[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody, welcome to the EquipCast. So today I sat down with Father John Riccardo, and we just had a fantastic conversation where he shares stories of tired laborers in the vineyard finding love and hope, communion, rediscovering their zeal for souls in the service of the church. It's a fantastic conversation, which talk about, you know, the, the pastoral priority for the proclamation of the gospel, uh, for the equipping of lay leaders, uh, now that we're in an apostolic age, he talks about the home as the primary place for evangelization, what our values could and should be, uh, in this new apostolic era.
How the church is more of a sailboat, uh, than a rowboat. It is a fantastic conversation. You're going to love today's conversation. Take a listen. Hey everybody. Welcome to the equip cast a weekly podcast for the archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission.
Let's go!
Fr. John Riccardo, welcome to the EquipCast. How are you doing this morning? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks. Great to be with you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. I've appreciated you, your work, and you know, we've been, as usual, I can't resist, you know, having a pre conversation before the conversation.
So, before we turned on the mics, we were having a fantastic conversation here. I'm excited to draw everybody else into the conversation, just the work of AXE 29, what you all have been doing. But for those who may not know you. And maybe if you can have some fun and share something new and unique, who's Father John Riccardo?
What's your, what's your story? 

[00:01:55] Fr. Riccardo: Oh, gosh. Who's Father John Riccardo? A, uh, a struggling, bumbling, desperately in need of mercy disciple of Jesus, um, who's only wanting every day to surrender ever more fully to him. So, I'm a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, been ordained 28 years, was a pastor for 15 years.
About six years ago or so, uh, my archbishop was kind enough to release me and let me create. This, which is a 501c3 called axe 29. And so, I'm a missionary with nine other spectacular brothers and sisters who are really passionate about the work that God has allowed us to do. And as one of my team members says, we get a front row seat to watch God work in power every day.
Yeah. So, you know, came out of Paris. I was just like going crazy, playing whack a mole every day to somebody who's been kind of like removed from the fire. And despite the challenges that are going on culturally, and politically, and ecclesially, I'm just filled with greater hope and encouragement than I ever was before.
Because as I can't tire of repeating, Jesus is not nervous right now. And he has no rhyme. And he's not anxious. And he doesn't want us to be either. 

[00:03:08] Jim Jansen: Oh, I love that. I gotta riff off something you said there. You're like, out of the fire. I think most people who are listening You know, uh, lay leaders and parishes are our clergy who are, who are listening.
They know what you mean, but what do you mean by the fire for, for, for those who are like, who just maybe have never been behind the scenes, uh, and maybe don't know the crucible of, of parish life. 

[00:03:32] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. So, before I was a priest long ago, I would have thought, wow, that's gotta be a great gig. You work an hour a week, at least that's what it's like, right?
And how hard can parish life be, but. Most people, I think, who serve in parishes, for those who don't know, were, were oftentimes caught up in taking care of the urgent to the detriment of the important. So, if people are familiar with the game of whack a mole, where this little thing pops up and you have to pound it. 

[00:03:57] Jim Jansen: Right? Like it should, should... 

[00:03:59] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, exactly. That's what, that's what parish life is like in many, not all. Places, you have a small number of people trying to care for a set of people. That's usually larger than anybody can care for. Everybody goes into it with the best of intentions and with a real love for the Lord and for the church.
And then it just becomes. really challenging and you end up living kind of in a trauma war. 

[00:04:26] Jim Jansen: I mean, that's, I think that's part of what, it's probably a good transition to Acts 29. You know, I think that's the, your own experience of that, uh, seeing that, you know, serving within your, your own archdiocese.
Tell us a little bit about Acts 29, right? For those who are like flipping to their Bibles, it's like, oh, what's in, what's in the 29th chapter of Acts of the Apostles? Just, just so I, you know, can kind of get a feel for what this organization is about. Tell us about Acts 29. 

[00:04:52] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. So, I always ask people, so what happens in the 29th chapter of Acts?
And people often say nothing. And I say, no, you do. Yeah. So, the, it's a common expression, actually, it happens to be the name of our apostolate, but, um, we would say we are all of us disciples of Jesus. We are the 29th chapter of Acts. Meaning what? Meaning, uh, the Holy Spirit hasn't abandoned the church. The same spirit who was moving through Peter and Paul and Andrew and Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and Ambrose and St.
Francis de Chantal is working right now in you and in me. And so, God's created, he created them to be alive at their time. He's created us to be alive in our time. 

[00:05:35] Jim Jansen: Amen. I love it. I am reminded, right? Our, our own archbishop, archbishop, uh, Lucas loves to say the Holy Spirit's not tired. It's not like I'm like, Oh man, it's been two millennia.
I'm done. It's like, no, he is, he is just as fresh and ready to go as, as he was in acts of the apostles. But father, that's not our experience. Most of the time. I mean, let's be honest, particularly in parish life, you know, when you've been playing whack a mole for a while, you, you're tired. And sometimes we don't see the spirit at work.
What's, what's Acts 29 offering as, as you all step, step into that experience? 

[00:06:14] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, let me contextualize that real quick. So, we've had the privilege over the last five plus years of, of being with about 3, 500 priests. I'll be a thousand deacons and hundreds of lay leaders on retreat. I would say for, for my brother priests, I would say this, which is really important just for people to know, I'll share this just so they can pray for us.
Many of our brothers are thriving. At least as many are not, they're just surviving. Uh, they love Jesus. They love the church. They love their people. But oftentimes guys are really lonely, very discouraged, oftentimes frustrated and same with the lay leaders who are working alongside them. So I think, I think most people who are serving in the church, whether it's at a diocesan or a parish level, we're aware of the fact something isn't working and only something isn't working, you know, and by that, I mean, the metrics are just terrible.
Right. My archbishop often says, you know, you're tempted to think last one out, turn out the lights, but the only thing that's going to survive is the church because the church is the body of Christ and Jesus isn't going anywhere and he's the only one who's. You know, eternal, so something isn't working.
And in addition to that, we're living through right now, this transition of eras, you know, I'm a year away from 60. I was paid for a different era and my contemporaries were, I mean, you were, we were trained for a different time. You know, we're trying for a time, which many people call Christendom and, and Christendom just means.
Uh, the culture at large, even if it didn't know it, was profoundly shaped by the gospel, and that's clearly not what we're living in right now, and we're not going back to it. So, the genie's out of the bottle, and we shouldn't go, I wish it was an earlier, easier time. We should just go, well, God didn't want to be alive in that time.
He wanted to be alive now. Let's go at 

[00:08:08] Jim Jansen: it. And efforts to try and recreate it, their effect is limited at best, and, and sometimes almost completely unfruitful, counterproductive sometimes. 

[00:08:17] Fr. Riccardo: Exactly. Yeah. So, then the question becomes. You know, maybe it's overly simplified. How does the church we would say something like get well, how does how does the church living at a time right now this time that God chose us for how do we best answer the cry of the world around us, which is.
Think really profoundly manifested by despair. We're living through what's being called the new great depression. The first one was economic. This one's mental health, anxiety, fear, depression, discouragement, whatever. And that's not just like out there that's in here. It's in me. It's in, it's in us who make up the body of Christ.
So how does the church get well, then nobody has the answer to this. There's no silver bullet. But we don't think the answer is programs and methods as effective as programs and methods can be or as helpful as they can be. That's not real. Transformation comes. We think that that God We would say for us in our ministry, we feel like he's given us something that we're supposed to give away.
And I mean, give away as broadly as we can, most especially to leaders, which was 1st, an experiment, but it's not an experiment anymore. And it all has to do with the renewal of the mind and with principles. So, our, our, our work is at 1 of the same time, very practical, but it's not prescriptive. There's no 1 way to do this.
These principles are simple, but not easy. I'll name them real quick and then maybe we can talk further, and I'll let you take it. However, you want to go. Yeah. Yeah. So, the principles are first, we have got to reacquire a biblical worldview. That's the first one. I think Frank Sheed said long, long, long ago, most of us have mostly worldly minds with Catholic patches.
And I think that's true. I like that's true for me. I mean, I do a holy hour every morning. I live in the word of God. I'm a priest. I mean, I do this stuff all day long and I have a mostly worldly mind. I'm bombarded all day, every day by it. Images, messages, news, whatever. And so, we've hit clarity again on who's God.
Why do you make the world? Why is it messed up? Who's the enemy? Who's not the enemy? Who's Jesus? What did he do? What was his mission? Why did he come? What's it mean to say he's Lord? What's our mission as disciples? So that's the 1st principle. We got to learn how to see again. 2nd principle. We call it.
It's not enough to be a staff. Meaning what? Meaning my experience, both personally, and when I was a pastor working in parishes and diocese, and then being with people all around the country, most this is going to come scandalously. So, to a lot of people listening, perhaps, but most diocese…diocesan offices, parishes have really good people who are really high functioning but who together are really dysfunctional.

[00:11:17] Jim Jansen: I'm shocked. Father, what are you talking about? I know, scandalous. 

[00:11:22] Fr. Riccardo: So, we, like, we would say this about ourselves when we were in the parish, like, we got a lot of stuff done. Yeah. And God just did amazing things despite us. Yeah. We whacked a lot of moles, like a lot of moles. And we saw a lot of people's lives changed, but we, we weren't, we weren't really all that trusting with each other.
We weren't that vulnerable with each other. We didn't have healthy conflict. We had a lot of meetings after the meetings out in the parking lot. Not a lot of accountability that, that gradually began to change. But I think that's the norm in most. Dyson offices and parishes around the country, and so we say we've got to move from being a staff, even if we're a highly functioning staff to a team.
There's been a lot of work on team building, which is really good. But teams can't be the model because teams aren't biblical. There's only one time where teams show up in the Bible and it's chariots. And that can't be the model. We got to learn how to be a family on mission. We got to learn what's leadership really all about how to ordained and lay really work together.
How do men and women really, how do we trust each other again? How do we grow in the experience? Not just the words of. Being the body of Christ, where there are no just like, nobody can say, well, I'm just the administrator. I'm just I'm just like, there's no 1 important people in the body of Christ. So, we got to, you got to move from that.
We, we, we would say that the church has suffered largely from something like a…a corporatization of the church, and we, like, I can't say loudly enough to my brother, priests and the bishops. So, we would Um, we should never refer to the people who work with us as a staff. I think that's a corporate term.
I don't think it's biblical. I don't think Paul had a staff. Paul never uses language like that to describe the people he works with, he serves with. So that's the second principle. We can come back to that. Maybe the third one is what we kind of euphemistically called the moneymaker. And this is really what we're trying to teach.
And it's so desperately needed, and we simply call it restoring the initiative to God, which means what in essence, it means. This is an expression of Cardinal Cantalamessa. He says, you know, the Apostles and the Saints didn't just pray before they did their work. They prayed in order to know what to do.
And my experience in the church is that we've reduced prayer to an agenda item. And prayer should never be an agenda item. Prayer should drive the agenda. We've never been here before. We don't have to figure this all out on our own. God doesn't want us to figure it out on our own. God actually has a plan, and he wants to reveal it to us.
And if we know how to see we've got a biblical worldview and we've got the right people around us with whom we can patiently go at it, then we can discern the plan. That's what we're about. 

[00:14:19] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I love it. I mean, it's well, I mean, I don't love it, but I love your expression. It's as though we're like, you know, Lord, I have a plan.
Please bless it. You know, rather than, uh, Lord, what are you doing and how can I help? I mean, uh, it's so good. Okay, let's, I mean, let's talk about all of these. Father, there are so many elements, uh, so let's start with the first one, right? This kind of rediscovering a biblical worldview. Can you give us like one or two, like, if we could rediscover the truth about X, man, that begins to change the, that vision begins to change the way we approach our, our service.

[00:15:02] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, so I'll start with a quote from john Paul and then maybe break it open. So, John Paul said in a document that he wrote on catechetics. I love it. It says the initial ardent proclamation of the gospel, the curriculum, the core content of the gospel should be such that a person is gradually overwhelmed and then moved to entrust their entire life to Jesus.
In faith, so I would just encourage us picture going to it any parish this weekend and instead of a homily, imagine father standing up and saying to everybody, hey, I just like to ask everybody here two questions. First question. How many people here have been overwhelmed by the gospel? Maybe 20. Maybe I don't know the question.
How many people here have made a decision to entrust their entire life, money, body, time, sexuality, future children, everything to Jesus in faith. Now, how many hands do you think would go up? And I would say maybe one. I'm not even sure my hand goes up. 

[00:16:14] Jim Jansen: Well, and, and for context, again, not that we want to ide you know, uh, idealize the fifties, and I don't mean the 1950s, I mean like, you know, 50 A.
D., the, the church at its beginning. Yeah. But in a context of martyrdom persecution, I mean, I don't know, 80 percent of the hands go up there, they're like, yeah, I'm here at the risk of my life, I, I've already decided, my presence here is a testimony to the fact that my life is in the hands of, of the Lord.

[00:16:43] Fr. Riccardo: Absolutely. I think the reason behind it is really simple. I think it's most people haven't heard the gospel. Yes. Amen. I think you'll have heard parts of it, but they haven't heard all of it. So here, here's a real practical thing that we would, we would consider people prayerfully think about. We would passionately argue that, that it's probably worth every parish, at least once a year, setting aside X number of weeks, not on Thursday night, but on Sunday, because Sunday is Only time you have everybody and by everybody, it's only a small percentage because not everybody comes to church.

[00:17:20] Jim Jansen: Right? 

[00:17:20] Fr. Riccardo: But just reach the gospel like set aside 456 weeks and preach the curriculum. Tell the story. We created something called the rescue project, which is the way the Lord's led us to do that. But most people have never heard the story. And until you hear the story, if you preach like morality, people just get angry.
So, we got, we got to share the gospel first, confident that the gospel is power. It's not just news. It's extraordinary, explosive, life changing news. So, preach the gospel to people and tell them why you're going to read the lectionary. We're going to proclaim the lectionary, but we're going to preach just the Kerygma because we want to ask the Holy Spirit in the process of this to overwhelm us.
So that we'll surrender ourselves, maybe for the first time, maybe anew, to Jesus so as to get mobilized for mission. 

[00:18:15] Jim Jansen: No, I, I mean, I, if I can insert just a little testimony there, you know, I served, most of our listeners know, I served as a college missionary for many, many years. And, it really wasn't until an embarrassingly long period of time serving as a missionary that I really began to lean into an explicit proclamation of the Kerygma.
And it was, you know, quotes from John Paul II. I was doing my master's work at the time. So, I was learning what the church was saying about the power of the Kerygma. I was learning about, you know, like, okay, what, what evangelization really is, and it's necessary, as a necessary precursor to catechesis. And then I just had some friends who were, who had better stories than me.
And the Lord mercifully used kind of the competitive side of me. And so, I began to actually share the kerygma. And I, I just began to see the Lord amazing things in my life, but in the life of those that I was Serving at things where it's like, man, this guy's been in bible study for three years. This, this girl's she's in the choir.
You know, they, they just came back from confession and adoration. And yet there was something about the power of the gospel that released something new in them. Uh, an extraordinary fruit, fruitfulness. 

[00:19:35] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. And that's, that's why we created the rescue project. You know, when, when I was in the parish. You know, my favorite thing to do was to teach our CIA and I taught it for 20 some years and it always began with the correct mode.
And then when we started doing acts, 29, we did a lot of retreats for priests, uh, for presbyterates and the core that was preaching. What is now the rescue project would have priests say to us things like. Did you come up with this or don't think I've ever heard this before, or, you know, I never think about the enemy.
I don't, I never, I never preach about Satan. I never think about him, or I never really understood Jesus's mission. You know, the, the way the Lord has led us to preach the gospel, there's three things of note of it. First is it lifts up an image of Jesus, which, which is very biblical, but it's. It's more than just Jesus is kind, he is kind, and he is compassionate, and he is merciful to be.
He's also unconquerable. He's Lord, which means nobody else is he's defeated sin. He's defeated death. He's defeated Satan, and he is raining right now, even though it doesn't look like it some days. That's huge. The second thing that's really significant is we go hard after the enemy. And in our country right now, and in the church right now, we have, this is a huge part of a biblical worldview.
We have got to get clarity on who is and is not the enemy. As a disciple of Jesus, I have one enemy, only one, Satan and his minions. No human being is my enemy. People are doing weird things. Clearly, right? They're not the enemy. They're just rebels. Rebels took me in. I mean, I, I was, I was, and still can be.

[00:21:25] Jim Jansen: Rebels and hostages. You know, they've been, they've been, they've been kidnapped and brainwashed. 

[00:21:31] Fr. Riccardo: Exactly. Just like I was and still can be, right? And so, you know, rescued people go rescue people. That's what a disciple is. And then the third thing about, you know, What the Lord's led us to just stress, which I think is increasingly important, especially for the lady, because we talk about what is the age of the lady and it is, but I don't really know what that means is getting clarity on the mission of the disciple and the mission of the disciple, which uniquely belongs.
To the lay faithful, like my task priest is to equip the lady. Yes, to go do the mission. But then the question is, well, what's the mission? And we would say the mission is twofold. There's an internal part of the mission and there's an external part of the mission. The internal part of the mission is holiness, like take back all the territory that the enemy claimed in my life by the power of the Holy Spirit, but the external mission is one evangelization, but it's bigger than that.
Because Jesus doesn't say, hey, go out into all the world and teach them some of the things that I have commanded you. And everything is a lot and it's bigger than just evangelization. It includes recreation. Yeah. I think we're close to the same age. I'm not sure, but we probably grew up singing, uh, let us build the city of God, which is a really good song.
You can't build the city of God, but you sure as heck can build for it. That's the mission. Share the gospel. But also, whether you're a doctor or an attorney or a politician or an actor or a coach or an athlete, do all that you can in that particular area too, to bend back into conformity. Whatever it is that you do, that it's back in accord with how the father created it to be.
Otherwise, you abandon the world, and we're not supposed to abandon the world. We're supposed to help recreate it until Jesus comes back and makes all things new. 

[00:23:30] Jim Jansen: Man, amen. I love, I love that. And you know, Father, it seems like none of this is new. None of this is a, you know, Oh, it's an axe 29 innovate innovation, but it is a, it's a rediscovery that, you know, in the In the age of Christendom, there are different pastoral priorities, and, you know, the training and the methods and the pastoral practices for that time, and for, you know, a bygone era that we still have some vestiges of, those were right for the time.
But in an apostolic age, and now the proclamation of the kerygma, the mobilization of the laity, really rise to the surface as the most urgent. pastoral tasks of the day, just to name a few. 

[00:24:21] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's, there's nothing new. It's a rediscovery or, you know, John Paul's language for the new evangelization.
It might be new in expression or new in method. You know, let me give you one last, just to drop a provocative little bomb. Oh, I love it. Go for it. We're saying this more and more. This is just something that we talk a lot about with priests and with bishops. I think a huge part of the age that we're living in is we have to stop seeing the parish as the primary place of evangelization.
Ooh, say more. That is provocative. I think we need to see the home as the primary place of evangelization. And by that, I don't mean so much or simply parents teaching the faith to children. That's not what I mean at all. That's really important to be sure. But, but I think we all know this now people who live in the world, you know, who are not like you're mindful of who's not going to church.
Like you, you work with them, you live with them, your kids go to school with them. You know them, and, and, and I think we need to see our home as the place where the world meets the church. Yes. And we've got to be intentional about, like, like, they're going to get to the church. They're going to get to the sacraments.
They're going to get to the altar through you in your homes. And so, one of the ways I try to get into this with people oftentimes is to ask the question, Who do you think Paul's best friends are? Because I think you can make a biblical argument that Paul's best friends are Priscilla and Aquila who are a married couple who show up everywhere.
Paul is there in at least three. He honors them to no end. And at the end of Romans, he makes a point after he honors them to say, and greet the church that meets in their house. And that's, he says that because you don't have church buildings, but I think if, if the lay faithful understood, that's what God wants to say about their house.
This is the place. Where the church gathers, and I want people to come here and to experience the normalcy of life and part of that normalcy of life is us being intentional and deliberate about. I want to invite people into my home for some sort of small group experience. Perhaps maybe it's alpha.
Maybe it's rescue project. Maybe it's walking with purpose. Maybe it's whatever because you. Like, I have a charisma of hospitality. I love to cook. Our home is attractive. I mean, we're real and we know what they want. Like, they want God, even if they don't know it. And so, I'm the intermediary that's going to get them there.

[00:27:00] Jim Jansen: I love that. I mean, just, you know, it reminds me, I mean, on a very practical level, we say something very similar to, you know, the parish leaders that, you know, we, we coach and, and support. It's like, uh, yeah, I mean, eventually we want them at Mass, but if somebody's far away from the Lord, the parish basement, the church, that's probably not the first stop.
Uh, and increasingly we're living in a world where people do not have even very little vestige of church. So, the whole language, the whole experience, they're not prepared for it. You know, the Mass assumes Quite a bit of initiation and quite a bit of mental transformation and start by with a coffee shop or even better start with your living room.

[00:27:45] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. And so, like a husband and wife, what do you do? You start praying about Lord, who are you inviting us to invite into our home and then think about, okay, so let's think about six. Eight people. And we're just going to say, Hey, you know what, we're going to do this thing for the next couple of months, which we're just going to make dinner, sit around, watch something, talk about it afterwards.
Would you be interested in coming? And that's how we start seeing. I think if we saw the home that way, we would be less frustrated by my parish doesn't do a lot for evangelization. Well, maybe your parish shouldn't be doing a lot for evangelization. Because maybe their focus is supposed to be on equipping you to do the evangelization.
 

[00:28:29] Jim Jansen: Oh, I love it. I want to go after a little bit of that, that second, right? Like, you know, not a staff. Uh, I love that. I love that principle. And if, if it can, I mean, just want to like, let's go after like all of the fears. I think at least somebody, God bless you, whoever you are. When they hear that, they're like, Oh crap, he wants us to hold hands and there goes all the HR protocols and what if they're not doing their job, I have to be able to fire them and like all of those fears, if you can just address those and then get to the heart of why we have to be more than a staff, more than even a team, but actually a family.

[00:29:09] Fr. Riccardo: Yep. So, the heart of it is it's biblical. So, it flows out of the biblical worldview is so if Jesus can say, whoever does the will of my father is my brother, my sister and my mother. So, if he calls us family, okay. Then help me understand why he's God and he doesn't hesitate to call me family. What would be my hangup or why would I think somehow that's beneath me and my remarkable privileged position of leadership?
I mean, and there's lots of scriptures that we could look at, right? And he's not ashamed to call us brothers. He says to Magdalene, you know, go to my brothers and tell them I'm ascending to my father and your father. I mean, this is Every second reading from the New Testament, the way we translate it in the lectionary starts, brothers and sisters.
Well, is that a reading? It's just words. 

[00:30:05] Jim Jansen: You referenced Paul and Priscilla and Aquila just to name two besides Timothy, Titus. He said, my brothers, my children. 

[00:30:13] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. That's the core of it. It's biblical. Now, what about the genuine concerns of, yeah, but what about when you have to move somebody out of the family?
Because That's how do you do that? I would say, here's another biblical help. St. Paul, St. Barnabas, and St. Mark, who all used ministry together, at a certain point, stopped doing ministry together because St. It didn't work and but, but they didn't stop loving each other and they didn't say, Hey, I mean, like, you can picture Paul saying, Hey, guys, I would die for you.
We can't work together anymore. Yeah. And so, I think there's a, there's a helpful principle for us. They're clearly. We have to help people find better places to serve because it, for whatever reason, sometimes it doesn't work, but we need to do that the way scripture teaches us to do that and not be driven by.
Legal or HR. We want to use legal and HR by all means, stupid or whatever, or careless, but we want to be driven by the biblical principle in the same way that when people date who are Christians, when you break up and most people who date break up, you break up disciples and you don't break up like the world.

[00:31:40] Jim Jansen: I love that. Cause I mean, in fairness, you're like, I love, right. I love our HR professionals. Uh, those who are listening. I think they would say like, hey, my job is just to keep you from getting in trouble with the IRS. I'm going to help you with some safeguards so you can avoid some real costly landmines.
But then how you interact, that's, right, that's the stuff of Acts 29. When, if it comes time that someone needs to no longer be serving as part of this mission, fine. But they're still a brother. They're still a sister. They're still, there's a fundamental identity of who we are and how we relate. Father, if you can, give us like, what are the, what's the consequence?
Like, what's different about that? Or maybe to put it another way, like, okay, I agree. But so, what, how does that change Tuesday morning? 

[00:32:31] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, I'd say it changes it remarkably. Here's why. It means we have a genuine collective concern for our well-being. Like, I don't just want to do my work well. I'm actually interested in you.
Not in what you're doing, in you. I'll back up for a second and just say this. My experience. In a parish life, but then my experience being across the country over the last number of years is only confirmed this if the church has one desperate need right now, it's to learn how to be human again, say more are so transactional and so functional the way priests would oftentimes say it to us would be something like this is not human.
It's not sustainable. And I can't picture Jesus living this way. We talk oftentimes in the church, whether it is brothers and sisters doing the ministry or as people who attend parishes, we talk act much like the world. Unfortunately, we're somehow preoccupied with, we either imitate the world and being angry with each other or talk like people who are trying to get stuff done, quote unquote, as opposed to Coming together to ask the Lord, Lord, what are you asking us to do in our own unique situation?
So as to bring more people into relationship with you. And so, if the goal is to bring people into the family of God and the body of Christ, and we who are running this aren't actually an attractive image of the body of Christ. Why would anybody want to join us? 

[00:34:14] Jim Jansen: And I mean, I'm hoping this is resonating with, so, and again, not all, you know, not all of our listeners are behind the scenes.
This is a, not all are serving maybe in a, On a staff, I mean, family, uh, role, or maybe they're not, you know, serving as a super volunteer, but there's, there's just little glimpses, you know, some commentators, you know, talk about how, like when you walk into the parish office, does it feel like family or does it feel like an insurance agency?
You know, like there's, there's all those like kind of questions. I'm just going to make an assumption that everybody's like, okay, I get it. You know, I've experienced that or maybe I haven't, but I can grant it. I've got enough of a peek behind the scenes that I can imagine. How do you fix it? Or how does this family worldview of how we interact, how does it fix it?

[00:35:02] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, that's a great question. So there's lots of things that we can consider doing, but, but one of the core things is to think about, well, who are we, so, you know, people spend a lot of time, I imagine a number of listeners would be familiar with Pat Lencioni, amazing parish, and some of the work great he does.
One of the things that is really important to do is to get clarity on how do we behave. So oftentimes these are called core values. We call them an X 29 apostolic values. One of the reasons these are so important is because it's one, what are we going to demand of each other? Now, what am I going to demand of you?
What are we going to demand of each other? Like, what are we going to tolerate and not tolerate? How do we hire? How do we do performance reviews? How do we consider whether we're doing a good job? And we have, let me share these real quick because we think you're going to be serious about doing apostolic work.
I don't care what you call these. These elements need to be in play. So, our first apostolic value, we call it ambitious for God and his kingdom. 

[00:36:08] Jim Jansen: I love it. 

[00:36:09] Fr. Riccardo: Which means like, we don't think all that much about ourselves. Like I know who I am, and I got really gifted brothers and sisters I work with, but I know their weaknesses too.
And I'm not all that, but God is all that like Jesus is Lord. And so, we're just not nervous as a result of that. And so, we, we hold ourselves to be magnanimous. Yeah. We want to do great things for God. So, if you're serious about doing apostolic work right now, and you're going to hire people, you want to hire people who have magnanimous hearts.

[00:36:43] Jim Jansen: Yes. 

[00:36:44] Fr. Riccardo: 2nd episode value. Going back to that, we've got to stop being so functional and transactional. There's a, there's a new translation and commentary in the gospel of Mark that came out a couple of years ago called the memoirs of Saint Peter. It's a fantastic. Both translation and commentary, but in it, the author, he says something that I find so provocative.
He's talking about how Jesus says healthy people don't need a doctor. The sick people do. And his comment is this is really remarkable. Like Jesus has done miracles at this point. Of healing who are blind or whatever, but what he's saying is, because he's saying this in the context of a meal, he's somehow saying that his ordinary way of healing people is spending time with them.

[00:37:35] Jim Jansen: Yeah, and the people he's spending the most time with, when we let ourselves see it, there's some humanness that's in need of transformation. 

[00:37:43] Fr. Riccardo: Absolutely. It's not airbrushed. We would say about ourselves, we do life together on our team. In our family, like we travel together, we do ministry together. We never go out.
It's very biblical. We eat together, which the more time you spend together, the more productive you are together because you, you trust each other, you know, each other more, you can't love. No, give each other permission to be real, like, okay, not to be okay. This whole idea of, you know, like, leave your home life at home.
Like, nobody can do that. Right? So, if you walk in. Into the office. I want to know, hey, you don't, you don't look good right now. Are you okay? I'm all right. No, you're not. Yeah, and so we want to pour into each other. We want to love each other and do life together. Because that's how Jesus does ministry.
That's how the apostles do ministry. And then the 3rd epistolic value is being docile to the Holy Spirit. You know, I think it's Cantalamessa again. He says the church is not a rowboat driven forward by the strength of the people in the boat. The church is a sailboat. 

[00:38:53] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's fantastic. 

[00:38:55] Fr. Riccardo: Propelled. And if you know anything about sailing, sailing is not passive.
It's not like you just hoist the sail and you sit back. I mean, you are moving like crazy on a sailboat, cooperating with the wind and cooperating with each other. And that's how the church is supposed to run. But I mean, I don't know about you. My experiences. I felt some days like my arms were going to fall off because I just felt I was trying to do it on my own and, and we don't have to do it on our own.
So, we got to be willing to let the Lord lead, which means being willing to go into the unknown, not yet aware of what's next because God never gives the whole plan. 

[00:39:38] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's, I mean, I feel like that's a perfect transition, you know, to the, um to the, that third principle, giving the initiative back to God.
If you can expand that out for us and then help us to see like, what does that look like in practice? 

[00:39:58] Fr. Riccardo: I'll share an analogy, and I'll try to tell you how we do it. So, the analogy, which I find very helpful, uh, when we were building an expansion on our property set of years ago when I was still at the parish, and one day out of nowhere in the parking lot shows up this really ugly portable trailer.
And so, I noticed it and I thought, well, that's, that's really hideous. And then every day I would watch these two guys start the day in the trailer and they would come out with their thermos and their hard hats, and they'd walk over to the construction site. And then at lunch, they'd come back to the trailer.
And then in the afternoon, they'd go back to the construction site. And then before they left, they went back to the trailer and then they would do this every single day until. Building was done. And one day I felt like the Lord said to me, Hey, John, what do you think's in the trailer? And I said, blueprints.
And he said, yeah, and just like they know, they've got to go into that place to consult the blueprint before they build and keep making sure they're building it the right way. That's how you need to understand how we're going to work together. I have. I think we could say this. God has a plan for every parish, every diocese, every marriage, every family, every ministry, and we don't have to figure it out.
The Old Testament imagery would be Exodus when God says to Moses over and over again, build the tabernacle according to the pattern that I will show you. And so, Moses task is not to figure it out. Moses task is to get on his face. And to ask God to show him the plan and the plan doesn't just magically fall from the sky.
And this doesn't mean we're supposed to be passive, and this doesn't mean that we aren't involved. We're not puppets, but we have to have the conviction. God has a plan and he's actually more eager to show it to us than we are to get it. And if we'll give him the time. He'll reveal it. And if I've got a biblical worldview, so I know who's talking to me, right?
People with me, then we can go into quote unquote, the trailer. That's what we call our chapel. So, we call our chapel, the trailer. 

[00:42:15] Jim Jansen: Nice. 

[00:42:16] Fr. Riccardo: And we're trying to teach people. How do you go into the trailer to pastorally discern decisions? Because again, none of us have ever been here before. So how do I figure, how do I, how do I discern that?
Figure out. What God might asking us at St. Anne's in Omaha? 

[00:42:39] Jim Jansen: You know, we were talking before we turned the mics on. We probably don't have time for all of these, but can you give some examples of like, okay, what happens in the trailer and then what happens after the trailer as this family is beginning to, you know, around the father, around their pastor begin to discern together.

[00:42:58] Fr. Riccardo: I'll name him real quick and then I'll point him to a resource. So, we try to teach people what the Lord's been teaching us. So how to bring very particular specific questions into prayer together. So, you, me and our team, whatever our team is, we're going to go into the chapel. We're going to spend a half hour, 45 minutes.
In front of the Lord, and we're gonna ask him four questions, but we're gonna do this in four different sessions and more. If we need him, the first question is gonna be this. Lord, what's the single biggest gift that you've given to us? Whatever the us is, and we're gonna bring a Bible. We're gonna bring a journal.
We're gonna bring a pen, and we're gonna listen to the Holy Spirit because we're gonna be. We're gonna be confident that God because Jesus says my sheep hear my voice. So, none of us have a pipeline to God, but he does speak. So, we're going to listen. We're going to come out of the prayer. And whoever the leader is, he's going to go around and say, what did you hear?
What did you hear? What did the Lord say? And it's going to be his task or her task to push towards clarity and discernment. Then there's going to be a second question. The second question is going to be, Lord, what is the biggest wound in us? Or where are we most sick? You're going to ask the Lord to give something like a spiritual MRI.
So, like, I have a really bad shoulder, and for months I didn't know why, and it was just aggravating. And then you go to the doctor, and the doctor's able to say, well here's why. And that's really helpful. So, this isn't sobering, it's really helpful. It's uh, it might be sobering, but it's not bad news. It's a diagnosis.
So, you're asking the Lord for spiritual insight and then you're going to come out of the prayer. What did you hear? What did he say? And you're going to be able to get clarity on that's the, we have a lot of wounds, but that's the single biggest wound that we have in us. Third question, Lord, what's hell's strategy for us?
Because the enemy gets a vote, and hell certainly has a strategy because he doesn't want the… And we're going to come out again of prayer. We're going to say, what did you hear? What did you hear? What did you hear? And you're going to try to get clarity on if you can imagine something like mission control and help what's on the screen.
And then that's going to set up the 4th question, which is now about action. And the 4th question is going to be. Okay, based on everything you've revealed, Lord, where are you asking us to attack? Or what's the single most important thing for us to focus on right now? And you're going to come out of prayer and you're going to get clarity.
And that's how you pastorally plan. We've put together a little booklet on our website. People can access it. We've done a podcast series on this at a podcast that we call you were born for this. You can listen to that to get more, much more extensive information. But we've been doing this now with bishops.
Pastors, lay leaders, diocesan offices, and I can't emphasize enough, simply, this works. 

[00:45:54] Jim Jansen: That's fantastic. I mean, we will link to those resources in the show notes. I mean, our time is flying, but I want to give you a chance to talk about fruit. I mean, say this works, and I'm looking for a couple things. I mean, you go wherever you want, whatever fruits you've seen.
I want to hear stories of dying parishes. Coming to life again, and I want to hear stories of ministry leaders, clergy, lay leaders, whatever, being transformed, not just the superstars, because I think if I can speak to the heart of some of the people listening, I think people are like, I don't know if parish renewal is for me.
I was not the top of my class in the seminary. I'm not the one that everybody's going to vote for as dean. You know, I'm not, I'm not the one that everybody expects to figure out how to fix this. Where have you seen the Lord work? In the weak and the struggling. Yeah, that's a great question. 

[00:46:52] Fr. Riccardo: So again, I'll, I'll point people to a re a resource.
So, on our, on our website underneath a tab that says What do we do? One of the things that we do are these weeklong offsites called Leadership Immersives. And on that tab are some video testimonies from people who've come to us. And it's probably best to let them speak for themselves, but I'll say this maybe as a couple of summary things.
So, the fruit, what's the fruit look like? It looks like things like this. First, people who do ministry, who love God, but who are, who are just tired, experience being loved. Because most people who do ministry, we're really good at giving, we're terrible at receiving. I'm terrible at receiving. And so, to just sit back and to be waited on for the better part of a week where you, your task is just to receive is really life giving.
It looks like people encountering the power of the gospel again, who come in intellectually knowing that Jesus is Lord, but experientially not really encountering that, leaving going, I have so much hope right now, not, not optimism, hope. Thank you. And no longer is just as they were when they came in. It looks like people leaving who've learned how to how to recognize.
You know what? I think the most important thing for us is to spend time with each other. Like, we need to learn how to pray together again. We've got to make a priority on us. And caring for one another, because in ministry, what happens oftentimes is we care for those that we minister to, but we don't care for each other.
And so, we end up using each other oftentimes. Without we don't have that intention, but that's what we do oftentimes because there's so much to do. And so, to walk out realizing, you know what we really enjoyed spending time with each other, and we need to make a priority of doing this more. Um, it looks like people going into the trailer, having the experience of God speaking, not only in the trailer, but in real life.
But continuing to speak as we sat around the table asking, what did the Lord say? And suddenly we've got an insight that only the Holy Spirit could have given us on the biggest wound or on hell strategy or on what's most important right now. And then what happens? This is maybe the biggest fruit. They go back to ministry fired up for the mission.

[00:49:33] Jim Jansen: Wow. So, I'm just going to like, so what, what are the fruits love, hope, communion, zeal. That's good stuff. What more would you want? Yeah. And. All of that for 99. 95? Talk a little bit about the, uh, fees for, for X, X29. 

[00:49:52] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah, so we, we never charge for what we do. When we go somewhere, when, when someone invites us to come, like Bishop invites us, you know, they have to get us there and they have to put us up.
That's it. Everything else we do is free. When you come to us, like for these leadership immersives, you have to hear, uh, and you have to stay somewhere. Obviously, we have great arrangements with local hotels right by us that are incredibly reasonable, and you have to get to Detroit, but once you're here, uh, we'll feed you and trust me.
Like people jokingly to the ax 29, like the 29 might be the pounds you gain in the week. That's great. Because we love to eat. Jesus spent a lot of time around the table, and so do we. So, we'll feed everybody all day, every day. Everything we give, we give away for free. You're in our space, which is in the middle of an office building, and you would never guess this 6, 500 square foot place.
Everybody walks in and goes, I didn't think I was in the right place until I walked into here. So, everything we do, we just give away. You just have to get to us. But it will cost you everything. And I mean that seriously, because nothing's more valuable for most of us than our time. And so, if, if a team is willing to give us five days, then, then we know you're willing, and we want to concentrate our time on the willing and the multipliers.
Cause we think we can share it with, we say you and those you work with, and then you'll be able to share it with others, which is how this works. Right. It's spiritual multiplication, which I know you know very well. 

[00:51:28] Jim Jansen: Yes. Well, and hope, hope is contagious. I mean, when you see people who have rediscovered zeal, who've rediscovered hope, you know, who are living in communion, serving out of love, you're like, okay, I want that.
Oh, that's fantastic. Any last words and just, you know, thinking about those who are listening, who are maybe, maybe a little bit discouraged, maybe they're not the chief leader, you know, maybe they don't get to be the one who decides, Hey, we're all going to go to Detroit. So, I want to give you a moment just to speak a word of encouragement and counsel for them.

[00:52:03] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. Thanks for asking that. I don't mean this as a trite expression. I know I've already said it, but I just think it's really essential for I know it's really essential for me, and I think it's really essential for all of us. I need to continually be reminded the Lord holds everything right now in his hands.
He holds the world, our country, the church, our parishes, our families. Those were concerned about. He holds them in his hands. And, you know, Jesus says, no one can take them out of my father's hands. No one and nothing. And wherever there's anxiety or fear or discouragement, we know where that comes from.
That comes from the enemy. And Jesus wants to dissipate that. He wants to shatter that. The enemy wants to make us anxious or powerless. So, for those of us who feel, you know, powerless, or like, I'm not in a position to influence this, I would just encourage you, actually you are, here's how you can, you can walk into the Lord's courts and say, Jesus, King of the universe, I'm asking you to move in the hearts of those that I serve with, and especially those who lead in the way that only you can, so as to accomplish your will here, and to understand that those prayers are amazingly powerful.
Real quick, he says. And this great little book on Romans chapter eight, he uses this expression, which I've come to love. We are called to be hopeful lamenters. So, you know, like, the things that are going on around us, whether it's in our parish, our family, the diocese, the world, the country, it's supposed to impact me.
Like, I'm supposed to be weeping over the things that are happening. Faith doesn't make me not weep. When one member suffers, we all suffer, right? So, we're lamenting. But we're lamenting with hope because I know who, who runs the world, and I know who is Lord. And I know that he has a plan. And so, I bring things into his courts, not because he's not aware of them, but because I'm supposed to be involved.
And so, I walk into the chapel every day and I say, Lord, here I am before you, the king of the universe. And I'm bringing these situations and I'm laying them at your feet and I'm trusting that you know what you're doing. And like that surrender, novena says, I just say, take care of everything. And then I go back and get more. 

[00:54:39] Jim Jansen: Man.
Amen. Father. Thank you. Thank you for you and your team, family, the whole crew. Thank you for what you're, uh, you're doing and thank you for being with us. 

[00:54:49] Fr. Riccardo: Yeah. Thank you for all the work that you're doing, Jim. Appreciate it, brother. 

[00:54:51] Jim Jansen: All right, everybody. You, you know, somebody who has to hear, uh, our conversation today.
Somebody who needs to believe again that there is, uh, hope and, uh, zeal. Someone who, uh, maybe needs to learn again to lament, uh, with hope. Whoever it is, when you are safely at your destination, share it out with them. Thanks for listening everybody. Thanks for listening to the EquipCast. 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.archomaha.org Thank you. God bless and see you next time.