The EquipCast

Do you have an ache in your heart? Do you see something in your family, your finances, your ministry, etc. that should be different? What do you envision that it could be? Cultivating a vision of a preferred future is part of the Christian Life. In Acts of the Apostles, Peter’s first public proclamation of the Kerygma includes words from the prophet Joel,” I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,...

On the EquipCast, I spend a lot of time emphasizing the leadership skills of a missionary disciple. But this week, we spoke to Fr. Kizito, a missionary from Nigeria to our own diocese, and he reminded us that one basic skill of a missionary leader is the ability to grow in virtue. How do I make disciples? By first being a disciple.  So let us sit at the feet of one of Jesus's own ministers an...

Have you ever used a Catholic buzz word like missionary disciple or missional church and received blank looks in return? It’s a surprising experience, but the reality is many Catholics still don’t know what the word missional means. It used to be that missionaries were the people who traveled to Africa, and the Church in America grew because Catholics had big families. Our biggest problem used to...

How do you practice the “everyday preaching” that Pope Francis calls us to without being weird? I’ve grappled with this question throughout my life. At one point, I would have been offended at the thought that I was one of those people who walked around talking to others about Jesus. Offended because I had in mind the awkward Christian and the Bible Thumper. Now, I love proclaiming the Good News t...

We spend a lot of time on the EquipCast talking about reaching the lost and that parishes must be outward focused in order to grow. But I hear from many of you, "What about the already converted? We can't leave them behind either!" Steps 3 & 4 of the Clear Path to Discipleship focus on just that. How do we help disciples grow in their relationship with God, and how do we prepare them for missi...

As a leader in your parish, it is easy to get bogged down with the day-to-day work of maintaining the parish. But if you have a heart like Fr. Lorig, you want to “major in the mission” instead of the maintenance. If you are a lay leader, you have to win the heart of your pastor in order to do this. And if you are a pastor, you feel the weight of the daily tasks as well as the people trying to infl...

We all know that there is no silver bullet, no one program that will completely renew our parishes. Even the best programs fail if our parishioners don’t know what’s next. Parishioners will simply hop from program to program if we don’t tell them the process that will lead to growth in their relationship with God. We call this a clear path to discipleship. When a person enters a parish, do they kn...

How long do you think it takes to change the culture of a parish? While we know that change ultimately takes time, it’s often easy to look for a “silver bullet”, a program or curriculum that will suddenly make all the difference. But we know that behind every program is the people running it, and it’s the people that create culture. So today, Fr. Lorig...

I experienced a second conversion when I was a FOCUS missionary. I loved making friends and developing a relationship. And I loved the more catechetical moments where I was able to teach someone about the faith or teach them how to pray the rosary, but talking about Jesus and what he had done for my life…that made me uncomfortable because it didn’t fit with the culture I was trying to reach. Howev...

I had the privilege of sitting down with Jeff Cavins to talk about his latest book, the Activated Disciple. And while he shared so many important truths, I feel like he really shared a bit of himself. Every insight comes with a story from his own life. Continue the conversations with us as we talk about everything from his conversion story to having a posse of saints. Special Guests: Jeff Cavins a...

I was blessed to encounter Jesus in a deeper way in college, but not all people, and certainly, not all cradle Catholics have had this opportunity. So today, we talk with Jodi Meyer, Network Director for Alpha Nebraska. Alpha is a program whose purpose is to propose anew the core of our faith, the Gospel message. If its content were to be summed up into an elevator speech, it would be this: God lo...

Fr. Lorig and Fr. Dan Andrew both possess GallupStrengths that make them very natural leaders. They love to dream about the future and to figure out how to help people move into that new vision. But is leadership something your just born with, or is it something even these two had to learn about and grow into? They would say that it's definitely that latter. Listen as Fr. Lorig and Fr. A...

Moving a parish from maintenance to mission is easier said than done. You can have all the best programs and all the best people on staff, but the key ingredient will always be the pastor. We know our pastors truly desire that their parishes to thrive, but before a pastor can change the culture of a parish, he will have to consider the culture of his heart. This week, Fr. Lorig sat down with Fr. D...

Have you ever heard the old adage: A pastor should never change anything in his first year…except his socks and underwear? Well, we think you can’t wait that long to make changes! 40 percent of executives hired at the senior level are pushed out, fail, or quit within 18 months. (“Rise of a headhunter” Financial Times, March 30, 2009 ) So if you can’t wait to make changes, you should manage the tra...

Imagine with me a parish where Religious Education is no longer simply content found in a book, a subject to be picked up once a week on Wednesdays. Imagine instead a parish where Religious Education is centered around the formation of each person’s faith life. Gone would be the days of begging for catechists and of struggling to engage tired students. Gone would be the days of sacramental “gradua...

Have you heard a compelling presentation of the gospel that transformed your life? The power of our own conversions has led us to the belief that every parish needs a Conversion Engine. Join Andy Dejka and I (Jim Jansen) as we tell a little of our own stories and converse about questions such as: Why do we need a specific program or ministry for conversion if evangelization is everyone’s job? And,...

Pope Francis once said, “We are not living in an era of change but a change of era”. We think that this new era looks a lot like the Apostolic Age. Jen Moser takes us through the parallels, and offers some strategies based on the actions of the Apostles themselves. Special Guest: Jen Moser.

Dr. Ashton, Superintendent of Catholic Schools, and Fr. Jeff Lorig are known for their impassioned conversations...about school tuition. Yes, school tuition. While not the most obviously interesting topic, it leads us to much larger questions. For example, if I pay all of this money for my child to go to a Catholic School, what am I actually paying for? What is the real mission of Catholic Schools...

We are living in a unique moment in Church history, the transition into a post-Christendom era. It is disorienting and new. While the mission of the Church has not shifted, the way we fulfill the mission to bring the Gospel to the world must change. We need the Holy Spirit to be the inspiration and guide. Pause with Jim Jansen and Fr. Lorig to reflect on the Holy Spirit and to pray that He moves i...

One thing is for sure, the digital church is not going away. Many have tasted its potential and while our buildings begin to open up, our online churches should not be shutting down. For those who want to take full advantage of the potential that digital church offers, it will require more strategy, more thought, and more planning than merely pointing a camera at your in-person events and services...

As a young associate, Fr. Lorig asked Fr. (now Bishop) Hanefeldt, “As a priest, am I supposed to tithe?” Fr. Hanefeldt responded, “You know? The more I give, the more I receive.” While he didn’t directly answer the question, he got to the heart of the issue. Money influences our relationship with God, and it’s in a competition with Him for our hearts. Most of us in ministry hate to touch the topic...

Evangelization has been a buzzword in the Church for the past few decades, but many of us still don’t know what it means. It conjures up images of knocking on doors and standing on street corners. We know it’s necessary to do. After all, weren’t we commissioned to “Go and make disciples of the nations”? But, for some reason it’s hard to begin. In today's EquipCast, Fr. Lorig and Jim Jansen discuss...

Sometimes the consumer culture of the United States creeps into our parish life. When this happens, the ideal parishioner becomes the loyal customer who shows up to all the events or the person who “does their time” volunteering. Fr. Lorig and Jim Jansen suggest that the ideal parishioner is instead the person who comes alive because they are engaged in the mission of the Church. The ideal parishi...

Whenever Jesus calls someone to be a disiple, he doesn't stop at "follow me", he says, "and I will make you fishers of men." We cannot separate the call to be a disciple and the call to be a missionary. But how does one create missionary disciples? Jim Jansen spoke at SEEK 2020 unpacking the everyday experience of forming others for mission.

Doing leadership doesn’t mean doing everything, and delegation doesn’t mean giving away tasks. Leadership means giving your superpowers to someone else.