[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody, welcome to the EquipCast. So, I have a question for you. How do you equip people to share their faith naturally? Right? In conversation, in friendships, in their everyday lives, in their place of work, their neighborhoods, their family. How do you equip people to share their faith? Well, today I sit down with Pastor Mark Ashton of Christ Community Church here in Omaha and Jenny Wiswell, the Director of Evangelization and Discipleship for St.
Gerald's Catholic Church. And we talk about the Reach One More training, a very accessible, fruitful training to help you equip disciples. To share their faith very naturally in their families, in their place of work, uh, amongst their friends. Uh, 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.
Welcome to the cup cast. Uh, Jenny as well. You are the Director of Evangelization Discipleship for St. Gerald's and Pastor Mark Ashton, the Lead Minister for Christ Community Church. Welcome. Thanks for being here, guys. 

[00:01:21] Pastor Mark Ashton: Thanks. Glad to be here. 

[00:01:22] Jenny Wiswell: Thank you. 

[00:01:23] Jim Jansen: We're going to talk about evangelization. We're going to talk about equipping disciples for mission today.
But part of the fun, I think, of our conversation today is just a little bit of just, I don't know, the friendship that has developed between all of us, you two in particular, working together, kind of, you know, across denomination lines, a common mission to equip disciples for, for mission, uh, to the people in their lives.
How did the two of you first get connected? 

[00:01:50] Jenny Wiswell: Well, he doesn't know this. I think I've told you, but when I first moved to Omaha, um, 17 years ago, our best friends went to Christ community. My husband is a former evangelical. And so, we would do double duty of going to mass and going to Christ community. And so that's really where I didn't meet you, but you were my, you were my teacher in a way.
I also did. MOPS at Christ's community. 

[00:02:17] Jim Jansen: And what's MOPS? 

[00:02:18] Jenny Wiswell: Mothers of preschoolers. And so that was my kind of exposure to Christ's community just to the amazing church that it is. Like I said, I have, our best friends have been a long, long-time members there. And, um, and then I met you again through within reach and heard about reach one more.

[00:02:38] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah. I met her at the reach. Well, my memory is I met her first at the Reach One More training at Christ community church a little over a year ago. And, uh, she was one of the students in the class and it was amazing. She was a great participant. And Jenny actually was the one who stimulated the second round of doing that training by contacting me in November and say, Hey, are you doing that again?
I've got some folks from Catholic churches who might like to come. It actually wasn't on my radar screen, but once she sent me the email, I'm like, well, it's on my radar screen now. And we partnered together to do that. 

[00:03:10] Jim Jansen: Yeah. And we did it. I, I came, uh, most of the members of the pair support team came and it was, uh, I don't know how it compares to other, other train the trainers, but it was a full house.
It felt like it. I mean, it was great conversation and a lot of energy. It was really a fun day. 

[00:03:25] Pastor Mark Ashton: It was, it was a great day, and the participation was, was fantastic. The engagement was great. At least I can say I had a blast. I think Jenny did too. 

[00:03:33] Jenny Wiswell: it's so much fun. 

[00:03:34] Jim Jansen: Yeah, it was great. Okay. So, Mark, give us just a little bit of a background, you know, Christ community church for those who are from the Omaha area, it's right off the 680 loop.
You can't miss it. You should be paying attention to the road, but if you happen, you know, if you're headed, if you're headed North and you glance off to the left, it's hard to miss. Mark, what's your story? How'd you get to Omaha? 

[00:03:53] Pastor Mark Ashton: Well, I was, uh, I went into ministry when I was, uh, right out of college. I went into campus ministry similar to you and, uh, spent eight years on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the University of Illinois.
And as an evangelism specialist, that was my job. So, I kind of got addicted to sharing my faith when I was in college. God changed my life dramatically in my freshman year of college. And I had been living kind of a double life of, you know, semi-Christian, but really party boy. And when God got ahold of my life to say, okay, I'm going to follow him wholeheartedly.
I still had these party friends, and I actually really liked them. They were like really my friends. 

[00:04:32] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:04:33] Pastor Mark Ashton: But I realized that Christless eternity. And I just, Couldn't not be their friends and not love them and not tell them about Jesus. And so that was kind of my experimental group and a couple of them came to faith in Christ.
And when that happened, it was like, Oh, I could do this for the rest of my life. And it would be a ball. And so, I got hired to do that on college campuses. And that was super fun for eight years. Uh, then I went to a church in the Chicago suburbs called Willow Creek Community Church, a big, big suburban church at the time, about 20, 000 people.
And I was a director of evangelism at Willow Creek for seven years and had a ball, got to do with big people, the same stuff I was doing with college students and got a ton of fun opportunities at the time. Lots of conferences happened at Willow and I got to meet cool people. do a lot of fun teaching.
And then when I was 38, I was invited to come and be the lead pastor at Christ Community Church. So, I'm almost at my 18-year mark. April 1st, April Fool's Day, will be my 18-year anniversary at Christ Community. 

[00:05:35] Jim Jansen: That's right. I noticed that. It's on the website. And I noticed the April 1st date struck, it stuck out.
And I was like, you That's kind of funny. So do people mess with you every year and like, happy anniversary? 

[00:05:45] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah, mostly, mostly the people who hired me, you know, foolishness of hiring. 

[00:05:51] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's a great, great anniversary. I'm curious what, I mean, this is a little bit more, uh, a curiosity of mine. How was the transition?
I mean, intervarsity is, uh, in a good way, notorious for its faithfulness to sharing the gospel and its fruitfulness in doing so. How was the transition from intervarsity college work to Willow Creek? 

[00:06:11] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah, it was a, it was a big transition. I loved college students. I love evangelism and discipleship and the intellectual stimulus that was there, but I had a different kind of a love for Willow Creek.
It's kind of halfway between a large church and a small city. And, uh... 

[00:06:27] Jim Jansen: yeah, 20, 000 people. That's big. 

[00:06:30] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah. So, I had my own little corner of the church that I got to be in charge of. And, uh, you can become highly specialized. The bigger a church is, the more your specialty is. So, I got to be really specialized in training people to reach the lost and reaching the lost, uh, myself.
And the ministry was fruitful and fun. And we baptized hundreds of people from my ministry every year. And so, it was like a rocket ride. It was, it was really, really fun. It wasn't like, I would say right now, like being a pastor. It was kind of halfway between parachurch ministry and church ministry because of that specialization factor.
So, it was a good middle step for me. It was there that I really fell in love with the concept of the local church, not just making individual disciples or reaching individual people, but the whole, the broader picture of the beauty of the local church. I feel like this job I have at Christ Community is my first time being a real pastor.
And that was a big transition for me. Uh, cause the scope of doing something that's this narrow to being in charge of everything, that was a big change for me. 

[00:07:33] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I mean, I think that's a great transition because now, you know, you're, you've got this background in evangelization. I love you said that we got to be like kind of hyper specialized.
Yeah. How, give us a little bit of the background of where the Reach One More training began. Like, what's the genesis? 

[00:07:49] Pastor Mark Ashton: Well, the Reach One More training itself, the one that the brand that we're doing right now is kind of a conglomeration of different trainings that I've done through the years. So, for 15 years, you know, I was training people every week or a couple of times a week and just tried every tool that was on the market.
And, uh, around 2019 or 2020, I realized, you know, the tools that are on the market are all about 20 or 30 years old and there's nothing that's fresh that speaks to our generation. The gospel never changes, but culture changes. And so, there are some unchanging pieces that I wouldn't change about the training, but there's some other pieces that I would change.
And since I've fallen in love with Omaha, I thought I would love to take Omaha statistics and graphs and charts and experiences and say, let's take the unchanging stuff, the changing stuff and the Omaha stuff and put it all into a single training. And give it to our people. And so, we started, uh, uh, field testing it at Christ community.
We did about six or eight different rounds of field testing to see what worked and what didn't. And we changed it a couple of times. And that was when we decided to offer it to the city church and see who else would like to take this now that we've put it together, we're not going to publish it. It's all open source.
And so, we just share the materials freely with other churches in the area. 

[00:09:08] Jim Jansen: What were you seeing culturally that you felt like, okay, we've gotta, we've got to adapt to this? 

[00:09:14] Pastor Mark Ashton: So, a couple of key things. One is, uh, isolation is far more prevalent right now. Uh, you know, with the advent of the internet and the cocooning of people, you know, Netflix saying Netflix binging, people are just much more isolated in their relationships than they used to be.
And with kind of the general polarization that happens with that. Church people and unchurched people oftentimes become even more polarized. So, we really needed to have a very strong emphasis on just the basics of how do you start building relationships with people? One of the biggest barriers that Christians have is they go, I have nobody in my life.
That's not a Christian, and so we had to, we had to address that. And I think the kinds of questions people are asking are changing as well. Uh, when I started doing this in the eighties, you could pretty much assume that people had a general understanding of God, a general good feeling about the Bible, pluralism was at its advent, but now it's come into maturity.

[00:10:13] Jim Jansen: Yeah. And define that quick for, you know, for the non-scholarly listeners, pluralism. 

[00:10:19] Pastor Mark Ashton: So, pluralism is just the idea that there's lots of options out there. Yeah. You combine that with relativism, and you get lots of options that are all equally true. And so, the idea that, Hey, my thing is my thing. Your thing is your thing.
And there's nothing that's really true. We're just picking based on our culture. Is so prevalent right now. And we see that in morality. We see it in sexuality, all of the things that are now acceptable and even celebrated that in the eighties were not right. And so, people ask deeper questions about, you know, L. G. B. T. Q. All of those kinds of things. And so, we have to be prepared for a new set of questions that people will be asking. 

[00:10:59] Jim Jansen: Yeah, that's really helpful. Jenny, I want to give you a chance here because Mark, one of the things that was, that I just found so refreshing and beautiful of the training, one, I just thought it was very well done.
Very simple, very accessible. I could tell right away, like, and stories I had heard, but I could tell right away, it's like, this is gonna work. This will free people to share their faith and it gives them what, what they need. But I love that you just made it open source that is available. I mean, such a, just a beautiful act of generosity, Jenny, I'm curious, what drew you to the Reach One More training?

[00:11:32] Jenny Wiswell: That's a great question. I was really drawn to how doable it is for people, you know, in, in the Catholic context, we could read beautiful theological documents all day long on evangelization and they're profound. They're deep. You want to memorize every passage, right? But the average person, the average Catholic doesn't a know those or will ever read those.
And yet they're hearing from us that they are in fact called to be missionary disciples. And so, there's this. Dissonance between what we are teaching. Mm-Hmm. and how we are not equipping them or how they feel like what is their identity. 

[00:12:15] Jim Jansen: Right. Telling people they're supposed to do it. 

[00:12:18] Jenny Wiswell: Exactly. 

[00:12:18] Jim Jansen: But not showing them how.

[00:12:19] Jenny Wiswell: Showing them how. 

[00:12:20] Jim Jansen: Oh, that's kind of cruel. 

[00:12:21] Jenny Wiswell: Exactly. And one of the things I've really learned in my position at St. Gerald is, you know, when I'm teaching, even, even though I'm a, you know, this lay person. you know, a mom and a wife, they still see me as like, well, I still can't do what you do. You're the missionary disciple.
And so, when I saw this, I was like, this is amazing because it's so doable. It's broken down into very small, easy steps. And it provides a human formation for our people. It actually teaches them how to listen to people and how to ask good questions. Just, it's so relational and it's just so modeled after our Lord.

[00:12:58] Jim Jansen: And it's, if I can be, that's a little silly, it's introvert safe, right? I mean, you know, I, I working in college ministry for many years, there's this myth That I mean, you know, like, well, if you're going to be fruitful as a missionary, you know, you have to be a 13 on a one to 10 extrovert skin. And it's actually not true.
I think some of the best fruit, but sadly, sometimes the trainings reinforce that, you know, they're like, well, just go up and talk to a stranger. And it's like, oh boy, uh, no, I guess, you know, Jenny, give us a little bit of, and Mark jump in here too, what are just some examples of like the skills that people are trained to, and then also just some of the kind of mental shifts, the vision that people get to help free them up.

[00:13:45] Jenny Wiswell: Well, I would say that the first one is they realize that this is not just their work. They're actually partnering with God, and everything has to start with prayer. And so, it starts off just, just allowing the Holy Spirit to bring forth people in your life that, that he's inviting you to build a relationship with.

[00:14:01] Jim Jansen: Can you talk about the five for five? Cause that's like the, one of the mantras I loved, you know, that kind of like concretizes that. 

[00:14:09] Jenny Wiswell: Sure. The five by five, you start off the course with, with again, spending time in prayer discerning. It's not just this, this isn't just a project, right? This is allowing the Holy Spirit to bring forth people in your life.
They could be people in physical proximity to you. It could be relational proximity. But these are your five. These are the five you're going to be praying about. You're going to be asking the Lord to open doors and each week you're taking one more step as the Holy Spirit allows, you know, in your relationship with them based upon what we're focusing on in reach one more.

[00:14:40] Jim Jansen: And you just, just pray five minutes, five minutes for those five people every day. 

[00:14:45] Jenny Wiswell: Yes. And then when you come back to the course, you're talking with people about it. And that's the other piece I loved about it is that there's a lot of accountability and a lot of processing for it. So, it's not just again, sending you, here's a quick two-hour session.
Now go and change the world. It's processing, it's accountability. It's hearing from others. It's a communal experience. 

[00:15:08] Pastor Mark Ashton: And most of the best stuff happens in the lab outside of the class when people actually go and talk to their friends, and they come back and process it. Uh, the class gives you the tools to begin taking risks and then a deadline to come back and talk about it with your friends.
And when you do that, you learn so much when you're out there actually doing it. And I find that for most people, it's less difficult, less scary, less awkward than they think it's going to be. And they become back encouraged like, Oh, that wasn't a total flop. You know, I actually had a great conversation with somebody, and it went well, and I don't feel pressure that it had to go all the way to conversion.
I just had a great conversation with someone and that's just totally fine. 

[00:15:48] Jenny Wiswell: One of the other pieces I found too is. Some people come with the mindset that, you know, the world is evil, and no one cares about faith. And that's not true either. There is a lot of openness. There's a lot of openness and curiosity, especially among 20 and 30 year olds.
They want to talk about faith, but how do they want to talk about faith? They actually want to be heard. They want to be, you know, they want to be heard. They don't want someone shoving answers. 

[00:16:14] Jim Jansen: Right. They want a conversation. 

[00:16:16] Jenny Wiswell: And so, again, these principles are built into each one more, and I love that it uses data from Barna and from, you know, local research too, of the number of people that are open to having conversations about faith or are searching, um, and that was really helpful for our people to see.
Like it was like, Oh, in fact, this isn't true. Some people are interested in faith. I just need to approach it differently. Kind of how you shared. It's a different. Time. Now, the way that we talk about faith is different, but it's still people are hungry. The heart is hungry. And then the other piece too, which is important, I think for a lot of Catholics is, um, they have viewed evangelism with apologetics and if they can't have all the answers, then therefore they cannot evangelize.
And this brings down the 

[00:17:00] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Real quick, Jenny, distinguish between apologetics and the types of conversations that people are equipped to start with reach one more. 

[00:17:09] Jenny Wiswell: Well, apologetics would be based on proving the argument for whatever it is. It could be Jesus is God, right? Yeah. Any of those things.
Resurrection, the Bible, the, what is revelation? I mean, you name it. 

[00:17:23] Jim Jansen: Right? All the questions. 

[00:17:25] Jenny Wiswell: And if people don't. You know, understand those. I think a lot of times they were just very discouraged. They weren't understanding that sharing your faith can actually be about your own personal experience of faith.
See, because you can't argue with people's stories. 

[00:17:38] Jim Jansen: Right. 

[00:17:38] Jenny Wiswell: And a lot of people fear that argument because they just don't have the confidence, especially in the Catholic world. They don't, they don't have scripture memorized. They don't know where things are in the Bible. And so, this was super encouraging for people, especially once they learned that apologetics may not be the first step.
You know, the most, most successful route to talking about faith with people. In fact, it might repel people in their life. 

[00:18:00] Pastor Mark Ashton: One of the secrets of the training is that we train people how to ask questions to get into deep conversations, not how to present proofs to people to get into deep conversations.
And as we designed the training, one of the things I want to have happen every single week is that people get to the end of the week, and they go. Oh, that's not that hard. I could do that. 

[00:18:20] Jim Jansen: Yes. 

[00:18:21] Pastor Mark Ashton: And, uh, we look at the barriers people have, like, uh, there's too much pressure in this, or, uh, I don't have a friend.
I don't know how to start a conversation. I don't know how to present the gospel. I don't know how to ask for an invitation. All those things that are typical in, you know, standard church goers have those barriers. Well, we tackle them one at a time and we try and take away the barrier so that people walk away going.
Oh, I could, I could see myself doing that. Yeah. And by the end of the training, they go, okay, I can be myself. Introvert, extrovert, whatever hobbies I'm into, wherever I live, whatever my particular makeup is, I can be myself and also be sharing my faith with whoever God's put in my path. 

[00:19:02] Jim Jansen: You both have run reach one more several times.
I mean, more than, more than several times. What are some of the big epiphanies, kind of realizations that people have as they, as they go through the training? Because you get to watch this transformation process over, you know, several weeks as the training unfolds, and people go do their homework and then they come back, and they share the stories.
What are the, like the, the aha moments that people typically have? 

[00:19:28] Pastor Mark Ashton: So, I'll give one, I think, uh, one of the things we teach people in relationships is what success in evangelism is, is helping people take one step to the right, which is one step closer to Jesus. That in your conversation, you're not trying to take people from, you know, zero to 60 in 3.
6 seconds. You're trying to take people one step closer to Jesus. And if you do that, then you've been successful and you may get part of the, you know, process for someone and someone else might get another part of the process and someone else might lead them across the line of faith. Uh, but anytime you help people take one step in the right direction, you've been successful.
Well, that's very encouraging for so many people cause they're like, Oh, the weight is off. I don't have to do this all myself. And boom, shakalaka, they're feeling good about it. And then they'll do it again if they feel good about it. Yeah. 

[00:20:17] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I mean, it reminds me, I don't know if you shared this in the training, but it's a little bit like baseball.
Like if you have to hit a home run. Every time you're up to bat. Oh, my goodness. There's there is no professional who can stand up to that, that scrutiny. But it's like, I just got to get on base. And then someone is going to help me go to the next step. And then we're getting, you know, like, just great illustration.
Yeah. Yeah. Jenny, what about you? What have you seen that just tends to be the profound aha moments for participants? 

[00:20:43] Jenny Wiswell: Well, number one, I think people realize that they're not very good listeners. And, and, and one of the things I heard was that this is, this was helping them become better listeners just in all areas of their lives.
I mean, just one little nugget shared about how important listening and what, what, True listening is the art of listening. I think that that's just, you know, a huge skill that we all need to have, right? As followers of Jesus in general, 

[00:21:12] Jim Jansen: I feel like podcast listeners are like a good job. You all are practicing listening.
I'm so proud of you. 

[00:21:18] Jenny Wiswell: Because when we listen, especially when you're, when you're prophetically listening and you're asking the Holy Spirit to be part of that, it opens doors to deeper conversations. 

[00:21:26] Jim Jansen: Say more about that. Prophetic listening. 

[00:21:28] Jenny Wiswell: Prophetic listening would be coming with the intention of, of that, you know, God.
Nothing is outside of God's providence. Every conversation he knows, and he sees, and he's invited into. And so, to be able to pause quietly to ask the Holy Spirit. You know, what do you want me to say in this conversation and then to be listening and listening for the ways that he wants to guide you in that conversation that might mean being quiet and not responding and not defending.
Um, and we talked a lot about that in the course because some of our people, many of our people have, have family members that have fallen away or live very different lives or have very different moral views and they're, they're upset and they're hurt and they're angry and they want to defend. 

[00:22:11] Jim Jansen: Yeah. 

[00:22:12] Jenny Wiswell: And that's often not the way that we have to approach people these days.
We have to listen to them first. We have to ask really good questions. So that they know that they're loved and accepted and listen behind the question too. I think that's really important. And we talk about that. 

[00:22:28] Jim Jansen: Which is easier to do if you're also listening to the spirit at the same time. Yes. Okay.
So, there's like, I mean, prayer, right? Having your five by five, there's listening skills, there's asking good questions. What are some of the kind of behind the scenes, right? There's all these skills that you're gonna learn and they I love how they're mutually kind of reinforcing mark. If you can take us kind of behind the curtains for the, you know, for the nerds that are listening, you know, like, kind of like the, I don't know, the pedagogy folks are like, how does this unfold?
Like, how does it teach what's behind the curtain about the methodology of the training and why it seems to be so fruitful? 

[00:23:07] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah, so a few things in the methodology that are helpful, uh, one Jenny already mentioned is that we send people back and we come and process, probably the most important thing that we do.
But we also try and make the class itself really fun. And so, everything we do is highly interactive. We have a couple of very interactive Bible studies. We have some competitions among the tables. We have sometimes all the time where people are constantly giving feedback to the teacher. So, the engagement level of the student is very high, and the lecture moments are maybe, I don't know, 20 percent in total of the time they're very short, but everything else is around group activities and interactions and exercises.
So, the self-discovery process happens in the class. And this is kind of the muha-ha behind the scenes thing is that we're teaching people intuitively. That's how people come to faith as well. It's not because you're a brilliant lecturer. It's because of the way that you engage them in the spiritual process.
When you ask big questions, when you listen really well, when you reflect. Reflect back to them when you provoke a little bit. Well, they're very engaged in their own spiritual growth and that's when people are likely to take one step to the right and eventually make a decision. 

[00:24:18] Jim Jansen: Alright, so we've talked a lot about it.
I mean, like, I wouldn't give you both a chance here. Like tell some stories. You've seen some fruit, uh, people who've gone through, uh, the reach. One more training. I just wanna give you a chance to share some stories here. 

[00:24:30] Jenny Wiswell: So, I already shared the example of, I was, it was, uh, actually a woman who works in ministry whose mom took the course and she had emailed me and said, what is going on?
My mom is, she's, she's engaging people out in public. She's having conversations, you know, so, so that was, that was great. What did you do to my mom? That was really awesome. One of my greatest joys was to see a longtime parishioner at St. Gerald who, who, he just came alive in this course, and he pulled me aside one time and he's like, I just want to apologize for not really.
You know, for basically not believing anything that we had said in the church, you know, about evangelization. 

[00:25:12] Jim Jansen: Sure. 

[00:25:13] Jenny Wiswell: And just like that doesn't work, you know, and this light has gone on in him and he has since just been such a beautiful instrument of inviting. Like he's, it's to the point where like, I'm just not shocked who he's inviting to things.
And so, this gave him a lot of confidence, but it was that insight because he was one that really held like the church has to prove its answer and defend itself at all times, right? People are going to come a little more confrontational style. We have to have the arguments and catechesis and we're still watered down.
And I mean, and that's important. And I kept, I kept having these conversations like that is important. But it's often not the first step for right. It's not the start of the journey. And that was a huge revelation for him. So, he went on to invite a, um, a woman in his neighborhood. He actually went door to door to his neighbors.
Beautiful. And inviting his neighbors. 

[00:26:00] Jim Jansen: Which is a side note, is not what the training is necessarily equipped for. He's just that zealous. 

[00:26:06] Jenny Wiswell: His conviction. Because he lives in a neighborhood with his fallen away church members, people who used to go to ST Gerald who now don't practice anything. He is literally going door to door.
He invited a woman who's been away from the church because of reaching more. She was part of his five by five. He invited her to come to alpha in the fall. He not only invited her, he accompanied her to alpha. She now is coming. Back to church. She's inviting her daughter who of course was not raised in faith because the mom had left the church, He has gone on to keep inviting people to pretty much everything we do.
And it's just, it's just amazing. 

[00:26:39] Jim Jansen: That's fantastic. 

[00:26:40] Jenny Wiswell: It's a beautiful story. So that's just one. 

[00:26:42] Jim Jansen: I love it. 

[00:26:43] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah. I got a couple of Mark. Top stories. Top that. Yeah, that's a hard one. That's a hard one to beat. Uh, there's a woman, uh, who came to the training who I would say was already good at befriending her neighbors.
She was kind of the, the central location for her neighbors to have fun, have coffee and play cards and different things like that. But her barrier was, I have no idea how to get into conversations with people about Jesus. I love Jesus. I love my neighbors, but we just never talk about him. Yeah. So, she began using the tool of asking questions.
And found that her neighbors were really interested in talking about spiritual things. Like she just had to bring it up and they were off to the races, and it was no problem. Well, eventually she decided that she was going to have a Bible study with her neighbors and there was so much interest there.
She was like, Hey, if I prepare a little Bible study, would you guys be interested? And they were like, yeah, that'd be awesome. And so, they kept coming back for the Bible study. One of her neighbors has come to faith in Christ since then. And she's just having regular weekly conversations with people who are unchurched, but eager to learn about God.

[00:27:48] Jim Jansen: That's so great. 

[00:27:49] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah. 

[00:27:49] Jim Jansen: I think that's a nice job. I mean, just like the, the friendships, the connection, I want to talk about friendships and connection. What's been your experience working with each other, trying to equip people to fruitfully share their faith? Because I think, I mean, the training itself is beautiful and fruitful, and to me it goes well beyond like, well, gosh, thanks for being generous and making it open source.
You all have led trainings together. What's, what's the Lord doing? 

[00:28:16] Pastor Mark Ashton: Uh, I'll start with it. Just a foundational principle for me is that whenever I do the training, I never want to do it alone so that people don't misattribute that, you know, Oh, this is Mark's training or Mark's personality, or you have to be like him.
I want people to see multiple models of people that say that that works. And, uh, you know, I was surprised that the first training, so this was a year ago when Jenny and, uh, boy, I forget the father's names, but 

[00:28:42] Jenny Wiswell: Fr. Knecht. Yeah. 

[00:28:43] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yes. 

[00:28:44] Jenny Wiswell: Our associate.

[00:28:46] Pastor Mark Ashton: And they're like in the Christ Community Church with their collars on and they're engaging and they're funny and we just had a ball that day.
And I thought this is one of the most fun things I've ever experienced. And it was something that, to be honest, was outside of the realm of possibilities in my brain, you know, I just didn't see Catholic and Protestant churches partnering together in something like this. But when Jenny and friends showed up, I was like, this is so cool.
And then when Jenny said, can we do it again? I was like, this is great, but only if you'll teach with me. And of course, Jenny's a great teacher. And, uh, Alison is another teacher that joined us. And so, the three of us collaborated on it. And I think the second round when we had Catholic and Protestant audience and Catholic and Protestant teachers, it just made another level of relatability for everybody.

[00:29:36] Jim Jansen: Yeah, it was very fun. I mean, I was, I was there that day, and it was, Oh, it was great. It was, it was so fun. 

[00:29:42] Jenny Wiswell: It's more than fun. It's beautiful. I mean, it's just, yeah, there's a sacredness to it. It's so honoring because. We have so much to learn from each other, you know? And like, when you go to your wall with the Bible, with the math and I could listen to you teach scripture.
I mean, it's just, I'm like, thank you, Lord. Like, thank you for this because it's just something my heart hungers for. And it's, and it's part of, I wouldn't say it's like lacking. It's just, It's, it's a gift that you bring that, that, you know, your church brings is this love and knowledge of scripture in a way that, that we don't necessarily have to the same degree because our priests are doing all different, you know, they're scattered all over the place.
They can't necessarily specialize in the way that you can specialize in the word. And it's just, it's just so beautiful and enriching. So, I, I'm so thankful and, um, to get to work with Alison and it's just. It's just amazing. And I just, I know the Lord is going to keep opening because where, where the church is united most, it's in our mission.
It's an evangelization and it's in healing. We have to work together. It's one church and the Lord wants us. I know he wants us to be working together. 

[00:30:52] Pastor Mark Ashton: Well, I think back to John 17 when Jesus is praying for his disciples and you think, okay, if you're dying or you know you're going to die tomorrow and you have one last chance to pray for people, what would you pray?
Jesus decides he's going to pray for unity. I pray that my people will be one, uh, and that they'll know, uh, that we're, Followers of Jesus by our love for one another. And for years, there's been division or alienation or separation, depending on what you would say between Catholic and Protestant churches.
And for us to be combined together in a training like this, it's just like, Oh, that's the answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17. And it just, it feels so right. 

[00:31:32] Jim Jansen: I mean, I want to pick up on that, you know, at the end of Jesus's prayer, he's like that they may all be one so that the world may know right on, right.
I mean, he ties it to mission, which is at least for me, why, I mean, we haven't mentioned it. I don't think yet, but you know, so much of this there within reach network, we've all experienced, you know, uh, we're all friends of Jed and we appreciate, uh, Kind of what's happening there. And at least for many of us, I don't want to speak for myself.
There's something refreshing about this effort at unity because it's tied to mission and all the other stuff, deep prayer and respect and healing of wounds and reconciliation. Like those things are coming, but we didn't try and start there. Those things are coming when we attended to Christ's prayer and the mission that was at the center of it.
I want to give, I mean, there's some background, Mark, I want to, I want to set you up, you know, like for, because I think maybe the one ingredient that we haven't talked about is oftentimes there's kind of a humility in this, that sometimes when, when we've shrunk our mission and we're maybe a little satisfied with where we're at as, as churches, it's easy not to feel the need for other churches in our community.
But I think two things, I think many of us have started to recognize, Oh boy, we've got a mission that's bigger than us. There are more and more unchurched people in this city, in our counties, in our towns. But we've also had, I mean, right. I mean, Catholics, we've experienced this, gosh, in spades, some really humbling challenges, you know, and I want to speak to the scandals, you know, that, that we've experienced and I think that humility Oh, the humility that is the fruit of some of those, uh, I think has, has opened us up and given us a desire to share.
I was really moved by a story that you shared where you had something similar. I just want to give you the opportunity to share that because I, I found it exceptionally beautiful and, and a work of the spirit in a mysterious way. 

[00:33:39] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to share that story. Back in 2017 was probably my low point of my 18 years in ministry here, and one of the key things that happened that fall is that one of our pastors who is connected to our youth ministry got arrested for sexual abuse of a minor.
And, uh, you know, it kind of rocked my world and our church and we were dealing with all kinds of communication and clean up and research around that and KFAB calls and says, Hey, would you like to do an interview about what happened at your church? And, you know, internally, I'm like, Oh yeah, the thousands of good things we do.
And then when one person crashes and burns, that's when you want to do the interview. So, I said, you know, I don't, I don't have the capacity for that right now. I apologize. Guys. So, they went to their go to who's, you know, their normal interview guy, which is Father Ryan Lewis and, uh, Father Ryan, when he accepted the interview, called me and said, Hey, I just, I want to get my facts straight.
Can I talk to you a little bit about this? And so, I said, sure. Uh, and we talked a little bit and then I listened to the interview on a KFAB that he did. And, uh, I was amazed at how much he, I would say he came to our rescue. And then he pointed to Jesus through the interview. And I don't remember his exact words, but, you know, they asked about the scandal that happened to Christ's community and he said, Yeah, that was bad.
But here in the Catholic Church, we've got our own scandals too. And those are bad. And well, in the business world, they have their scandals and those are bad and government and schools and pretty much everywhere you look. The truth is the problem isn't unique to the church. It's a human problem. It's a sin problem.
And the good news that the church brings is that Jesus died for our sins, and he can transform us and change us from the inside out. And before I know it, you know, he's presenting the gospel on KFAB. And I thought, Oh man, you know, he could have. I kind of squished us into the dirt in that moment, but instead he said, we're playing on the same team and we're going to point to Jesus as a result of this.
And I was sitting in the McDonald's parking lot listening to that interview and I just wept that a leader in the Catholic church would come to our defense and would have enough respect to call me even though he had never met me before and would articulate the gospel so clearly. It was, uh, it was really a watershed moment in my life personally.
But also, just grew my appreciation for a Catholic brother here in town. 

[00:36:14] Jim Jansen: Yeah, it was beautiful. I mean, I remember this feels like kind of like a petty second half or not petty, a small second half of the story. We were at dinner together. There are a number of us, you know, sharing dinner and we were going around the circle.
doing introductions. And you shared that story during the introductions. And I felt bad for the waiter, you know, cause like the whole table's in tears cause you, cause your wife was there and you had known that father Ryan was the one, but he was sitting right across the table and your wife's like, that was you, you know?
And like, and the waiter's like, So anybody want to order? And then I was like, and then I was, I was, I think I was, this is the selfish part that made it feel a little petty that I was like the last person who hadn't introduced myself. I'm like, uh, hi, I'm Jim. I got nothing after that, but it was such a beautiful moment.
Again, I mean, it's something mysterious, right? So, the Lord would use our moments of weakness, suffering, public embarrassing sin to draw us to each other and ultimately to draw us to Him. I'm hoping those who are listening are like, wait, Jim, tell me, how do we like, we want to know more about reach one more.
So first, Jenny, I want to give you a chance here. What does the Catholic parish need to have in place to begin to fruitfully run Reach One More? And the reason I ask that is that, you know, nothing is a silver bullet. There are prerequisites of vision and, and mission and, and there's some things that, that probably need to be in place.
the soil, if you will, you know, for, for each one more to be fruitful, what in your experience needs to be present for this training to do all, all of what we're, we're kind of telling these stories. 

[00:37:58] Jenny Wiswell: You know, if there was a church that hasn't laid a groundwork of a conviction, a mission, that that would definitely be a needed intentionality in terms of communication, preaching, teaching, because no one's going to come unless they have a conviction for why we should share our faith.
Yeah. So, I would say that that definitely needs to be there. And that's one of the blessings I think at St. Gerald is, you know, our pastor has been laying that foundation so beautifully interweaving it and everything he does to help Catholics understand their call to holiness and their call to mission.
And once we establish that conviction and that call, that hunger, you know, is there and now is the equipping piece of it. And so, what are the, what do you need to have in place? I think a discernment of, first of all, people who are personally convicted. And have a desire to share because we can only teach out of what we have.
Mm-Hmm. You can't fake your way. Right. 

[00:38:57] Jim Jansen: Meaning, so people who are gonna facilitate it, they have to believe in mission, and they have to be on mission. 

[00:39:02] Jenny Wiswell: Exactly. 

[00:39:02] Jim Jansen: They have to be. 

[00:39:02] Jenny Wiswell: on mission a little bit. Yeah. And, um, because there's a personal sharing you do in reach One more.
Right. As a leader, I'm walking with this, when I did this last year, I talked about, you know, one of my five by five was. You know, a friend of my high school daughter, in fact, a boy, her first boyfriend and, and, you know, talking about how I was engaging in my, in my appropriate relationship with him as he comes into my home, the types of questions I was asking him.
And how I could engage him in questions about faith to not scare him, right, to, to lead him into that and to for him to kind of experience the love of God in our home. Anyway, I would say definitely having leaders that would have a passion and a hunger and a desire to live this out. And really, that's really all you need.
I mean, it's, it's that desire, that conviction and a group of leaders that can train other people. And of course, having the support of a staff to communicate that. Um, I mean, there's all the logistic pieces, right? Of registration, but it's, it's so simple. It's so easy. And the materials, I mean, that's, that's a beautiful thing.
You know, something is of God when it's, you're not grass. It's not being grass, right? It's being set free. Yeah. And so, the generosity, the generosity that these materials are available, it's not going to cost you a thousand dollars to run this. Um, it's very simple and you can also start very small. It doesn't have to be hundreds of people that come.
It could be 15 people. It could be an 
intentional... 

[00:40:31] Jim Jansen: It could be five and I'm sure it'd be. 

[00:40:32] Jenny Wiswell: awesome. You could start with an intentional group of leaders that you want to train, and this could be one way you start building a form, a form of discipleship. Yeah. formation. 

[00:40:41] Jim Jansen: Now, this is a little nerdy inside baseball, but you know, here in the archdiocese, we're really leaning into the, the concept.
The archbishop has asked every parish to become a missional community and to build a clear path of discipleship. Jenny, where does reach one more kind of fall on your clear path? What, what part of the journey does it serve for people? 

[00:40:59] Jenny Wiswell: So, our clear path is. Is connect, encounter, grow, go. And we have reach one more under our go category, or sorry, under our grow category because it is a form of what we call missionary discipleship.
Sure. So, we are all in the process of, of becoming spiritually mature disciples. And part of that process involves, um, again, a spiritual formation, a human formation, and I really see reach for more as kind of a, you know, it's the boots on the ground. skill equipping that's under our missionary discipleship formation that we offer.

[00:41:34] Jim Jansen: Yeah. It helps equip people to actually be missionary disciples. 

[00:41:38] Jenny Wiswell: And it sends them into go. So, for us at St. Gerald, we don't have programs undergo because we want people to be listening to the Holy Spirit. Everyone's going to have a different mission field and reach one more will look different. I mean, the way that you live it out is going to look differently according to the mission field that you're in.

[00:41:53] Jim Jansen: Right. Everybody's equipped, but for some of them, their mission field is their coworkers, neighborhood, fallen away family. Yes. I mean, infinite possibilities. 

[00:42:01] Jenny Wiswell: Yep. And we see this as just such a tangible. So, for example, when we ran it this spring, we ran reach one more. We did a follow up session in the summer.
We called it reach one more refresh where we gather people together. We want to see what had happened in the eight weeks since the course. Yeah. And then we intentionally invited them to discern of their five by five, who was the one that they'd be inviting into alpha. Because for many Catholics too, who aren't quite equipped, we didn't mention this as part of ritual more, but the last two sessions are on sharing stories of Jesus and then inviting someone into an intentional relationship.
And that's where the challenges for a lot of Catholics is to be able to get to that point of sharing the gospel and inviting someone into that relationship. So, you can use a tool like alpha and accompany them, right? And they're going to have that invitation to... 

[00:42:51] Jim Jansen: Right. When your conversations reach a point where it's appropriate to invite someone like, Hey, there's this thing you might want to come.
Yeah. It's going to keep our conversation about Jesus going. 

[00:43:01] Jenny Wiswell: Yeah. So, we, that was kind of our methodology. And so, it fed into, into our conversion engine into alpha from reach one more and it was super fruitful. 

[00:43:09] Jim Jansen: Beautiful. Jenny, you said the word refresh there. Uh, and it reminds me Mark of something that you said when I went, went through the training, you said it really stuck with me.
It still, it still is. I still come back to it. You said vision and training leak. Can you expand on that a bit for us? 

[00:43:27] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah, it's the idea that whenever you cast vision to people or take them through training, it's hot for a while. And then 30 days later, they kind of forget about what they learned and thought and said before.
And so, you need to have a refresher, uh, on a regular basis for people to stay hot. I think in general, a training like this is great for anybody to go through about every three years. And then if you can get some reminders from leadership development or the pulpit or whatever on a monthly basis, uh, that helps people to kind of re stimulate with, Oh, yeah, there is something that we're about doing here.
So, if you're not refreshing the vision, people just forget about it. We live in a, an era of high competition for communication. Uh, advertisers and everybody's trying to get a piece of your world. And so, if you're not re communicating a vision in a clear way, people will, it'll get crowded out by the other messages.

[00:44:23] Jim Jansen: I want to give you guys, maybe as we, as we close up here, you know, this is a fantastic tool. Again, I love it. We're going to provide the, you know, info so people can get, uh, get access to this, but you know, it's just part of, it is a tool for the general. kind of call that, that those within the church, particularly in leadership, have to equip the saints, right?
As Paul says, you know, to equip the saints for the work of ministry or to equip people for evangelization. I just want you to think about, you know, somebody who's maybe at the start of the journey. Uh, maybe their, their little faith community doesn't have a lot of momentum equipping people for mission yet, or maybe they themselves, they're feeling the call, but they haven't.
You know, they don't feel like they're equipped yet and they haven't stepped out. What would you, what would you say to them? 

[00:45:07] Pastor Mark Ashton: Well, I think that, you know, you can always become a part of this training and you can call Jenny. Wiswell at... No, I'm kidding. there's, there's a number of people at... 

[00:45:15] Jim Jansen: We are going to put the St. Gerald's website, and I think there's a staff, right?
They could, they could find you. 

[00:45:20] Jenny Wiswell: We're running the course. 

[00:45:21] Jim Jansen: Yeah. So anyway, you're joking, but like...

[00:45:24] Pastor Mark Ashton: I'm joking but not joking. Uh, because we've got, I don't know, 30 people now from Catholic churches across the, the Metro that have gone through the train, the trainer training, including Jim, uh, who's right here.
And so, they would be well enough equipped to be able to run another one of those in a, uh, a different location. So, if you've got a parish and. You say we don't have a trainer. Well, Jenny or Jim could probably help you find somebody who would be a core person. My advice would be to find that small group, you know, that five or six people who you think, okay, these are the people who are most likely to nod their head and say yes.
Take them through a small training first, and then a few months later, have them become the leaders of the next training after they've had a few months to put it into practice, because if they're doing it and they've got some good stories to tell, well, then it's going to naturally reverberate throughout the rest of the parish.
And so, you know, bringing an outsider into your parish to be able to do the first round. But then you want insiders to be able to do the rest of them. 

[00:46:24] Jim Jansen: Yeah, because the stories that they tell, the joy, the like, No, it really works. Like, that, that, that is the best certificate of authenticity. Like, I used to know Mildred.
She would never talk to anybody. 

[00:46:37] Pastor Mark Ashton: Exactly. 

[00:46:37] Jim Jansen: Or Dan was so confrontational, and now he's actually listening. 

[00:46:41] Jenny Wiswell: Yes. 

[00:46:42] Pastor Mark Ashton: Yeah, it's amazing when people live with, I think of a guy named Kurt who went through our training and he would call himself pretty introverted, but he would say at the end of the training that his biggest problem was that he just didn't expect that God was moving all around him.
And when he changed his expectation that God's already at work in people's lives and his job is to be on a treasure hunt and just find out where God's already at work. He said, I changed my whole approach and I found out that. God really is at work all around me all the time and these doors open up if I just kind of have the expectation and ask the right kinds of questions.
And, uh, when that happens for somebody like Kurt, all the guys that Kurt hangs out with at the church, they're hearing about these stories and they're going, what happened to you? He said, well, let me take you to the training or let me do the training. And Kurt becomes the, you know, the champion. 

[00:47:31] Jim Jansen: Yeah. I love it.
Jenny, what would you say? 

[00:47:34] Jenny Wiswell: I would say similarly, find someone that you can learn from. To ask God first, ask God for his help, right? God's the one that's, that is going to open doors for you. And you know, to find it, whether, whether you're studying under someone, you know, physically, you're, you're in their proximity or you're learning and you're studying and you're reading or you're watching on YouTube, you know, there's, there's an infinite number of people.
That can disciple you, but I would agree that, like, especially in the case of reach one more that people should really go through it and experience it first before bringing it. But it's just so I just want to encourage you. It's so doable. It's easy to facilitate. I'm happy to be a resource. I know that the archdiocese... 

[00:48:18] Jim Jansen: We are too. Like, this is my job.
So yeah, we'll, we'll put the St. Gerald's website up there so you can get ahold of Jenny. You can call her, but call us, call the parish support team, call the chancery. We would be happy to get you started. 
Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you both for being here. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for sharing your friendship, your humility, the witness. Yeah, it's really beautiful and, and fun, fun to share that a little bit today. 

[00:48:41] Pastor Mark Ashton: Thanks for your invitation to be a part of the podcast. 
Yes, thank you Jim. 

[00:48:44] Jim Jansen: Yeah.
All right, everybody, you know somebody who needs to hear this. You're going to send this out. You're like, hey, they talked about listening and that's so not you, but it could be. Um, no, I don't know. Whoever you want to send this to. Let the Lord just kind of tap you on the shoulder and tell you who needs to hear this.
And when you get to your destination, uh, share it out with them. Thanks 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. God bless and see you next time.