[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast. So today I sit down with Austin Hadish of Scent Evangelization. We have a fantastic conversation talking about the work that Cent Evangelization does to help parishes equip people for neighborhood outreach in ClearPath language. The work of Cent Evangelization Neighborhood Outreach, it's one of the, one of the coolest, most complete packages for helping a parish develop a relational outreach, right?

To actually take seriously the call to bring the good news to every soul. In our mission field, we talk about. The prayerfulness, the dialogue. The charity, not just of of body, but also of soul. How do we share the gospel? How do we meet people's physical needs? Uh, it's a beautiful conversation for those of you who are kind of puzzling, wondering, man, where do I get started with relational outreach?

You're gonna love my conversation with Austin today. Take a listen. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Janssen. 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.

Austin Habash, welcome to the EquipCast. How you doing sir? 

[00:01:23] Austin Habash: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:24] Jim Jansen: Okay, so Austin, I, I don't know if you're a listener, but we kinda like, we always like to, I, I am like just an eager beaver. I wanna jump into our topic. We're gonna talk about. Your work with Scent Evangelization, we're gonna talk about just neighborhood outreach, uh, evangelization, even at the risk of people freaking out, you know, like, like.

Whatever, 20 seconds into the podcast, door to door. Mm-hmm. Evangelization. Mm-hmm. Hey, hey. Stay with me. Don't, don't freak out. Uh, Austin's gonna make this really accessible for you, but before we do that, tell people who you are. What's your story? 

[00:01:58] Austin Habash: So, I am a revert to the Catholic faith. So I was baptized Catholic.

I left, came back in college after a homily on the Eucharist, I would go then immediately to seminary. So I went to seminary here at St. John Bani in Denver. While I was in seminary. 

[00:02:14] Jim Jansen: Man. Wait, that must have been some homily, like who gets a shout out for that? Do you know the priest? 

[00:02:19] Austin Habash: Yeah. Father Ted, the diocese of Dodge City grape in Kansas.

Way to go. Father Ted. I didn't know there was a distinction between what Catholics thought about the Eucharist and the cracker and grape juice that I would receive at the Protestant service. Yeah. And so that that homily. Split those two or drew a line in the sand for me. So I had to decide what I believed.

Did I believe in transubstantiation or did I believe in symbolic presence of Christ? And so that. Decision moment led me on a path to seminary, and it was at seminary. That door-to-door evangelization sent. Evangelization started, and it started just as a method with a couple of seminarians. And the reason it started is because we had a priest come visit us in my first year, and he drew on the whiteboard in front of the class A square.

A church at its center. Some small houses drown around it. Mm. He said this whole territory here, the parish is responsible for, but within that territory, he drew a smaller circle around the church and he says that's about how many people within the territory go to mass. Mm-hmm. On Sundays, the Archdiocese of Denver is about 15% or less.

So he said, what are we doing for everyone else? No one in the room had an answer to that. And it was honestly because we had never thought of that question. And I think most parishes, most parishioners, maybe most clergy, honestly, never get to that question of, what are we doing for the territory? 

[00:03:44] Jim Jansen: Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, it's crazy when someone brings it to your attention. You start to see it everywhere. I think you have, I mean, no pressure on this, but like you, you know, you, I think you've offered a couple of citations like man in Canon law and you know, Vatican two, there's a couple places where the church is super clear, like, Hey, this is our responsibility, this is our mission field.

But for a variety of reasons, which are probably beyond the scope of our conversation today. It's just not where our mind has been and it feels kind of revolutionary to remember. Oh, yeah. All those souls are our responsibility. 

[00:04:24] Austin Habash: I wonder if we're looking back at the post World War II Catholicism, uh, Pope Benedict 16 talked about Catholic ghettos.

Mm-hmm. So if you were in New York City, you had your Italian church in the Italian neighborhood, and all of the neighborhood walked to church together. Right. So in that time, it wasn't that the neighborhood. Was forgotten. It was just assumed that the neighborhood was coming to church on Sundays. But then as those Catholic ghettos began to dissipate and Catholics moved out into the suburbs, well then that taking it for granted that the neighborhood was gonna walk to church.

Was no longer there. Yeah. And we didn't have the habit of neighborhood evangelization because the neighborhood was just your Italian Catholics, your Polish Catholics, so Right. We've never really had to exercise this muscle until today. Even though, as you said, it's always been there. Canon Law 7 71 requires the pastor to bring the gospel to nonbelievers living in the territory to no less extent than the faithful Christ.

Its Domine is from Vatican two. Paragraph 30 says that if the pastor's unable to do that by himself, he must enlist the laity. And so that's where we are today. We're we're forced because of the dissemination mm-hmm. Of Catholics across your broader cities to go into a neighborhood that's not Catholic.

[00:05:49] Jim Jansen: Oh man, there's so much there. I mean, I just wanna go back to that line from Canon law, right, to no less extent. 

[00:05:59] Austin Habash: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:00] Jim Jansen: What is it, I mean. Say more about that. 'cause that's, that's a big deal and I think that's very challenging. If we look at current practice, 

[00:06:09] Austin Habash: I'm not sure honestly, if we even know what that would look like.

Mm-hmm. What would it look like for. The Baptist across the street to receive our teaching or our hospitality to the same extent as the Catholics who are walking in the door on Sunday. So I can't think off the top of my head of an example of that cannon law being lived out to its fullest. But the endeavor, absolutely.

Mm-hmm. All of your parishes need to find a way to get into the neighborhood and unfortunately we are seeing now pastors think very specifically concretely, whether it's direct to mail, which I've seen a lot of success. Or it's knocking their doors, or it's the Eucharistic processions. We have the Napa Institute's procession coming up in about two weeks.

Nice. So we are, we are beginning to adopt the eyes of neighborhood evangelization, but I think we are still waiting for a parish that's fully living out Canon Law 7 71. 

[00:07:11] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I, no, I, I see that and I think there's hints. The only thing I would add, I love the list that you gave there. I think there are moments where.

The corporal works of mercy extend to the entire neighborhood. Sometimes imagine maybe like if there's like a counseling center or obviously like a food pantry, you know, we're not checking parish ID cards for the food pantry. We're not, you know, we're not quizzing people you know about whether they have faith that that's a come one, come all a parish thrift store.

The only thing I would, I would say is, although those are fantastic instances. Where we really are extending God's love. To everyone within the mission field. Often the corporate works of Mercy are done in such a way that the spiritual works of mercy aren't connected. Right? So like the gospel isn't there.

It's like, man, thanks for the f. Thanks for the food. You guys are really nice. And we don't ever quite get to like, yeah, but c, can I, I'm actually not that nice. I'm actually a jerk. Save for like, uh, Jesus transformed my life and I'd be happy to, to tell you about, tell you about that. 'cause he, he wants to do the same for you.

Oftentimes those things are disconnected. So yeah, just the potential is unbelievable. Whether it's transforming our works of mercy. To also infuse the gospel or whether it's just, you know, developing some of these habits of actually seeing our neighbors again.

[00:08:42] Austin Habash: There's a food bank and a a women's support center, both.

A couple doors from the parish that I currently serve at both of those, I think as you're saying here, they have a, a broader reach to them. It's still an odd intra, it's an odd intra re reach, so, right. It's not necessarily territorial. So as you were talking about the cards, they're also not going to ask, do you happen to live between.

Uh, Bruce Randolph and 35th Street. Therefore, we can serve you. So it, right. It still doesn't have that kind of territorial responsibility mindset, but you're right. That's an example of us getting outside of our walls when it comes to adding the spiritual component. I'll never forget, I used to live, uh, with Mother Teresa's nuns in St.

Louis for about 30 months. I just stayed with them, and although Mother Teresa was known for preaching the gospel only, mm-hmm. Through the corporeal works, it was built into their soup kitchen. That a, you can't call it a homily. I don't, you probably can't call it a sermon either as Catholics, because it's not an ordained clergy member who's giving it a message, but they were preaching a, A God, someone was preaching.

Someone had to preach yes. Whether it was a layman or there was a deacon there before anyone was served food. So I, that was a very easy way for them to incorporate the spiritual with the corpor. 

[00:10:02] Jim Jansen: Thank you for saying that because yeah, mother Teresa, I think we tend to make her one dimensional, and when you start to listen.

Read her writings. Listen to like, she was like, she was like, I am a missionary of God's love. I am evangelizing, I'm satisfying Jesus's thirst for souls. And that's like the primary motivation, not simply I'm carrying. For Jesus in this distressing disguise. But she's like, she's like, no, I'm, I'm bringing him souls.

So the evangelistic work, if you will, of the missionaries to charity, man, it's right at the heart of who they are and who mother was, but we often don't see that. We, we just see the food and the medical care and et cetera, et cetera. 

[00:10:47] Austin Habash: I think whether it's Mother Teresa or it's your St. Francis Xavier, let's say you're, you're more very explicit preachers.

Your Catholic is looking to take care of the person, and the person, as Aquinas says, encompasses both. The immaterial and the corporeal. So both the body and the soul are included within the person. And so in caring about this person, whether it's myself knocking the door and I'm interested in your soul primarily, but I care about you as a person, it will bleed into, well, how are you doing?

Do you have specific needs? Two or three weeks ago, I was knocking doors around the parish and a lady came outside and she asked us to pray for her ability to pay her rent. And I said, call us. We have a St. Vincent de Paul Society. Yes, you're, you can almost see the church from where your house is. Call us.

So I, and we prayed and I was there to evangelize to make sure that she had received the sacraments, if she was a Catholic, that she came back. Mm-hmm. That's what I was there for. But in caring for the person, we were there to also talk about her orial needs. 

[00:11:49] Jim Jansen: Yeah. That's fantastic. I mean, I'm just, I'm reminded actually, so I'm reminded actually of one parish, uh, and interviewed him on the Equipped Caster.

They're here in the Archdiocese of Omaha, who did a fabulous job of integrating the corporal and spiritual works of Mercy, getting out. It's just not a super repeatable model. So some of the listeners are like, oh my gosh, he's gonna talk about St. Pat's Elkhorn, isn't he? It's like, yeah. So St. Pat's Elkhorn, uh, Austin, for your background.

They had about a year ago, uh, in April. So like, you know, not whatever, but year ago in April they, they had like an F five tornado rip through the neighborhood that is like right adjoining the parish. Uh, there's great stories of like the pastor and the associate, like, you know, standing on the back porch watching the tornado and then realizing we should probably go to the basement.

And praise God, no one was killed. It was unbelievably, you know, kind of a miraculous sparing of life. But they went into the neighborhoods to provide both the corporal and spiritual works, uh, of mercy and have continued to, to stay, uh, engaged there. I just say like, you know, like, I'm not, not recommending Brit having a tornado rip through your, uh, ripped through your neighborhood.

But that created a, a clear call and awareness that they could not, not respond. Uh, and they did. So really a admirably. So shout out for, for St. Pat's folks.

[00:13:15] Austin Habash: I got a text message just to mention here. Uh, I received a text message and I'm sure he'd be okay with me sharing this when we launched Sent evangelization at St.

Charles Bo Mayo in Omaha. I think it was the next week or the week after that, there was a house that caught fire not far from St. Charles, Bo Mayo. And Adam texted me pictures of that house talking about us as the parish. We should be able to do something for these people. Mm-hmm. Here, their house is caught on fire.

They're within our responsibility. 

[00:13:45] Jim Jansen: Yeah. That's so, that's so good. Yeah. And I, I wanna, man, there's so many things I, I wanna go after in this conversation. Maybe if we can. One of which would be the parishes you've worked with, what they've done. Yeah. Uh, St. Charles here in the Archdiocese of Omaha, one of our suburbs, Gretna.

You guys have been working with them. I just wanna maybe back up a little bit. Right. True. Confession. Austin, I love your work, but it makes me a little uncomfortable and I'm an extrovert. You know, like on a scale of one to 10, I'm probably an 11. The idea of reaching out to our neighbors is really compelling, but it's also, you know, it's in, it's intimidating and I think there's probably a lot of false, you know, ideas that, uh, that some of us have about this.

Talk a little bit, you mentioned this start, you know, this started as you were, you know, kind of in this, in. Take us a little deeper there. Like when did this become a thing for you? 

[00:14:43] Austin Habash: And don't let me forget that question of the uncomfortability of door-to-door evangelization. So we start, in 2016, that whiteboard presentation sends a group of us into the neighborhood.

And at the time we didn't have a method. We didn't really know mm-hmm. How to do it. But we felt a call that. We needed to do it based on what that priest had said. And so we started with just knocking doors with a little pamphlet. It was an invitation to Eucharistic Adoration and music at the seminary, and that was really for myself.

I twisted some arms to get other seminaries to go with me, but my, my primary goal was just to see, just to observe. So to be an actor, of course I'm the one knocking the doors and having the conversations, but also really just to be an observer to see do people open the door? What do they say when they open the door?

Was there any visible route? And as you know, when it comes to. The church apostolate. You can go crazy trying to judge fruit and then discerning whether we ought to continue this or not continue this. And so that's a di that's a difficult question across the board, but I just wanted to see, was there any hope at all that these interactions could bear?

In people's lives and people were, they would open their door. This is Denver. This is in Omaha. I told Adam, right. I was so tempted. After we launched in St. Charles B. Mayo, I told 'em, I'm, I'm gonna move, I'm gonna move to Oma. I could spend the rest of my days knocking doors here in Catholic City, America, here, Omaha. 

[00:16:17] Jim Jansen: Nebraska nice. It's real. 

[00:16:19] Austin Habash: Yeah. Boy. Very, very different experience and incredibly welcoming experience there. So in Denver to have people open their door. Smile at us. That was all I needed to see. And then it was going back mm-hmm. To the, the drawing room and saying, how can this be done in a uniquely Catholic way because the Jehovah witnesses are out there, the Mormons are out there, so how, how do we do this in a Christian, in a Catholic way?

And I thought three things. The first, it would have to be prayerful. God alone converts soul as the church teaches faith. Faith is a gift. Perseverance and faith is a gift. These are gifts God can give them to whom? Whomever he wills whenever he wills. So we should probably ask God for his help. So it need to be prayerful.

The second is since faith comes to what is heard, Romans 10 17, there would also have to be space for dialogue around Jesus Christ, the sacraments, his his church. Lastly, I thought based on a story my grandfather told me, living in South Sudan, he said in South Sudan, the Jews, the Catholics, and the Muslims would all preach on the street corners.

But today, South Sudan is a majority Christian country with a Catholic president because according to my grandfather, when the Catholics came, they didn't just preach. They built homes as we were talking about with Mother Theresa. So the witness of charity, the witness of love, that's what set them apart.

That's what set the Catholics apart in the second and third century. 

[00:17:46] Jim Jansen: Yes. 

[00:17:46] Austin Habash: When the place hit hit Rome and the Christians stayed. The wealthy class threw the dead end of the streets and the Christians were there to bury them. Mm-hmm. So this witness of love. So I looked at those three things and I said, that's just baptismal, priestly in the sense that we pray for people to prophetic, we seek to reveal the word of God, and then kingly.

A charitable way, taking responsibility for these people who live within the kingdom, the parish territory. So I took that method, started knocking doors. One of the first experiences I had, a lady came outside. I said, what I was saying at that time for that prayerful component was, I'm with scent over at St.

Vincent de Paul. I'd just like to know. I can pray for you. And she said, well, you can pray for my son. He took his life a couple months ago. He was about your age. And again, this is one of my first times doing this. Mm-hmm. So I don't, I don't have follow up responses. I don't know what to do next. So I just move into that second part, the prophetic.

I asked her, I promised her I would pray for her son who had passed. Mm-hmm. And I said, while I'm here, do you have any questions? Are you Catholic yourself? She says, no, but Bob is Bob Siding behind the door listening to the conversation again, don't know what to do next. Move. Mm-hmm. To that next part while I'm here, can I help in any way?

She steps outside, she points to her gutter line where her Christmas lights are still up. This is about March? Mm-hmm. March, April. Yeah. She said, my son put those up there, but he is no longer with us and I don't trust myself or my husband on a ladder. Can you help us? So I plucked Christmas lights from the roof.

She reeled them in from the ground. After that, we'd send her a handwritten letter, come back at Easter with an Easter Baskin. Until I left the seminary, she was gonna maps at the seminary. Wow. So that that method. For us demonstrated very visible fruit at the very beginning. And I'll tell parishes that don't feel defined by the baptismal method.

We say it's a method based on baptismal identity focused on charity. I know people, I go out with the parochial vicar here. Mm-hmm. And he'll begin the conversation maybe about 30 seconds worth of. How long have you lived here? Are you, are you new to the neighborhood? Have you ever seen the church? So he'll just build rapport for about 30 seconds, and then he'll go into a conversation about prayer, or he'll skip that.

He'll go into a conversation about their faith background, backtrack into a conversation about prayer. So it's more fluid. And it looks like on paper, but Right. I do believe that if you can, and if there aren't other strenuous circumstances that make it prudent to not do those three things, one should try.

And incorporate prayer. Something about the faith and then some kind of charitable ask or, uh, assistance there. Yes. Yeah. While they're at the door. 

[00:20:49] Jim Jansen: You know, Austin, I, I mean, I love so much about that story that you, you told about the, the family that lost their son. But part of what I love about that is you're like this, like, oh crap, I don't know what to do.

I've never, you know, like there is no scent evangelization script follow up. You know, if, if family says we're grieving, you say you just kind of rely, that's for why, right? Yeah. You're like, you just kind of relied on the spirit and really like the grace of your baptism. It's like, okay, uh, how can I help?

And like, man, I can't do anything about your son, but I can't. I can help with these Christmas lights. And that's hard for two reasons, right? It's hard 'cause it was like up high and it's hard 'cause the sun was the one who put 'em up. 

[00:21:34] Austin Habash: I think sometimes when people conceive of door to door evangelization, they imagine themselves standing at a podium.

On a, a black stage with a spotlight and there's a thousand people there, and someone just asked them to explain the Trinity, or someone just asked them how to explain trans substantiation. And the conversations don't go like that at all. They don't at all. I mean, it's very rare. Now I'm in Denver where people are very excited about being a Hindu or a Buddhist.

So that's one of the reasons that we don't get into infant baptism and the Trinity and the incarnation. But even when I was in Kansas knocking doors or in Omaha. Knocking doors, the people you're talking to are very regular people, right? They just wanna know that you care. And that faith formation, those discussions, how do they feel about Mary?

What do they think of the primacy of the pope? Those are gonna happen within the context of the parish. So the goal, I tell people the goal of the door-to-door interaction. We have this threefold step and you, we've talked a lot about pathways to conversion, to discipleship. The way I tell the send people to think about their place in someone's journey is just three Cs.

So conversation, which we're hoping will move to community, which we hope will move to conversion. That's it. And so I'm telling people all you're doing is that first step. So you wanna have a conversation with people that will help them and invite them into the community. And then once they're in the community, they're coming to your Wednesday night Bible study or your Friday night dinner in a movie.

Then they can go to Father and say, all right. One God, three persons tell me why. That's how the case. 

[00:23:14] Jim Jansen: How does that, how does that work again? Yeah. But I, I love that because I mean, I think, you know, in addition to this kinda fearful fantasy of being on the stage and like, oh crap, I'm gonna have to answer the question about the, the trinity.

There's also this, I think, right? So you're afraid like, okay, that I'm gonna be on the spotlight. Like, no, no, no, no. Like good evangelization is a team sport. We just need you to start the conversation. And don't worry, you've, there are a lot of smart people in this faith community you call your parish, one of which is the priest.

But like you've got a lot of people who, who are on your team, who are gonna help when that question comes up. But the other thing is like the people that you talk to. Aren't hostile, rabid, atheist, you know, ready to.

[00:23:59] Austin Habash: In Omaha. 

[00:24:00] Jim Jansen: again. Yeah, and I mean, and there are 

[00:24:02] Austin Habash: maybe in Denver. 

[00:24:02] Jim Jansen: I know, but I mean, yet there are people with like, you know, wounds and, and ax to grind, but you don't talk to them very, very long.

You know, they're like, that's true. You know, they're like, it's just one of those things that like the, the people you're really talking to are way more normal. If I, that's a kind of an odd way to say it, but like, they're just your neighbors. They're, they're, they're more normal than, than you imagine them to be. 

[00:24:25] Austin Habash: And they're more afraid of you than you are of them.

That's another important lesson to learn that you, you almost don't learn until you're actually knocking doors. So think about. What happens is parishioners, when they're considering doing door to door evangelization, they think about how they feel when someone knocks on their door, and most of them likely feel a little scared.

There's a stranger at my door. Why is he there? Make him go away. Alright, well that's, that can, that can be the feeling of the, the homeowner, but when you're the door to door evangelist. You've got nothing to lose. You have absolutely nothing to lose. When I knock this person's door, they don't know anything about me at all.

Mm-hmm. I know a lot about them. I know where they live. I now I know maybe their name. I so. Who's the person to be afraid is not you. It's not you. The door-to-door evangelist that's here for a moment is going to disappear. So just helping people realize that between those two parts of this conversation, the scarier part is not you.

[00:25:28] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:28] Austin Habash: The door-to-door evangelist. 

[00:25:29] Jim Jansen: Okay. Austin, I wanna, I wanna give you an opportunity to give kind of the full picture here, because I know, you know, the. The knocking on doors, the, Hey, can I pray for you? Is there any, is there any way we can serve you? That's the stuff that's like very visible. It's front and center, but what, what you have in mind in terms of a parish commitment to this type of outreach, this type of service or evangelization that it's way more than that.

Take us through a little bit of the process, uh, and the other components. 

[00:26:03] Austin Habash: So the two things that I would say would be how you're finding evangelists, that's the first thing that's worth speaking to. How do you find and train the actual evangelists along with the rest of the scent team as you're, you're kind of alluding to here, and then what your parish can do to help you out.

Just to help the success of that program. And I'll start with the latter. So at the Augusta Institute, they have a framework, it's called Great Commission Parish, and it's just. Looking at doing those three parts of the great commission to teach, to sanctify and to shepherd, and so to shepherd is this ongoing out into your territory evangelization.

But again, what you wanna do with the people you encounter in the neighborhood is bring them into a community. And that's where the Augusta Institute will talk about, have a Wednesday night. Go through Symon for seven or 16 weeks. Mm-hmm. I forget how many episodes it is. Then go through the search, then go through presents, then go through forgiven.

So having just a very stable, shallow entry point. Some kind of dinner in a movie, you can skip the dinner if you don't want just a movie with a community that people can be invited to. So that's how Scent Evangelization will end up entailing, not just the neighborhood.

[00:27:16] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:16] Austin Habash: It does help to have a structure in place for these people to go to the parish.

[00:27:20] Jim Jansen: If I can build off that, I mean, again, it's different language, right? The Augustine Institute has tools, but all of this is like you talked about, it's like a discipleship pathway, a clear path, like a parish has to know, here's how we connect with people, here's how we, when the time is right, here's how we introduce 'em to Jesus.

Here's how we're gonna help 'em grow. Here's how we're gonna help 'em mature. And if the parish knows those things. Man, it's huge. Like, yo, we're gonna have this dinner and a movie thing and we're gonna invite people. And when you make friends from work or in your neighborhood, or maybe very specifically as part of an outreach.

You know, where to bring them, where they can meet other absolutely nice people who are gonna be friendly, uh, like you. Just, it's, it's a, it's way too much for even a professional missionary or right. Someone like you who's like, I kind of like knocking on doors. It's too much to carry that burden. Of accompaniment alone.

We need communities that have a clear path or some sort of ministry context that helps people through, through the stages of their growth. 

[00:28:28] Austin Habash: I agree. 

[00:28:28] Jim Jansen: And that's what we're talking about. Whether you name 'em, you know, there's a variety of different names and and motifs here, but we're talking about like, Hey, the faith community called the Parish has to know how they help individual missionary disciples accompany people.

[00:28:41] Austin Habash: I think. You're absolutely correct about the language. Different organizations may use different languages. If you're looking at really any kind of even evangelical parish who they do a great job of building a framework, this a path. Mm-hmm. For people, places for people. If you're looking at a Protestant church, you can guarantee they have a service on Sunday.

They have a Bible study on Wednesday. I know Baptists, at least in the old days, I don't know if they do still today. They had to go knock doors. I mean, they actually had to go into their neighborhood and evangelize people. So those three moves and whatever names you want to give them, whatever forms they take, absolutely required of your parishes.

So that's kinda the framework that's really helpful for the neighborhood evangelization team. But sent itself has a threefold division within it. So you have the blue shirt evangelists who are going knocking doors. If your parish has the number of people required, then you wanna add in two sub-team. So the red shirts.

Intercessors when the blue shirts go out. And normally most parishes will take evangelists out at a specific time and day. So there's a couple parishes in Michigan where we launch sent out. One would go out every Saturday morning, the other one would go out, uh, Wednesday at noon. So when you get together on that specific time and day.

The red shirt, intercessors, stay at the church. They pray for you as the blue shirts go out two by two with this kind of method. Mm-hmm. Modifying it as they're comfortable speaking to people. Then you also have your gray shirt support team that while the evangelists are going out, they're writing those handwritten letters, which can then be filled in with the information, the name, the address, the prayer intention.

They're thinking about the the Easter basket outreach or the Christmas outreach, or they're thinking about the direct mail for those seasons. So it becomes a more holistic, even with just within the scent team, it can become a lot more holistic if you have the people who are able to do it. So, and then that other part.

We're speaking to is how you find a scent team, how you train that scent team, and the, the very first thing that I, I think is really important for parishioners pastors to realize is that when that temptation or that that objection comes up in our heart. No one will do this. Mm-hmm. I like to say, I like to say just short, just short of no one will do this, and that's actually as many people as you need.

So there's a parish. We launched Santa in Michigan. It's in Charlotte, Michigan. They started with a team of maybe eight people. Now they have regularly, the last time I heard from them two, two people, two blue shirt evangelists that go out every Saturday. They knock doors, they pray for people, and I was just looking at their map the other day and it, it really looks like they visited every home in their city.

Their city's about 9,000 people. So two, two guys, one hour on Saturday. Being able to actually fulfill a very major part of Canon Law 7 71. Wow. So I think our pastors just need to realize that I have. If I have a thousand people coming to mass every weekend, or 500 people going to mass on the weekend, I have two guys.

I have two to five guys or ladies who can fill that blue shirt role, which is the hardest role to find people for. Then when it comes to intercessors and it comes to support team, we've got kind of a, a broader net right for those people to recruit. So I am of the firm belief. These people are, every single parish by God's grace has the capability, has the manpower to fulfill canon law.

[00:32:25] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I, man, I, I love that. So part of me wants to make a joke, right? About like, of course, like, so yeah, send the blue people out in Michigan and then, you know, keep, keep the folks with the red shirt in the back background 'cause, but sadly, Nebraska was not that intimidating for, for Michigan, uh, football.

Okay. So talk a little bit more like how does Scent Evangelization help prepare the blue shirt team that's going out, the intercessors, and then kind of the gray shirt support folks? How do you help a, a parish prepare those folks? Because I, I can imagine somebody listen saying like, well, that sounds awesome.

Where do I get the shirts and even more where, you know, how do, how do I prepare people, uh, for these, these ministries or these aspect of the ministry? 

[00:33:16] Austin Habash: So if, if a parishioner listen to this and. Yep. Canon Law. There it is. We need to do this. Maybe I can do this. If maybe not me, I can help Father get it started.

Where do I begin? Day one, go to formed. Watch the video training series on the method on a lot of the pieces that we've spoken about here. It's about seven episodes long, probably an hour total. Uh, video time. Watch that. There's materials then on a checklist to launch your team, there's a link to your t-shirts on Catholic markets.

Nice. And then there's some training components that are necessary specifically for your evangelists. Mm-hmm. So was an evangelist. Need to know, he needs to know the gospel. 

[00:34:00] Jim Jansen: Wait, and these are the blue shirt folks, right? So you've got training videos for blue shirt folks. 

[00:34:06] Austin Habash: Well, so the training videos is on send.

Proper. Okay. So it's more of a here's how it's going to work, here's how it came from, here's how you get started. The print materials are when you're getting into your blue, red, gray shirt, what they need to know.

[00:34:21] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:22] Austin Habash: So, so there's a packet I believe. Linked from the formed website to their leader site on in general.

Here's for your evangelist, your intercessor support team. Here's a script for your letters. Here's some prayers that you can pray, and then for your evangelist. The two things that I wanted to make sure that they understood from my experience of knocking doors for the last decade is you need to know those three questions.

And a couple versions of it. So I think I have two versions of the priest, prophet King, how you can word it that you're, you're most comfortable with. And again, the evangelists are gonna make it their own to a certain extent. Even if you don't want 'em to make it their own, they'll make it their own notice.

[00:35:03] Jim Jansen: Right. Yeah. People just like, it's pretty hard to not be yourself for very long. So they're, they're gonna, they're gonna do it as themselves, 

[00:35:10] Austin Habash: the two intellectual, apologetic pieces, which will be very helpful. When someone ask you to give an account for that is in Peter says will be the gospel. So we have the acronym so it takes the essence.

Story of story, the true story of creation, redemption, and then ongoing renewal through this acronym. So G God Exists or Creation, S, sin, PPA and E, ELAC of the necessity of the Church. And then L, lifelong Endurance. So that's in an article Linked on the Leader site. We actually just did a video on it, and so that video is gonna be okay by God's Grace on formed.

Maybe in two weeks, a week or two weeks. So the gospel, they have to understand the gospel. Sadly, they won't have a lot of opportunities in my experience to actually, you know, preach the whole gospel at the door. But again, mm-hmm that's gonna happen in community. We're just trying to have a conversation, get them in the door, invite them to some shallow space.

But it's good. It's good for them to know where the opportunity, 'cause it does happen, and it's also gonna make them comfortable. Once they have that intellectual formation, yes, yes. They're gonna be way more comfortable knocking doors saying. I mean if they ask me what I believe, what Catholics believe, I got it.

Got it. In this acronym.

[00:36:29] Jim Jansen: This is so funny. This reminds me of like my like early days of focus and we drilled, like literally drilled and like went through quizzes and apologetics. And you know, like the final exam is like you had a dart board. You had to like throw, you know, a dart and like if you were really, everybody wanted to get the Eucharist, but that was the bullseye, you know?

And then you're like, oh man, I just got solo scriptura. And then you'd go and you'd sit down with Curtis Martin or Ted Sri or, and you'd like, okay, so now I'm gonna, you know, veteran staff, whatever. And you're like, and you had to role play an apologetics conversation. And it was nerve wracking. There was a lot of studying, it was challenging.

But once you were done with that. You're like, okay, I feel really confident I just passed that. And honestly, it would rarely come up in Bible study on campus. Sometimes it would, it would rarely come up. But it wasn't so much, I mean, the information mattered, but mostly it was like, okay, I feel ready and I hear you saying something similar.

It's like, you know, it you, you don't usually get an opportunity to preach the entirety of the gospel as you knock on somebody's door, but the confidence to know. But I do know if it does come up with God's grace, I know what to share. 

[00:37:43] Austin Habash: And I would say the focus missionaries place in this journey demands a deeper intellectual rigor.

So I do sure for our parish, not, not. Not only the door to door, but also I table, and we're downtown more or less. And so we have traffic. So I put a table outside every morning from seven to eight, and I talk to people, your focused missionaries. When I was in college, I saw them doing two things primarily.

So they were tabling.

[00:38:08] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:09] Austin Habash: And then they were running the Bible studies. Both of those require way more knowledge of the faith. Door to door evangelization because it really is a hospitality outreach. That's how the people at the door see it as, yes, hey, we're with the parish. We just wanna say hi. Can we pray for you?

How are you doing? And because just the nature of that conversation is very brief. Yes. They crack open the door. Their whole body language says, normally you've got 60 seconds. You've got 90 seconds. Yes. In Omaha you'll, you're gonna get way more time because the people are so good. There again, I'm just so tempted to.

Just knock doors every day in Omaha. I had such a great experience in St. Charles Poeo there, but in, in Denver, again, they're very brief. Yep. And so the intellectual rigor is just not as required. So it is, as we're talking about here, it is more for the comfortability of the evangelist. So that's the first thing, the gospel.

The second is when the gospel is challenged, you wanna have one more layer below that? Mm-hmm. That's called the fundamental five. So that's how you take someone from nothing. So the veracity of the Catholic faith, that's just God exists. Scripture's historical within a Jesus claim to be God. He founded an infallible church.

That infallible church exists today. There you go. So if someone says, you know, they challenged the gospel and they say, well, yeah, that's great. We said about Jesus Christ, but did he exist? I mean, how do you know even, okay, well then you fall back into the fundamental five. So they're there. But again, you may never, you may knock doors for a decade and never get a chance.

[00:39:44] Jim Jansen: It doesn't come up that often, dude. Yeah. You know, I appreciate the distinction too, between just like the preparation needed to be a missionary and the preparation needed to like, Hey, I'm just a friendly neighbor. I'm like, hi, can we pray for you? You know, do you, do you know the churches down the street?

Anything you need help with? Because I mean, in my experience, you know, you, you mentioned earlier kind of like. You know, the Church of Latter Day Saints, Mormons, uh, Jehovah's Witnesses, when you really get into conversation, 'cause you know I'm a nerd, right? I was a former missionary and I, like, I would get into conversation with them.

They didn't know their faith that well. They weren't these like, you know, ultra elite gorilla warfare missionaries. They're like, I mean, they handed us a packet, uh, I'm supposed to give you this pamphlet. And I'm just like, you know, they were just like, I mean, I'm not saying that they didn't believe their faith, but they were not ultra prepared.

They were friendly and, and the only reason I bring that up is that the methodology. Seems to work just like, just like, just show up and, and meet people. I mean, sometimes the, the growth of these churches, even when it seems to lack the truth of the Catholic faith, even when it seems to lack a real charity and a, a full kind of like, you know, commitment to serve the individual, it still seems to bear fruit.

I'm talking about just the growth in some of these other church movements. 

[00:41:17] Austin Habash: Yeah. So in, in my opinion, and you know, I don't say this to, to say what we've done in the past has not been incredibly impactful and effective and, and has beared fruit in all eternity, but I really think we have just begun when it comes to evangelization a, a parish that hasn't gone after 90% of its responsibility has in some ways yet to begin.

Again, you know, take that as a grain with a grain of salt that's coming from the door-to-door guy. I mean that's, that's how I see things. Right, right. You're bringing up a very good point of go out preaching something that's very counterintuitive, very difficult to kind of see. That it works and they're having people buy in, join their organization.

How much more we who have the grace of God behind us? Mm-hmm. Who have the true faith, the true religion behind us. Right. How much more effective would we be at the door? We, there's a quote that I think about a lot, and I can't remember who it came from, but it's. The Catholic truth doesn't need to be defended.

It's like a lion. It just needs to be let out. 

[00:42:27] Jim Jansen: Oh. Oh yeah. 

[00:42:29] Austin Habash: I wanna say, I wanna say Augustine, but see, it's probably spurious. That's the, no, that's the thing. 

[00:42:34] Jim Jansen: Ah, gosh. I actually wanna say it's somebody like Chesterton actually, but I don't remember. But I mean, but it's, it's truth. It could be, we could put it in the mouth of almost any, any saint.

[00:42:44] Austin Habash: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:45] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Austin, I appreciate that. Just. For, for those who like didn't catch it. It's like, man, even, it sometimes seems like even the most dynamic and faithful parishes, if they have something that's teaching their people how to pray and they're forming people in the Catholic faith and, and maybe they're even starting to equip people to recognize how they're called to live as missionaries.

It is very, very rare. To have a communal effort of outreach, but when you really get down to it, maybe the parish has 10, 15% of its mission field. Registered and engaged, and there's a whole, there's a whole 90% out there that needs to be engaged, which I mean, I think is like, literally like, you know, like Pope Francis was talking about, you know, he, he, he flipped the, uh, the parable, you know, of the, you know, the, the good Shepherd who Leaves, leaves the 99 in search of the one.

He's like, well, just so you know, we should leave the one. And go in search of the 99. That's actually a far more accurate, uh, ratio. If, if we're gonna be. Honest about the, the percentages. 

[00:43:59] Austin Habash: Especially in your neck of the woods where just about everybody and I'm, again, I'm just taking my experience with St. Charles Borromeo.

[00:44:05] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. 

[00:44:05] Austin Habash: Just about everybody, actually, everybody I encountered for the hour that we went out and did the practicum knocking doors was either Christian or, or fallen away Catholic or currently Catholic. Mm-hmm. We prayed the, our father with just about everybody. Yeah. That opened that door. So, uh.

You know, I'm just, uh, I have a holy envy for places like that where you can do a lot of good really quickly. It's, it's a lot more difficult evangelizing the Hindus here in Denver. So I would, uh, I would just encourage anyone listening to this that lives in those Midwest states to very seriously consider going out and visiting your neighbors.

[00:44:44] Jim Jansen: Amen. I wanna, I wanna give you a chance to talk about that, Austin, because I just like, you know, going and evangelizing. Hindus, Muslims, uh, totally unchurched people. I mean, they are like, they are our responsibility. You know, Jesus died for them. Back to our earlier reference for Mother Theresa, most of her work this, you know, Jesus's thirsting for souls was amongst non-Christians, non, you know, non-believers.

What's been your experience of the Lord opening doors? With people who don't come from a Christian background, either you know nothing or, or Hindu, Muslim, whatever 

[00:45:30] Austin Habash: the nothings. Who would be of the younger generation. There's a great receptivity and it gives me great hope for a revival in America towards Christianity and Catholicism specifically.

When I knock the door and someone in their early twenties opens the door, neither in Denver, here, Denver, it's, it's common that neither. Their parents, nor their grandparents were very interested in religion. So the grandparents would've been kind of religious. Their parents would've fallen away in their teens.

Mm-hmm. And so when their son or daughter comes along, who I'm talking to at the door mm-hmm. They've never been to church. Mm-hmm. They're not baptized. They don't know anything about it. Those people have a great openness to who Jesus Christ is. What did he have to say? What is the church? So there's a great beauty in that, great opportunity in that, that we should continue. 

[00:46:31] Jim Jansen: Before you go farther there.

That's, you're just, you're blowing people's minds because I think the stereotype is, oh, well, they're not practicing. Because they hate God or they hate the Catholic church, or they're not, you know, or they have some fundamental disposition and you're saying no, their, their parents might've chosen to walk away, but they just never had the chance.

[00:46:56] Austin Habash: There is a, there's an interesting interplay, so I think it's job who says, Lord, equip me for the sins of my youth. So 13, let's say 13 to 21. Of the sins of the flesh. I would say there, there is some truth to, if someone is living in such a way that is against their conscience, that's not necessarily a great preparation for the gospel because you're, you're just their conscience incarnate.

I mean, even if you're preaching forgiveness, it, it entails repentance and so. There can be some callous from the youth because of that, because of the life that is lived by your teenagers. But on the other side, they haven't been burned by religion. I think it's Scott Hahn who will say there is quite a difference between mm-hmm.

The D divorcee. So someone who has experienced love. But that experience has not been good.

[00:47:50] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:51] Austin Habash: And the Virgin who's never experienced love and has an openness to it, and there's an excitement around it. So there are those two things that are woven together today in your teenagers in America. So the life doesn't really help them.

The way they're living doesn't help them for religion, but there's an intellectual openness. 

[00:48:09] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. Well, and they haven't been inoculated against it. You know, I mean, part of so much of my own story was in a very Catholic context. Catholic grade school. Catholic high school. Catholic college, and it was, I, uh, the, I had to, I had to labor to hear Christian truth, the formulations of the gospel in a new way.

Whereas your unchurched 20 something like millennial, whatever, it's like, I, I, I've actually just never heard this before. No. Who was Jesus? He's more than a swear word. I mean, like literally the first time you encounter that, you're like, holy cow, you've never really heard about Jesus. Okay, awesome. This is a cool conversation 

[00:48:59] Austin Habash: I've had multiple times in Denver where, uh.

In the early twenties, we'll open the door and I'll say, how can I pray for you? And they'll say, oh, I don't. And I'll say, are you of a particular faith background? And say, I don't know anything. Right? Mm-hmm. You know what? And they'll say, go ahead, go ahead, and then I'll go ahead. And those are your rare opportunities to really give the gospel in its fullness to people.

In regards to your Hindus, Muslims, the Buddhists, it, it depends, sadly. So with Catholics, because the word means universal. Okay, the we're the universal church. Your religion is not necessarily tied to your culture. It's not necessarily tied to your ethnicity. Because the Catholic church draws from all cultures, it draws from all ethnicities.

Now, for other religions, there's kind of a one-to-one match between your eth, your ethnic background, your race. And then your religion. And so for you to cut from your religion is at the same time kind of cutting your whole cultural background, your whole cultural framework. Framework. And so for someone in India, for the vast majority of India to become Catholic, uh, we're, we're not just talking about.

Different attendance on the weekend we're talking about to, you're gonna have, you're gonna have to have totally different friends. You know, your family may never talk to you ever again. You may lose your job, so it's very difficult. I've noticed for those religions that are so entwined with your ethnicity to, to win a, a hearing for the gospel.

[00:50:39] Jim Jansen: Yeah. But there's hope, even as you say that, it's like, you know, I think about St. Thomas the Apostle, right? Who was like the apostle to India and to, to this day, Indian Christians and Catholics are like, yeah, St. Thomas, he's our guy, you know? And, and we have done this. It's just we're, we're now. We're, we're now, I mean, back in a, in a.

Not the first one to say this back, back in like an apostolic age where the, the type of preaching that, you know, St. Francis did to Muslims that St. Thomas did for Hindus were, were there, we we're back. Uh, again, not totally, but were, we're okay. Depends on where you live, right? What neighborhood of Denver?

Where in Nebraska. But you're like, okay, we're, we're back where we need to again figure out how to articulate. The claims of Of Christ. For All peoples. All nations. 

[00:51:38] Austin Habash: Yeah. The gospel gospel is still true. It's still alive. It's living and active. Those religions will accept Christ at a much deeper visible cost.

And they realize that. Mm-hmm. And so, so may, so maybe it's the person who converts from these eastern, eastern religions is a more, maybe will be a more zealous Catholic, a more zealous Christian because they have literally left all to follow Christ. Yeah. Whereas the Anglos in America, it's, it's not, it doesn't come in such a cost.

So you're right, it's possible. And, uh, and it, it will demand. A great sacrifice from particular religions that are converting. 

[00:52:17] Jim Jansen: And I'm reminded just back where we began and from us, you know, you're mentioning like when the church was doing this, when, when people were converting to Christianity from established pagan religions or established, you know, Hindu, Muslim, whatever, blurring a lot of different timelines, several centuries together.

But, but when that was happening, it was because in the midst of. Crazy turmoil within the world thinking like, you know, the plagues and wars and persecutions. The Christian claim was distinguished because of the, the sacrificial love that we showed in those times. You know, you and your family put most of my family to death, and yet now as you struggle with illness.

I will remain. Everyone else has flipped the city, but I remain and I will nurse you back to health. 

[00:53:15] Austin Habash: Yeah, so the witness of charity, you're right. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a real beauty. I, I tell people, people who've done scent evangelization before, they'll ask this question and they already know the answer to it.

They'll ask, I wonder who this is better for? Is it better for the evangelist or is it better for the person at the door? And all of them say it's, it's more for us. This work is more for us, it's better for us. These doors, they'll open their close, they're in God's hands. He will give the gift of faith to whom he wills.

He will draw whom he wills, as it says in John six. But for you, there is something that is, that is grown, that comes alive in you, that's activated in you when you go out, as you're saying, like the early Christians. Mm-hmm. Under the possibility of persecution to be a witness of charity. 

[00:54:01] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Amen. And there's a, you know, we used to do this with.

With college students and, you know, help seminarians learn how to do this. And what, what it did is like it, God would do things in the lives of those we talk to, but even more he would do something in my life. And then in the, in the conversation that I had with my roommate and my friends and my, you know, nominally practicing, falling away, fam falling away, family, whatever, that there was just a, a new freedom and a boldness.

That I, I've already kind of confronted my fears. I've already seen the Lord stir in the hearts of minds of those that I'd never would've imagined. And now for the people that I've been praying for all my life, that I'm in relationship with all my life, I've, I've got a new freedom and a new confidence in him that he will act in that friendship with a coworker, family member, or whatever.

Man, Austin, what else do we need to know here? Our time is like totally flown here. Oh, how? How do people connect with you if they wanna learn more about your work? 

[00:55:09] Austin Habash: So the easiest way would be through the Augusta Institute. So I'm sure many parishes that are listening to this, parishioners who are listening to this, their parish has a formed account, go on, formed, go to the Sent Evangelization page on formed.

You have email addresses on there. You have links on there. You have the video series on there, the book is on there. There's audio talk. We tried to be comprehensive. Mm-hmm. And then you can always, always, your parish staff can always contact if they have formed their own coach. Their formed coach. And so Nice.

If they can't find, they can't find the answers on that page of formed. They can call their coach and then their coach can find the answers, and then their coach, the Augusta Institute can link me in If someone wants an in-person workshop, kinda like we did at St. Charles Boro Mayo. Mm-hmm. Those are always just a great joy, and especially when you're in Omaha.

So there's always that possibility. But I'd, I'd recommend very first step. Watch the videos, discuss it with your pastor. See what you can do on your own or through your coach. But of course, if someone wants a Saturday launch, they want me there to teach, to go out with their team. I'm more than willing to do that.

[00:56:22] Jim Jansen: Awesome. And, uh, I mean those here in the archdiocese can count, you know, my team and I as a resource as well. Uh, we will link to all these things. Uh, so we'll get these up on the, uh, show notes. Austin, last word. Just, uh, those who are like, oh man, I, I feel the Lord tug it out my heart on this. What do you want to, you know, and maybe there's just a little bit of apprehension in them.

What do you wanna say to them? 

[00:56:50] Austin Habash: I would say two things. The, the first is door-to-door evangelization. Any acts of corporeal or spiritual alms giving, we can call it our responses to God's love for us. Mm-hmm. So it's why do I do this? Why do I knock these doors? Because I'm so grateful. I'm grateful to God for my faith and for my life, and this is how I get to love my Lord.

Back. Lord said, go there for, and so I'm gonna go there for in gratitude for God as a thank you. So that's the heart of the mission. It's all about gratitude. That's what compels us. St. Paul says the love of Christ compels us. Mm-hmm. The second thing I would say is put it on a calendar. Talk to your pastor.

Get his green light. Go out two by two once you have a method, and just do it. Do it for 30 minutes. Knock those doors, say, how can I pray for you? And once you've done it mm-hmm. And you realize just how regular and ordinary it is, 90% of that fear will vanish like a cloud. 

[00:57:56] Jim Jansen: Mm-hmm. Amen. Austin, thank you.

Thanks for being with us. Thank you for what you do. Uh, everybody, we're gonna link to the show notes here. We're gonna make sure that you get a chance to. Go directly. You'll get, we'll get you a one click option here for form.org and for Scent Evangelization. Austin, thanks again. 

[00:58:14] Austin Habash: Thank you. God bless you.

[00:58:16] Jim Jansen: Alright, everybody, uh, you know, someone who needs to hear this, so share this out with, uh, that person who kept coming to mind. Maybe, maybe they're, maybe they're your blue shirt buddy, uh, that you're gonna head out with on Saturday. Go sit down, have a cup of coffee, so you're like, Hey man, should we do this?

I think Jesus wants us to do this. Uh, you send it out and you have a conversation and then let us know how it went. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the Quip 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 arch omaha.org.

God bless and see you next time.