples of every single soul in their geographic territory. Look it up In Canon law, that's the responsibility.

Anybody here from New Orleans? Right. You call your counties parishes. Yeah. Right. St. Charles Parish like, like the parish usually has a geographic boundary, or maybe it just has a particular group of people that it's assigned to, but there's a, there's a mission field that is specific to that community.

And you either have every single soul in the community living as a missionary disciple, or you have room for improvement. And it's okay if you're in the room for improvement category. You're not alone in that regard. Talk to the one in, in the back who, who had their hand up for a five. I wanna tell you a little bit of story about the fruit here, right?

Because these are, this is, this is stuff that works. So, uh, the Archdiocese of Omaha is very diverse. We have inner city parishes, we have large suburban parishes, and we have small rural parishes. And I bet like many of you, we've had to cluster and group a lot of our small rural parishes, which just [00:12:00] adds to the administrative challenge.

Uh, that our clergy face and up in northeast Nebraska, some of our parish families have done an amazing job of casting this vision that we exist to make disciples. When you walk outta church, there is literally a sign that says you are now entering mission territory. They gave them a very practical way to live that out.

They've been coming to the Focus C conference for years and they said, we want you to start small groups. And so they leveraged Lent, and I kid you not, little Harington, Nebraska, look it up. It's a town of 1500 people. They have 60, that is 6 0, 60 weekly small groups going during Lent. Now I'm kind of a nerd about this stuff.

I don't know any other parish in the country that has 60 weekly small groups going. Certainly not in a town of 1500. They are bringing everything that you're learning here to life. [00:13:00] But I have to tell you, as important as clarity about the mission and vision is, it is not enough. The second key is you need organizational health.

Now that's not sexy. I mean, maybe if you're a nerd, but like organizational health isn't particularly exciting. It's all the stuff of goals and communication and team building and good management and healthy conflict resolution, but it is essential. I know of no parish that has made real progress in actually making disciples that has not attended to this.

This is the stuff that Amazing Parish Divine Renovation. There's a whole lot of great organizations, independent consultants are really helpful for this. And you know what? It really, really matters. One, because it helps prevent burnout. I mean, one of the saddest things about working at a diocesan level is to see the burnout that many of our clergy suffer from.

It's not fair. They've been assigned an uncurable burden. [00:14:00] Collaborative leadership, team building, attending to the organizational health, getting good at delegation and staffing is a key. And honestly, it's just a restoration of good right, of good ecclesiology. We were always supposed to be a head and a body, right?

Many parts. One body that like the mission has always been bigger than one man. The mission has always been bigger than one man, plus a small team or a whole staff of people. I mean, if the mission really is every single soul, then it requires the mobilization of all of the members and parishes that are actually learning how to create a culture of missionary discipleship have been extremely intentional about calling people to the mission and helping them find their place in the body.

What are your gifts? What are your strengths? You can't do it without organizational health. So again, one of my favorite stories back up to northeast Nebraska, one of our most veteran pastors, [00:15:00] God love him. He's kinda like the unofficial dean. He's done everything. He built a huge church. He's had all the most difficult and uh, complicated assignments.

And as he was getting close to retirement, he began to be convicted that he needed to lead in a new way. But he's been around the box for a few times. He is pretty self-aware. He is notoriously cranky. He is like, do not talk to me before 10:00 AM and three cups of coffee. But he, he is working in a rural area, so he didn't have a lot of staff for his leadership team.

He had a volunteer leadership team and you know, when they decided to meet 6:00 AM and he loves it, he would say the work that he's done with that team and the support that is received from my team and I in learning how to lead in a new way said it's changed my priesthood. Archbishop likes to tease him.

It's like, yeah, building that big, beautiful physical church at your previous assignment that almost killed you and building the living church. Now you're coming to life. [00:16:00] He's a kid again. He loves it, but that's not enough either. Clarity about the mission and vision and organizational health isn't enough.

The third key, wait for it. You actually have to make disciples. Now to be clear, you're learning how to do that today. Uh, you're learning some of the, some of the skills in that, but I, I want you to think for a moment maybe about professions, right? Professions that you know, that really have a distinct culture.

Maybe it's teaching, uh, maybe it's carpentry, construction, firefighters, or like, I got a chance this summer, I got a chance, I did a short mission trip in Alaska and I gotta spend a lot of time with Alaskan fishermen. And you know what they talk about? Fish. Yes. They talk about fish. Where are they? What are they biting?

Is the population healthy? How do you catch 'em like, right, like they talk about fish because what we do shapes our [00:17:00] culture. So, okay, fine. How do you make disciples? Well, some of you have maybe seen parts of this before. This is a mashup of the work of, uh, focus on the far right, a tool that we developed years ago called the Discipleship Roadmap.

And on the left the work of authors Sherry Waddell of forming intentional disciples talking about the thresholds of conversion. And this just kind of mashes them together. And what it does is it's a translation. Of the process of conversion, the church has always talked about the process that people go through, and if you're talking about RCIA or OCIA, sometimes we have kind of fancy names for that.

This is just an ordinary way to talk about the process that people go through. First becoming a disciple, right? I mean, let's be honest on the far left, there's a whole lot of people that have no trust in you precisely because you're a Catholic. They have no trust in the institutional church, and it's only by a patient development of that relationship that you can win trust.

And maybe that trust can [00:18:00] bridge them to a place of openness when they realize that they're missing something and hopefully that realization that they're missing something can develop into a seeking. Hopefully Jesus promises that when they seek, they will find and they can make a decision to entrust themselves in faith to Jesus and the church, and then becomes the fun and hard work of learning what it means to be a disciple.

It's learning or relearning how to pray. How to live liturgically. What is, what does it mean to live as a disciple of Jesus? And then hopefully somebody says, oh, by the way, when Jesus says, come follow me, he also says, and I will make you fishers of men. 'cause Jesus never calls someone to follow him without also giving them a mission.

And hopefully they're equipped for that mission. Somebody helps 'em realize how they were made, how they were gifted, and they're just taught very simple things of how to share their faith. All the things that you've been learning here, how to share your story, how to facilitate a [00:19:00] small group, how to share the gospel in conversation so that they can indeed be a multi-generational, fruitful disciple.

Here's the challenge. Most of us know how to accompany someone through that journey just by being a good friend, but even if you're a professional missionary, right? If you remember it, like all those Hall of Fame missionaries. I mean, they were fearless and crazy fruitful. I saw the fruit, I saw it firsthand.

It's really hard to do it all by yourself because it turns out evangelization is a team sport and it's really nice to have a context. When people are ready for conversion, when they're ready to make a decision, it's really nice to have a context. So the whole concept of a clear path is. It's a framework for making and maturing disciples.

It's a commitment to create a ministry context to help the individual missionary [00:20:00] disciples in your parish as they accompany people on their individual journey. So starting at the far left here, right? Relational outreach. That could be like a men's softball league. They love beer, they love wings, they love softball, and they love Jesus, and they play softball.

So they have an opportunity to connect with other men who don't know Jesus. And those friendships develop and they eventually lead to a place where they can invite their new friend to come to the parish conversion moment. Now, maybe that's a parish retreat. Where the gospel is preached clearly. Maybe it's a, it's a ministry like Alpha or Christ Life, but it's a place where they're gonna hear the gospel and get an opportunity to make a decision, and then God willing, they'll transition to faith formation.

Small groups are amazing for this, where people can really learn and ask questions and see the faith modeled in front of them. That's not enough either. A parish also needs to create a context for evangelization formation where the stuff that you're [00:21:00] learning now, how do you share your story, right? How do you facilitate a small group?

How do you really pray and intercede as a missionary? How do you start spiritual conversations? All the stuff that you're learning doesn't have to be learned at a focus conference. It could and should be learned. In a parish context. That's what evangelization formation is. So what are the benefits, right, of building a clear path?

Well, for some of you it's the end of the fizz, fizzle and fade evangelization. You know what I'm talking about? You're discouraged 'cause you worked really hard and you put on an awesome retreat and you brought in a great speaker, or you had that program and it was awesome. There were so many people and then kind of nothing happened.

I mean, just all faded away. Or maybe it lasted for a year or two and then it was gone. Well, I don't think there was any problem with your speaker. I mean, there might have been, but I don't think it was the speakers. I don't think it was the program. [00:22:00] It was that it was probably only attending to one part of the process.

See, the only, the only people interested in faith formation are disciples. And if you don't have disciples, they're not interested in faith formation and they're not interested in being trained how to, to how to share their faith until they have grown to the point that they love it and they're, they're on fire with love of the Lord.

Part of the problem is that we only, some of those ministries and programs only attend to one part of the process, and what a clear path does is it allows you to attend to the entire process. So, again, another story here. St. Francis Cabrini Parish, uh, on the edge of downtown Omaha. It's one of our oldest parishes.

And, uh, the pastor who's currently, currently there, when he got assigned, he left one of the largest parishes in the state. Huge suburban parish, lots of staff, big school, uh, growing. The parking lot was always full. And he got assigned to St. Francis and he shows up there and he's the pastor and the [00:23:00] secretary and the maintenance guy.

His buddies were like, what did you do to make the archbishop so mad? And he is like, I don't know. So when he asked the archbishop was like, why is this place still open Archbishop's? Like, just give it a shot. So you know what he did? He did relational outreach, he made friends. It was an Italian American community.

And the Italian Americans, uh, right, their children and their grandchildren have moved out long ago. It's now right on the edge of downtown. There's all these cool condos. It's filled with millennials. So he started to make friends with his millennial neighbors 'cause they're easy to reach, right? He started to make friends with his millennial neighbors.

He started to go to concerts and that maybe wouldn't have been his first choice of music. And he really connected with them. And then he, they started Alpha and they had wonderful meals and they talked about the fundamentals of the faith. And then they got people in small groups in their homes. [00:24:00] Now they're equipping people for mission.

And you know what? Everything bounced like a 30 year decline, win mass. Attendance is up, giving is up. All the sacramental numbers are up. They're producing vocations. It's beautiful. You can feel it when you go there. They were one of the, one of the inspirations when, when I wrote the, wrote the book here.

So I was a little nervous to have them read it, right? So like, you know, I have them like read, read the book, and it was everything that I was hoping for. When they're done, they're like, oh, well this is like what we did. We just didn't know it. I'm like, yes, yes. So the book is three parts. Part one is a deep dive into the thresholds.

It's into the concept of a clear path. 'cause we just kind of touched the surface. Part two is like, how do you build it? How do you assess your ministries? What thresholds are they serving? How are they helping [00:25:00] people on the journey? And then you learn how to discern. As a group, as a team, what ministries might be right for the steps on our clear path.

We talk about communication and implementation and expansion. All the parts of I walk you through how do you actually build a clear path to discipleship. And then the third part is a fictional case study. It's the story of St. Mary, St. Mary's, uh, parish and their odyssey to build a clear path. And that's just a mashup of like 20 different stories all put into one to give you a picture of what it looks like.

And it feels like it's got short chapters and it's got discussion questions at the end so that a team can read it together. And say, okay, what does this look like in our parish? It's been really fun for me to watch so many parishes dive into this process and do it. It's been a joy for me to synthesize what they've done and make it accessible to other people.

But I would be remiss if I didn't say this before, before we're done here. [00:26:00] Don't try this by yourself. And by that I mean do it with a team, but also. Don't try this without Jesus. Jesus doesn't just have a mission for your parish. He has a plan for your parish. You don't have to figure it out on your own.

The beautiful part about this process of building a clear path is the discernment of listening to the Lord, Lord, who have you given us as missionary disciples? Who's in our mission field, Lord, who, where are you opening the doors? Where are you calling us? What, what are the ministries or events that are right for our community, our little community of faith, to really become a community of missionary disciples a, a place where, where mission is normal and it's just a part of who we are.[00:27:00] 

You don't have to figure that on your own. Jesus knows, and he wants to be a part of the conversation. I promise you that's one of the most joyful and beautiful parts. But if you're anything like me, you're like, great. Got the book. You know, got a plan. Oh Lord, would you bless the plan? Don't do that. Let Jesus be a part of the conversation from the very, very beginning.

This is hard stuff. I mean, again, it's not complicated. It's not rocket science, but it requires a way of thinking. A way of living. It requires an exertion of us. It's gonna require you to get a little bit uncomfortable, but I promise you. I promise you it's worth it, and I promise you that when Jesus says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, what he says right after that is he says, and I will be with you always until the end of the age.

And of course, that's referring to his presence in the Eucharist and the Gift of the Spirit. But the original context of that is the commission to go make disciples. [00:28:00] And for those of us who tried to do it, it's not. It's not an easy task. That is exactly where the Lord promises to be with you in the making of a disciples.

So claim that promises your own God bless and thank you for being here. Thanks for listening to Thep Cast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip. Dot Arch omaha.org. God bless and see you next time.