[00:00:00] Fr. Lorig: Welcome to the EquipCast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. Designed to help leaders to transform their cultures, to embody the pastoral vision, to be one church encountering Jesus, equipping disciples, and living mercy. 

[00:00:17] Jim Jansen: Well, welcome everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast. My name is Jim Jansen and I am the Director of Pastoral Services here at the Archdiocese of Omaha.

We call this show the EquipCast because we desire to equip leaders who are on, on the ground, on the front lines of, uh, ministry here in the Archdiocese of Omaha. We want to help equip you for the task of mission and ministry that the Lord has. Given you and I'm, uh, joined today by my co-host, father Jeff Lore from Midtown Omaha.

Father, how you doing? I'm doing really well. Excited to be here and talk about what we're gonna talk about today. Father, what are we gonna talk about today? 

[00:00:57] Fr. Lorig: Uh, we're gonna talk about what it means to be a missional community, our missional parish, or to be a parish on mission. And I'm, I'm pretty sure every parish.

Probably every school has a mission statement and mm-hmm Uh, somewhere in a drawer, somewhere in a drawer and a wall side hallway. But it would be good just to really ask that question. 'cause I know I've, I've shared that. Word with other people about being missionary. You know, even Pope Francis uses that language.

A missionary disciple. What does that mean? And I, and what does it mean organizationally? What would it mean for your parish or even for your school, for that matter? Uh, and so when we do share it with other people, I, I, I sometimes get that, you know, like that half tilt of the head. Like, what are you talking about, R.

You know? Yeah. Like, what do you mean? Missional and I, I've really been blessed lately reading some excellent books. One of the books I highly recommend is called The Unstuck Church by Tony Morgan. He's got a podcast too, right? It's fantastic, but they're really short, to be honest with you. This is a long, you get a lot of details here in this podcast, but yeah, it's a pretty good podcast and, and they're very short, like 20 minutes.

They just kind of scratch the surface on a lot of topics. So much so they scratch those. Services of the topics that I'm like, I gotta go buy the book, the Unstuck Church. And there's a lot of other books in a series that, uh, I believe they've been involved in. But, uh, I've just been really impressed with this book because they talk about the lifecycle of a church from birth to death, or as I like to call it, the death rattle.

[00:02:30] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:02:31] Fr. Lorig: So it goes from like, you know, birth and momentum and then kind of of a maintenance and then, and then there's kind of a preservation mode, and then there's just death, the death rattle. And as you go through those, you begin to say like, oh yeah, that's what my church looks like. That's what my parish looks like.

And I'm struck by, you know, what helps a parish to come to life. And usually what are the markers of like, what did that church lose? That brought it to a place of, uh, preservation mode or to even to the death rattle. And the one thing that really sticks out is whether it's missional or not. And so what missional really has to do, and this is what separates all the, like, growing churches from the dying churches, is there's an outward focus.

When I say outward, it means like, are you going after the lost? This is, uh, Tony Morgan says that, you know, these churches are unashamed about their desire to reach more people. For Jesus. And, uh, they'll remove whatever barriers they need to continue to connect with people outside the church, outside the faith.

And I think, and I, I've been in church world a long time and I'm guilty of it. Mm-hmm. We spent a lot of time talking about what's, what's going on on the inside. Yeah, but we, we think of like, we have the good intentions of like, yeah, we need to reach the loss, we need to love our neighbors. We need to, you know, those people across the street that, you know, that kind of give us dirty looks when we, we crowd up the street, you know, when masses going on.

Like, oh, we, we really need to be better neighbors to them and, and, uh, we, we need to somehow invite them to church and get them fired up for the Lord. So we talk about it, but we never really created a strategy for it. That's essentially what missional means is to go out, to stop letting the voices from the inside, kind of the club.

How are we gonna, how are we gonna keep this club going? But more about like, how do you grow the club? And, and I think, you know, in the Catholic church, we've never really had to worry about this since the acts of the apostles. 

[00:04:26] Jim Jansen: Hmm. 

[00:04:26] Fr. Lorig: Or, or back when our parents or grandparents were growing up here in the church of the United States, most people were already going to church.

So the missionaries were the ones. In Africa or in South America or wherever they were, they were not here. And so usually the church grew here in the United States because of our big families. Mm-hmm. And our Catholic schools and our great education and the Baltimore Catechism and all those good things that, that we had, you know, you just, you, it just grew that way.

We didn't really have to convince anybody else. Outside of us that they maybe should be interested in who Jesus is. So missional today and Pope Francis really hit it home in Evangel Gaia about the Great commission. Yeah. To go out, out and make disciples to go out, to bring in and to make them disciples.

[00:05:16] Jim Jansen: You know, I appreciate your sharing that. 'cause I have to say, when I first became a missionary, right, a college, college missionary with focus, the title missionary was something that many of us kind of wrestled with for the exact same reasons that you said. We're like, well, I mean, I'm not, this feels weird to call myself a missionary.

I mean, I'm, I'm just actually going, I'm just going to Colorado. It's not, you know, it's not like I'm going to not, not like I'm going to a foreign country. 'cause I think for, yeah, so much of the United States, and I think Nebraska in particular, all these kind of homesteaders coming in from Germany and Ireland and you know, are Czech and Polish ancestors and pick, you know, pick which small town you're from.

The biggest challenge for the church was, oh my goodness, how are we gonna take care of all of these people who are. Coming to us Christian, who desire the sacraments, who desire community and and worship. And it was not the same thing as, you know, the experience of the apostles having to proclaim the gospel for the first time.

And yet now we find ourselves, you know, their great-grandchildren. Feels a little bit more like we're in the time of the apostles where we, we actually need to proclaim the gospel again to a world that's, well, not, not, not there, not the same place our grandparents were. 

[00:06:37] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. I think you and Jen did a podcast, uh, a a little summary of what it means to be in the apostolic age, correct?

Yes. I'm not sure what the number of that podcast episode was, but. Whitney will put it into the show notes. So check out the show notes for this mm-hmm. Podcast that you're listening to right now@quip.archomaha.org. Um, but to get back at the point they, yeah. Mm-hmm. We're talking about an apostolic age. So what does it look like to, to be like the apostles, to go into a world that really doesn't know all that much about who Jesus is and, and what the church is about?

Uh, funny thing, funny thing happened, Jim. Hmm. Ha. What? What's that? I was at, uh, alpha Knight. Uh, it was our second night and we're looking at, you know, who is Jesus and are there historical claims for Jesus' existence? And they interviewed some people on the streets and a lot of people said, well, yeah, I believe in him, or no, of course he didn't rise from the dead.

Jesus was not a real person. Of course not. So kind of some typical, like what I would expect, you would hear normal people to say, like, there's just a variety of answers. But my people, God bless 'em in my, in my alpha group, they're all pretty religious people. They're like, well, I've never heard people speak like that before.

Like my bubble is like people who believe in Jesus. And it was just really telling that, I think in many ways we, it's hard for us to be missional because we've. We can't hardly believe that. Some people don't believe, and I think that's why when we go into parishes. When, when, at least when parishes asked us to come and maybe help their parish councils create a, a strategic plan, we often will bring numbers with us.

[00:08:16] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:16] Fr. Lorig: And some of those numbers are shocking when we say like, yeah, you have like a thousand people registered as members, but only about 200 are coming to mass. 

[00:08:25] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:26] Fr. Lorig: There's something going on. And I really think it's, it's a faith crisis. 

[00:08:31] Jim Jansen: Yet we live in really interesting times where. There isn't anybody who is a person of faith now who doesn't know a friend, neighbor, sibling, grandchild, nephew, who has walked away from the faith.

But even though it is often deep in our personal experience and not that far away from us relationally, being able to extrapolate that out and recognize that that is a massive cultural trend, I think it, it's just hard for many of us to, to put those things together and yeah, I am routinely. I don't wanna say shocked.

I, I'm, I'm routinely surprised at how surprised people are when they start to see the trends. That. I mean, there's a, a survey done by the Barna group. Omaha's really in the top 30 of cities in the United States. Where there it, it's among the most, um, most secular unchurched, I think the term they use is post-Christian and people don't recognize that.

Oftentimes because our personal experience, we haven't been able to extrapolate that to the whole. Let's talk a little bit about like, okay, so there's a need for us to be missional in the sense that like, oh gosh, you know, people aren't coming to mass and. There's people who've drifted away, but like there's, there are deeper reasons besides maybe our own need or the particular times.

Like this has really been our call from the beginning. Could you just preach for a little bit, father, go back, like, why are we supposed to be missional. 

[00:10:03] Fr. Lorig: Well, it was Jesus' last words before you send it in heaven. So if you ever, if you ever kind of think about the importance of last words. Hmm. You think, oh my, my grandpa, his last words were, or like, okay, well what were Jesus' last words before he ascended?

I. He said, go therefore and make disciples. That was his last commission and that's the mission of the church. And I've often heard too, like the church doesn't have a mission. It is a mission. Like that's why we exist. And, and in fact, Paul, the six talks about that and Evangelian ndi, uh, I know fancy Latin words, but it's a document from, I don't know. 

[00:10:40] Jim Jansen: Which means evangelization in the modern world.

[00:10:42] Fr. Lorig: That's right. Thanks. Yeah, so we'll share this quote often to parishes and, and other groups that the reason the church exists is to evangelize, you know, it's, its reasons for it, its existence. It's the mission is to evangelize, to share the good news of others. So it's the nature of the church, it's, it's who we are, it's to be on mission.

And I like to think of as the church is not having a mission, is that it is a mission, it's a movement. In this world of God's kingdom through his people. So that, that's what gets me going, because first of all, that's what I signed up for. Mm-hmm. When I joined the Catholic church, it was to be part of a movement, not sort of a.

You know, a club where we can kind of take care of ourselves. And it's not a social club. It's a radical movement of God's love throughout the world. And, and that's what I want to be a part of. Hmm. And I, I think it's important for us to realize it's also part of loving our neighbor. Like again, Jesus says, love your neighbor.

Love your enemy. Well, what does that look like? To love our neighbor. To love our enemy is, is, I think it really comes down to do I love them enough to share Jesus? How much do I love them to share what I love the most or who I love the most? Jesus Christ. 

[00:11:53] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:54] Fr. Lorig: Rick Warren has this, I, I think I dropped the mic quote from, uh, his book, purpose Driven Church.

He said, A church that has no interest at all in increasing its number of converts is in essence. Saying to the rest of the world, you can go to hell. I mean, that's a drop the mic sort of thing. Ouch. Yeah, I remember Penn and Teller. Okay. Penn. I got a pen and teller story. 

[00:12:19] Jim Jansen: I was just gonna go there. Yeah, go for it.

[00:12:21] Fr. Lorig: Really?

[00:12:21] Jim Jansen: Yeah.

[00:12:21] Fr. Lorig: You've heard the story too. 

[00:12:23] Jim Jansen: Yeah, go for it. 

[00:12:24] Fr. Lorig: Okay. Well, so Penn and Teller, they're like the magic people. Yeah. Not people of faith though. Not people of, they're funny F magic people. They're on tv. They're entertainers, but, uh, I don't know who's who. Penn. I think it's pen. The big guy. Yeah, the big guy.

He's an atheist and he's very outspoken about his atheism. But somebody went to his show, a Christian went to his show and after the show gave him a Bible and he talked about that. Like, you know, a lot of people tell me, blah, blah, blah, this, this faith, this what, whatever. But this guy actually went out of his way and it, it seemed to me that he was saying he loved me enough.

He loved me enough that he, he cared about me enough that he wanted me to know more about his faith. And that's kind of the gist of the story I have. Yeah. Do you have any more details? 

[00:13:07] Jim Jansen: Well, he, he said, he's like, you know, I'm an atheist, but I respect that. I mean, he's like, if you think I'm gonna, I'm about to be a hit by this bus you call hell.

And you don't say anything. He's like, that's just weird. And and he was saying it even though he was an atheist and he didn't believe in heaven or hell, he respected this guy for sharing his faith and just pointed out like how weird it is. How weird is it if you believe? In the joy of heaven, and you believe in the pain of hell, to not be willing to say something, to invite someone.

Like, that's just, that's just weird. And I, I mean, I think St. Paul would have even stronger, stronger words. It's like, woe to me if I do not share the gospel. Amen. I mean, John Paul ii, you know, said he was, uh, it was a commentary on some of the teaching of Vatican two that just acknowledged that the Lord can work in mysterious ways and that.

It's possible for a person in another country, you know, a far off land who never gets to hear the gospel, that it is possible for them to be saved. But then John Paul ii in this very cool turn of phrase, he's like, sure, it's possible that they could be saved if no one shares the gospel with them. But is it possible that we can, if we don't. 

[00:14:23] Fr. Lorig: Mm-hmm. Another drop the mic moment. 

[00:14:27] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Boom. St. John, Paul ii. 

[00:14:30] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. The, the other motivation for me too is just because I, I feel like maybe it's my melancholic dad speaking to me, these words that I remember him teaching me when I was a kid, you know, the world's going to hell in a hand basket and, uh, and, and sometimes.

I sometimes think like, gosh, hell, it seems like it's having its way with us here on earth. Like, oh yeah. Between the injustice, the racial injustice that's been, been highlighted recently mm-hmm. Uh, the obviously injustice to the unborn, the crazy world of division here in the United States, which we've always, like, God bless America, America the beautiful, and like, it's not so beautiful anymore.

And so I, yeah, I get, I get a little depressed, you know, like, you see Europe basically, you know, erasing their, their Christian history starting over. Mm-hmm. Sometimes I feel like hell is having its way and, and, and the less that people claim Jesus Christ as our king, the less people who do that his kingdom begins.

Even though his kingdom is, he's already won victory. Uh, but his, his kingdom sort of loses influence here on Earth. We know that Jesus will, will protect. Right. This is his promise that you'll protect it from the gates of hell. Like, you know, nothing's gonna penetrate, right? If you're in this church, hell's not gonna hurt you.

So you can claim that victory. So Jesus victory is claimed by those who encounter him and and become his disciples. And so you can imagine like the local church filled with his disciples. People who claim as king, I think has, I think we have the power to knock the hell out of this world. 

[00:15:57] Jim Jansen: Yeah, the Archbishop Lucas, our own Shepherd, has been saying something very similar.

You know, he's been noticing just the, the ranker and division in our country, all the things that you mentioned. But, you know, as we get closer to election day, it seems like that's ratcheting up. And, and, and he is like, you know, there are 70 million people who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ as Catholics in our country alone and.

There are another, you know, millions more through other Christians who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ. And he's like, and yet as you look around, like, where's the light? Where's the light? And that it, it just has not been our experience. And as we think about, gosh, you know, like, man, all of these, like, what's, what's going on with our country and our world and Europe when it comes down to it?

We said this before, we believe the local church. Is the hope of the world. The parish is this gathering of disciples who love the Lord and are commissioned to share him. Like there is no backup plan. And in particular, as Catholics, we should feel an even greater obligation 'cause we're part of a universal church.

We feel this obligation to share the gospel with everyone, or at least we should. But the irony is we're the ultimate non-denominational church. Or nondenominational church. And yet we tend to act like a small little denomination Sometimes that just happens to think we're the best. 

[00:17:28] Fr. Lorig: I, I have been, uh, as you're talking, I've been thinking about like something that's happened to St.

John Vienna in the confessional. Oftentimes the devil would, would appear in human form and show up in the confessional to him and just taunt him. But one day the devil went in there and said to him. If there was one more view, I would be destroyed. And so then I'm thinking, okay, sanctity, right? People becoming saints, that's what's, that's the strategy.

And of course we believe, I think Vatican II was adamant about like the universal call to holiness, to to sanctity holiness, but also a call to be missional. And I also think, you know, St. John Vinny. It didn't just sit in the confessional all day. I remember in the first couple paragraphs of his, his, the official biography for his canonization, it talks about how he, uh, when he first moved into ours, like the church was dead.

It was like die, like it was broke. The church bells were broken. There wasn't much going on in ours. And so he went down to the dances and basically said, get your butts back in church. Like he went out. Mm-hmm. And he re evangelized those people who had fallen away from the church. I mean, this is French Revolution time.

This is, you know, like this is the time where people had this. Tons of doubts and and they, yeah. Relaxed in their faith. And the church was corrupt in many ways, but he went and he went out. So he didn't just sit in the confession for wait for people to show up, and he was just, he was kind of sitting in the church, be just being holy.

And all of a sudden, like that just was this magnet that brought sinners in. No, he went out first and then it became something that were like, oh my gosh, there's. Something was happening at the local church in ours because of sanctity, holiness of, of a man, but also the sanctity of of those people who began to believe in the mission that he was on, which was to re evangelize that little town in France.

[00:19:22] Jim Jansen: Father, I'm so glad you brought that up. 'cause I think about our listeners, I don't think there's too many people who listen to the EquipCast who are just. Spending their time playing solitaire board. Not interested. But I think that question of strategy, I think there's a real wrestling that our leaders often feel and the tension, which I, I think, I think it's a, I think it's a false tension, but the apparent tension between mission and holiness.

And I actually think it's a false tension. I mean, again, and I'm gonna see if I can just go nuclear right away on, on this, Jesus. Saw no tension between mission and holiness. I mean, you don't get more holy than Jesus, but you also don't get more missional than Jesus. And as he described like why he came, he's like, I came to seek and save the lost.

And if we are his body, if we've been baptized into him as our head, then we exist. To seek and save the lost. 

[00:20:25] Fr. Lorig: Amen. Yeah, I got, I got lots, I got lots of comments. Um, one is, we do have this internal debate often. Like, if we're gonna go out, don't we need to equip our people first? Like, which shouldn't we re evangelize the people in the pews already?

And I've always thought, yeah, that makes sense. Like we needed to get the, the pews fired up and then we'll 

[00:20:45] Jim Jansen: go out. Break that down. 'cause you're speaking to so many people now. So break that down. 'cause I'm gonna say it again that, that people are like, okay, well we can't go out until we take care of inside first.

Right? That's the, that's the kind of the the thought. 

[00:21:00] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. And I, I see it. I understand. Like, I'm gonna get these people fired up and we're gonna like grow in our holiness and sanctity and let's do that and, and then we will love Jesus so much where you can't help but go out. And, uh, so oftentimes the strategy is very internal.

[00:21:16] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:21:17] Fr. Lorig: And I thought, okay, that's it. And then I read. Purpose driven church, Rick Warren. And he said the opposite. He said, do not start with the inner circle. So he sees the church as a, or the world as sort of concentric CRC circles. Mm-hmm. And it's like, you know, the internals like all your leaders. And then you got your staff, then you got some of your really committed parishioners, and then you got people who kind of show up every once in a while on Sundays.

And then you got, you know, the sters and then you, then you just get, got the neighborhood. And he said, as long as you're gonna just keep focusing on the inside, rarely will you ever grow. And so what he says is like, whoever you've got on the inside, you just, you need to send them to the outside circle. I.

You will grow that way. And so you can spend a lot of time, a lot of wasted energy by trying to get those other inner circles all fired up. But you'll lose time, you'll lose your resources if you don't focus outside first. And I love the image that Father Mallon shared with me once when we were driving to Norfolk.

He talked about like, you know when, when you go fishing, like Jesus did call fisherman for a reason, they said, when you go fishing mm-hmm. You cast the net out into the deep go far, duke and Alto go deep with that net. You'll still catch the people near the boat too. You'll still catch the fish near the boat.

Mm-hmm. So that's this, like those two things. Those images of go out first. I. And then don't worry about the people that are, as you bring the net in, you will still catch the other people on the way in. But if, if you never cast the net out far, you'll never have a chance for them. And so I like, I like a good rhyme.

So I came up with this good rhyme is if you go. You'll grow. And, and I also wanna say like, and I'm not just talking like grow number wise, but like those people are sort of like, well, I'm not sure if I should go. I'm like, you'll grow in holiness if you go, if you go on mission, you'll, you'll go and you'll realize that you'll have to totally depend on the Holy Spirit, on, on the way in which you share the Lord with other people.

You'll grow if you just go. Isn't that what happened to you, Jim? 

[00:23:21] Jim Jansen: Yeah, I can totally. I was gonna say, I can totally testify to, to that there is something about going on mission that grows you, that forces you to prayer, that forces you to a real examination of your faith or a real display of faith.

Meaning like, oh, do I trust him or do I not, that nothing else does, and. It's, it is counterintuitive. I mean, I think this is, you know, I think this is challenging stuff because this has not been kind of the pastoral practice or the common wisdom. But again, I think, I think the example of Jesus and the stories you read in the gospel point to this, Jesus is very quick.

I mean, he's, he's discipling, sanctifying, his chosen disciples and apostles as he's on mission. As he sends them on mission and he keeps sending them on concentric, you know, first to 12 are going out and, you know, and then the 72, and there's this, there's this sending on mission that is a, a deep, deep part of Jesus's plan for formation and I.

I, I love the way Pope Francis goes after this in Joy of the Gospel. He says, for those who've encountered Jesus long and lengthy training is not necessary. And that's, that's challenging. 'cause our mindset as Catherine's like, oh man, we're Catholic and we got a lot of stuff like, man, we got 2000 years of cool stuff just to teach you and get you ready.

I get why we think that, but. I think in practice, those who go on mission, it keeps you hungry. I mean, I guess you can think about, it's like, you know, it's an appetite when you've gotten outside, you've actually worked and you've exercised, uh, then you're hungry. And I think people get kind of bored and fat when we let mission slip away.

[00:25:12] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. So I think the key question that leaders need to address is what are we willing to do to reach people outside the church and outside the faith? 

[00:25:21] Jim Jansen: Okay, so let's wait. Say, say that again. 

[00:25:23] Fr. Lorig: Key question that leaders need to address is what are we willing to do to reach people outside the church and outside the faith?

I think that's. That's the do. What are you gonna do? Okay, we get it father. Right? We get it. Jim, we get, we understand what you're trying to say, go out, but what are you gonna do? Like we really don't have the structures for this, do we? 

[00:25:47] Jim Jansen: Uh, honestly, no. I mean, I love, as you were saying that I was, I was thinking, you know, like Pope Francis again, right in Joy of the Gospel, he talks about this, this missionary impulse that, that he says he dreams that it would transform everything.

Yeah, so the church's customs structures, language, ways of doing things, that all those things would be channeled towards evangelization here, mission rather than self preservation. So I, I wonder if, can we just spend a little bit of time talking about like, what are, what are some of the, the structures and languages and seasons that we're maybe so used to that?

Might need just a little bit of examining. I mean, I, I can think of one, which is I, I think somewhat comical, right? Like that place, that thing, that program that we have to welcome people into the church is called RCIA. Right? Which, which stands? It's a Spanish term. No, it's a, it's an acronym. It stands for, right.

Of Christian Initiation for Adults. But that is so insider and churchy. I mean, acronyms are like, if you're not. If you're not an insider, and I wonder if we polled, you know, even faithful Catholics, how many would actually know what RCIA stands for? Um, and that's just like, I mean, it's just, it's almost a silly example, but the language of RCIA.

It doesn't really need anything to someone who has no exposure to the Catholic Church. And I love, you know, as, uh, I've heard a, a number of pastors lately talk about the tragic experience of you just finish RCIA. You have this beautiful welcoming into the church at the Easter vigil. And man, God forbid that somebody's cousin who's there to watch them enter the church, somebody's cousin comes up and says, Hey, I think I wanna be Catholic too.

Sadly, right? Our seasons are such that we say, oh, that's great. Come back in October and you can start the, uh, start the RCIA classes. 

[00:27:49] Fr. Lorig: What the who? Yeah. We, we've certainly heard that before. You know this Tony Morgan from the Unstuck Group is what the podcast is called. But in the book he talks about inward focused churches rarely have.

Anything intentional for reaching people outside the faith. So just ask yourself in your parish intentionally, what the sort of things do we have in place in our parish that intentionally go after those outside the faith. So just first ask that question. Now, if there's nothing there, then we need to think about something.

But then he says, you know, if anything, they try to create an evangelization program rather than fully engage in a strategy. So this would be a good example of like an evangelization program would be like discovering Christ or I. Alpha or you know, all these things. We, we actually talk about a lot on this podcast. 

[00:28:38] Jim Jansen: A weekend retreat or whatever.

[00:28:40] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. These are evangelization programs and so a lot of parishes are doing that. That's, that's really impressive. 

[00:28:46] Jim Jansen: Praise God. Good first step. But not, not enough. 

[00:28:50] Fr. Lorig: Right. It's not a, it's not a full on strategy to go after the law. So again, I, I'm, I should just always disclaim things. Just like, I don't know if I've fully completed this.

I don't know if I fully know how to do this. I just, I'm just reading books. But, but I, this really hit me hard when I was like, yeah, we gotta have more than just alpha. Like, it's gotta be a full on strategy. And the, and so what I'm thinking, the full on strategy looks like. My parish is that I have to tell my people that it's not enough that we have a program.

You are the ones who make that program work. So you're the ones who are gonna be leading this. I'm not gonna be leading a table anymore. You guys are gonna be leading tables, and plus you're gonna be all the inviting people. I'm not gonna do marketing for this anymore. I mean, we don't have a communications director.

We're not that lucky. So I'm the one on Canva making nice posters, and I'm the one making Facebook things, and I'm the one preaching, obviously, I'm the only one who can preach about it. But Alpha or like Garcia, those things really only work when the church, the church, the people of God are going out to their friends and their family to the.

The sports activities, the boardrooms, the workplaces, they're going out and pulling in, Hey, we've got this alpha thing. Mm-hmm. Hey, you want to, I know you're struggling through life. Like, you know, God's really helped me out in my life. I'd just love to invite you to this thing. 

[00:30:17] Jim Jansen: You know? I love that. 'cause I feel like.

In my mind it's coming full circle. 'cause you're saying, okay, yeah, program one thing, but like a real culture, a real community of believers that actually love their neighbors and their coworkers and their fallen away family members. To me that's sanctity. I mean, I, I can tell you so many stories of individuals who.

Have amazing lies of, of fruitful faith, and it comes back as they tell their story. They tell the story of someone who doggedly and persistently pursued them to join a small group or come to the retreat or. Turn their life around and whatever it was, it was the patient love and persistence of that friend in their life that made all the difference.

And I don't think, like, to me that's the steadfastness, that's real sanctity in motion and not just kind of a, an an artificial piety. That's content to. Never notice a friend or a neighbor in distress. Again, I, I love the way Pope Francis talks about this. He's like, well, do we actually believe that life is better with Jesus?

Because if we do, then we really can't help but share. 

[00:31:35] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. So I think practically speaking, you know, obviously you have a program, but then there has to be this strategy of like helping the church know what it can do. What she can do. Yeah. To, to invite, invite, invite, be a church that invites them to something like Alpha or discovering Christ or, or maybe a weekend service or something like that.

So I think that's part of the strategy, just basically telling your people they can do it. Like you can invite people. Yeah. 

[00:32:05] Jim Jansen: It's an equipping, right? I mean, you're equipping the saints for the work of ministry, and some of that is inspiring. Some of it is like just clear catechesis. Uh, by the way, you know, Matthew's Gospel has 28 chapters, uh, and in the last one you got a job.

So some of it is catechesis and some of it is just helping people with conversation starters and really drawing people back to the heart of Jesus. So that. With his power and his love, we can go out and love those that he's placed within our sphere of influence. 

[00:32:36] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. The job comes with a job description and that's that creating an expectations for what it means to be a member of this parish.

That we are a parish. If you're gonna be a member, we're a parish that goes out, that we're a parish that invites, we're a parish that wants people to fall in love with Jesus. 

[00:32:52] Jim Jansen: We're a, we're a missional community. 

[00:32:55] Fr. Lorig: Ding. Where's my little bell? A ding? Correct? Yeah. We're a missional community. That's who we are.

So that's just creating a job description for your parishioners, and you can do that by kind of creating a covenant or a, you can actually create a job description for what it means to be a member of a parish. That's, that's really just casting a vision for what it means to be part of this missional community.

Being really intentional, explicit about who we are. We're not just here to, to consume. We're here to go and grow. 

[00:33:24] Jim Jansen: Well, and you know, father, I, I appreciate that the idea of creating a covenant or the explicitness, because sadly we're kind of suffering some from some, uh, missional amnesia and what we've forgotten this part of our identity.

Sadly, it's little counter-cultural these days to insist that Catholics. That we actually live as missionary disciples and we need to be really clear about the contrast and the call and the expectation. 

[00:33:56] Fr. Lorig: So you can certainly create that reminder of what the mission is through, uh, some sort of covenant or some kind of job description for what it means to be a member of the parish.

Uh, you know, I think I'm often envious of. You know, the ability, the flexibility that, that our evangelical brothers and sisters have with their Sunday worship. Mm-hmm. Now, of course, I love the mass. I'm a priest. I love the mass, I love the Eucharist. I love the liturgy and the ritual that we have, and I think we can do a much better job of what we currently offer people as far as transcendence in, in a powerful experience through the liturgy, through preaching and music, blah, blah, all that stuff.

But off, I'm like. Because the mass is such an insider thing and that's okay 'cause it's meant for those who are those who have been catechized. But oftentimes because we can't sort of lean on that to really invite people. 'cause we don't wanna water down who we are and, and because who we are is the liturgy is really, it gets to the heart of who we are.

So we can't water that down and make it some, like, some sort of like more accessible to people. Or at least it's not as easy as maybe an evangelical, you can't just put on a concert. Right? We can't, can't just, you know, really work on a great sermon and then have some awesome music is a great praise and worship and invite the Holy Spirit into that.

Now, that stuff's powerful. I mean, you go to Steubenville. I mean, there's a reason why they do it at Steubenville. Like it's powerful, but oftentimes it's not tied into the mass. 

[00:35:23] Jim Jansen: Father, I appreciate your, your bringing this up because I think that's a challenge for us. If you're talking about inviting a fallen away Catholic back, inviting them to mass might, yeah.

Might be adequate because they, they may have some memory, they may have been kind of initiated, had their first communion. But increasingly we're talking about adults who've had no experience, certainly of Catholicism and maybe no experience of Christianity in general. And we actually can't make the mass accommodate them without breaking it.

We actually need something else. And I know we've talked about this before, but because the mass is such a huge part of who we are, I think it's challenging for us to imagine how we could encounter Jesus, how we could preach the gospel, worship, how we could introduce someone to the person of Jesus outside of the liturgy.

'cause it's just so much of, of who we are. It can be done, but I think it, it might be helpful if we just talk for a little bit about like what might that look like. 

[00:36:27] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. I mean, one idea I have that I think we're gonna try to pull off is for maybe a Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Now usually families are gathered.

I have had some powerful experiences in in parishes in the past where people are sort of available that night. On that Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. And oftentimes people are in a generous mode, and so you can maybe leverage that time of the year and leverage the time when there's usually not a basketball game.

There's usually not a wrestling meet that night, uh, to maybe have some sort of prayer service. Now I've, we've had mass on some of those nights and tied in with the food drive and they've been really fun. But you don't necessarily have to have a mass. Hmm. Like we do have services without the mass that it's written in our liturgical books.

Of course, as Catholics, we like to have the mass, so you can easily have mass in the morning. You can easily have mass either Wednesday morning or Thursday morning. But what if like on Wednesday night? So this is what we're gonna try have sort of a big event where we paint a picture for our parishioners to say, we're gonna have this big event, we're gonna do a huge food drive on the eve of Thanksgiving, and it's just gonna be like a couple songs.

It's gonna be a good sermon. It might be a little bit of extra prayer, but it's also gonna be a time for you guys in the PS to invite your friends and family to just a time to be thankful and a time to give back. It's not threatening, it's not gonna be like, you know, oh, and by the way, you can't receive communion.

Like, we don't, let's not do that. Let's just have a, a service where people can, we don't have to even ask that question, but just something that we, that would make it easier for our parishioners to, to invite their friends and their family to who maybe have been away from church for a long time. And even the heart, most hardhearted.

Atheist still believes in doing good to others. Unless you're like in a Charles Dickens novel or something. Then there's that one guy who's just like, eh, I don't want to give 

[00:38:25] Jim Jansen: Ah, 

[00:38:26] Fr. Lorig: Scrooge McDuck. 

[00:38:28] Jim Jansen: It's the Disney version. Oh, I father, I love that. 'cause you're taking kind of the cultural momentum and you're removing the barriers where again, someone understandably doesn't know when to sit and stand and what to say, and you're just kind of, you're removing those barriers.

You're capturing the cultural momentum of generosity and gratitude, and you're giving your faithful parishioners an opportunity to invite. People to something and a place where they'll actually feel like they belong. And, and I know sometimes the Lord uses it, but it's, it's so tragic sometimes when you labor to invite someone to something at, at the church, whether it be a retreat or a mass or whatever.

And through no really fault of the church just being faithful to what the event was designed to do. People feel uncomfortable and they feel unwelcome 'cause they just know they don't fit. And you can create an event. That is again, tailored to those who haven't been or have never been. 

[00:39:32] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. And ag other ways, I mean, our fish fries are pretty popular here.

Now I'm brainstorming, sorry. But our fish fires are pretty popular here in Omaha and, uh, and we use it to raise money and, uh, and sometimes community, but we have a lot of outsiders coming to these fish fries. Oh yeah. What if, what if you planned an event? F as as sort of a, a lead in. What if you use the fish fry as a way to invite people to a, a bible study or to an email study or to, Hey, come, we're gonna do a series of, of or what if you had, um, on the tables, you had flyers that talked about, you know, get your marriage back in order.

[00:40:10] Jim Jansen: Yeah, I, father, I've had the same, same idea, like I want a ministry designed for parishes. Really to just have meaningful conversations to think about. Very simple, easy next steps to engage people at Fish Rise and I wanna call it Fishers of Men. That's, dang, that's the next, okay, next podcast. So we've kind of ranged all over what are like maybe one or two baby steps.

If this has been convicting this like, oh my gosh. Like how could we not be missional? Like that's who Jesus is. We're we're, we're incorporated into him. This is the call of Jesus. It's the call of, you know, John Paul ii be to the 16th, Pope Francis. It's been a clear cadence, uh, of the church in the new evangelization.

Certainly our own Archbishop. Lucas, what are some baby steps? I mean, if somebody's feeling convict, both convicted and a little overwhelmed, can we just give like. Two, three little baby steps on how to get started. 

[00:41:10] Fr. Lorig: Who are we talking to? Who's the, our audience? 

[00:41:12] Jim Jansen: Okay. Let's say we've got one is a pastor. I'll let you take that one.

Uh, two, let's say just somebody who works on a parish, staff and then just a family. I'll take, I'll take the family one. 

[00:41:25] Fr. Lorig: Okay. Here's a baby step. Again, we don't have this in our notes, so this is really me shooting from the hip here. Um, a baby step would be. Sometime in the next month or so, give a homily about how we have an opportunity to begin loving our neighbor, even if they're not going to church.

[00:41:48] Jim Jansen: Hmm. 

[00:41:48] Fr. Lorig: And this is how we're gonna do it as a community. We are going to think of three people that we know. That have fallen away from the church, never been to church, maybe even just going through a rough time in their life. So think of three people. There's your homily, give, think of three people. And I really want us to begin praying for those people right now and what it might be like to have Jesus in their lives and the Holy Spirit to heal any wounds of their life.

And then I, I also, I know I have my mass intention, but we all, everybody at mass can also make an intention. We can offer the mass for someone. I would like us to begin thinking about those people who are outside the church and outside the faith. I want you to offer this mass for them. I want you to lay their name, their intention, your affection for them.

Lay that on the altar when we bring those gifts up, and let your heart just ache for them as Jesus aches for them too. That's a baby step That didn't cost any money, and that's a free homily, and it's short too, so nobody's gonna complain. 

[00:42:53] Jim Jansen: That. That's beautiful. I. I love that. And you know what? I bet Jesus does something with that.

I, I, I mean, we may never see it, but the Lord's not gonna refuse those prayers. Alright, so what about a staff member? What about somebody who is like, I, you know, I work for the church. My title and my job description isn't necessarily evangelization. What could they do baby stuff for them? 

[00:43:17] Fr. Lorig: I think internally, if you're in the parish and you're hearing this, you're working in the parish.

Uh, I think maybe if you could suggest maybe a book study as a staff, just start there to begin really thinking about, uh, a new strategy to grow the parish. Look, you're all on the inside. You know the numbers. You know, you know, it's hard to get people engaged. What's it gonna take for our parish to get unstuck?

And so I would recommend the Unstuck book. Uh, it's The Unstuck Church, is what it's called by Tony Morgan. That's a good place to start, obviously, if you haven't read Divine Renovation already, that's another good place to start. 

[00:43:54] Jim Jansen: Can I pile on? 

[00:43:55] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. So I have a book study. What do you have? 

[00:43:58] Jim Jansen: Well, I like the book study.

It's just a, uh, an additional recommendation. There's a real short one by a good friend of mine, my former Bible study leader. Uh. Guy who mentored me and changed my life, uh, Dr. Edward Sre, he wrote a book, a commentary on Pope Francis' Joy, the gospel name drop. 

[00:44:17] Fr. Lorig: That was a name drop for sure. It, 

[00:44:18] Jim Jansen: it was, I, I thought I did it pretty smoothly, but thanks for calling it out.

Uh. 

[00:44:23] Fr. Lorig: My best friend in the whole world, he also wrote a book. 

[00:44:26] Jim Jansen: Did I mention I saved his life? No. Wait. Oh, no, no. Um, yeah. Uh, Ted Sree wrote a book called Rediscovering the Heart of a Disciple. And it's a really short commentary on Pope Francis' Joy of the gospel. And here's the kicker. There's built-in conversation questions at the end.

So it's great for a pastoral council or a group of staff, even a family, to read together and discuss. Also begin, I think, 

[00:44:55] Fr. Lorig: uh, besides a book study would be a prayer group. I'd like Kevin Kotter, uh, did a podcast with us a few episodes ago, I think it's titled The Amazing Parish, and he talked about how if you're on staff or like it really, it was a call out to the, the pastor to, to bring the staff together to begin praying about becoming an amazing parish.

Not even that, it was just about like praying together. So that we know that we love each other and we're on mission together, that would be a good start. But maybe your pastor's not on board, so maybe, maybe there's another person in the parish you, you'd just like to begin praying with, like mm-hmm. Maybe take 20 minutes out of the day and begin praying together with this in mind, being a missional community and, you know, take it to the chapel, whatever you need to do.

Present it before the Lord. That'd be another way. Or if there's just somebody in, in the parish that like you're just totally tracking with, like, yeah, we totally, we need to be a missional community. I maybe just begin praying together. 

[00:45:50] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:45:51] Fr. Lorig: And inviting other people into that group and just see what happens with that.

Again, we don't, we don't, we know the church can do a lot. We don't always need permission from our pastor. We can always invite people to go in a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

[00:46:06] Jim Jansen: Father, would it be okay if I got together and prayed with someone from the parish? Would that be all right? 

[00:46:14] Fr. Lorig: Yeah. You only have to ask permission if you're gonna use one of the rooms, but, uh.

There's plenty of rooms out there. 

[00:46:20] Jim Jansen: So I like that last idea. And that's, I think that's where I'd go for a family, you know, who feels the call to be missional is to, to just pray together. So we have a little chalkboard. So after, after meals, there's a little chalkboard that has, we've got, you know, friends and family who are sick, kind of standing intentions, and we just kind of, at the end of our meal, just spend a little time praying for people.

And that's, it's a small thing. Sometimes it, if I'm honest, sometimes it feels too small. Sometimes it feels overwhelming to, you know, to, to sit for another however many minutes and, and try and pray. But I, I, I think that's a good baby step. And for those who are a little bit more, uh, adventuresome, sharing prayer together over the scriptures.

Whether it be just a, a simple reading of the scriptures or a full-blown lexio Davina, that can be extraordinarily powerful in bringing a family together and being that kind of first step to being drawn together and then being sent out, uh, on mission. 

[00:47:28] Fr. Lorig: Yeah, so in conclusion, if you hear the word missional.

Sometime in the near future, and if you hear somebody say, you know what? If every parish was a missional community, now you know the answer. It's, it's a church that looks for those people who are on the outside of the faith, outside of the church and does anything short of sin to bring them back.

[00:47:52] Jim Jansen: Beautiful. Thanks for being with us, everybody. If you like what you heard today, uh, you can find us at EquipCast all one word. Uh, we're on all the major platforms. You can subscribe there so you don't miss an episode. If you know someone who would be encouraged and blessed, go ahead and share us out. If you would like to check out the show notes.

And, uh, check out the blog. You can find us@quip.archomaha.org. Again, that's quip dot arch omaha.org. Thanks for being with us, father. Thanks. My pleasure. Thanks for listening everybody.