Ep 01: Welcome to GO & MAKE (Ft. Tammy Chumley)

:: 00:00:00

Welcome to go inmate from the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. Equipping you to live the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. To go and make disciples of all nations. Welcome to go and make from the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, where we are equipping disciples to live. The Great Commission to go out into the world and to make the name of Jesus known.

:: 00:30:03

Today is the first episode of Go and Make, and we're just really excited for this adventure because we're in a pivotal moment right now in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. We are living in a time where this call to evangelize is being pronounced everywhere. Archbishop Rozanski is telling us it's time to go out and evangelize. All things new has been about evangelization and hearing from people across the archdiocese.

:: 00:54:29

They don't exactly know what evangelization is, actually know how to evangelize. You know, there's all kinds of statistics going on in the church right now where, you know, roughly 7% of Catholics feel called to evangelize and they want to evangelize, but only point 6% of Catholics feel equipped to evangelize like they know what they're doing, like they've had enough training to go out and make a difference in evangelizing the world today.

:: 01:22:22

So what we want to accomplish with this show go and make is to just give you confidence, to give you courage and to give you conviction that you are called to partake in this mission. You are called to be the solution, to bring people into the church, to let the Holy Spirit act in and through you to help bring people to Jesus Christ.

:: 01:45:13

My name is Brian Miller, and I serve as the director of Evangelization and Discipleship for the Archdiocese, and I'm excited to be your guide on this journey. As we go forth, we'll have different guest, different interviews, different topics that we cover to help break open the practicals of evangelization, of how we go and make disciples. With me alongside here is Tammy Chumley, who serves as the associate director of Evangelization and Discipleship.

:: 02:12:18

Welcome, Tammy. Thank you. We are so excited that you're a part of this team and we're so excited that you said yes to be on this inaugural episode of Go and Make. I'm very happy to be here. Is that true? No, no. But you're learning. We're all learning. And I think one of the things we can think about when we talk about evangelization is that evangelization often takes us outside of our comfort zone.

:: 02:33:27

Absolutely. And the Lord calls us and he equips us. It's not just that we have to train ourselves to do all the things ourselves, but he's going to give us the Holy Spirit. And when our hearts are convicted with the recall to go forth, our hearts are convicted that we're called to go out and make disciples. So we can't help but do it.

:: 02:51:05

And the apostles weren't ready. They didn't have the tools or the skills, but they brought with them Jesus. And they had the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. This is definitely not my favorite thing. In fact, this is my first official recording like this. But I do trust, like you said, I trust in the Holy Spirit to give us what we need.

:: 03:09:29

I say that every time I get in front of people and speak, I not my comfort zone. But he does give us what we need. And I do it because I love him and I do it because he calls me to it. There you go. And we're all called to go and make disciples. So again, where are we in the church right now?

:: 03:27:12

I've always had this reflection that in my 12 years of working for the archdiocese, things have radically shifted. I came in as the director of young adult ministry. We're trying to reach 20 somethings. We're trying to reach young people to bring them into the church, because even 12 years ago there was this overarching sense that we needed to be urgent about the way we're trying to engage the young church, that people are are looking around and they're looking in there saying, where are the young people?

:: 03:52:03

We know we have some high school youth ministry and some youth groups and we're reaching people that way. And now the Steubenville conference and weekly Parish youth ministry, some really great things going on there. But there wasn't a huge outreach to young adults and they were maybe falling through the cracks sometimes. And when I started, Pope Benedict was still pope, and I had served as a missionary with focus for four years, going out on college campuses and evangelizing.

:: 04:15:18

And I was talking about evangelization. And sometimes people would look at me a little bit funny, like they didn't know exactly what I was talking about or what I was trying to do. Pope Benedict retires out of nowhere, and here comes Pope Francis. And here comes the joy of the Gospel. And here comes all this talk in the church on missionary discipleship and living the Great Commission.

:: 04:36:24

And I just love seeing the way in the last 12 years that this emphasis on the church that that Benedict had to and he talked a lot about the new evangelization that John Paul the second had to in his documents and writings and really his whole papacy was geared towards living the fruits of the Second Vatican Council of the call to engage the modern world and to bring the modern world to Christ.

:: 04:58:18

But what we see right now is this really an intense focus that, you know, the church tends to move slowly. The church tends to move in things sometimes in decades or centuries. So in this last decade, I've seen that shift in a really real way that not only are we talking about evangelization, we're actually starting to do evangelization as well.

:: 05:16:28

Hey, do you want me to share a little bit about where I come from and how I can? Yeah. So. So where in your in your journey, you worked at a parish for a while. We'll hear about that. But how have you seen that shift happen in how you get into ministry and how have you seen this call to evangelize starts to part, take part.

:: 05:35:00

You know, being a convert to the faith. When I came into the church, I remember my RCIA class having a lot of people in it. I also remember there being a huge team that was walking with this whole class and there was just this very natural, organic feel about that class and how the church was just so welcoming and actually really wanted to accompany me on this journey.

:: 06:04:09

What I would say I see different from where I was when I first entered the church over 30 years ago, and today is we've kind of lost that invitation. We've lost that zeal to go out and share our own experience is of what we've encountered. That's what people did in my class, like those people on that team. They shared with me their journeys and how the Lord moved and their life.

:: 06:32:07

And so I think that that what is missing now is a lot of that relational component and that that zeal for sharing that joy with others so that they can have this great encounter with the Lord as well. And then, you know, from there you became Catholic. Join the church and you started working in a parish right away?

:: 06:52:29

No, I didn't start working in a parish right away. So, you know, I was I was a Catholic. I had a relationship with the Lord. We were raising our children in the faith, being faithful Catholics as much as we knew at the time. Right. And what ended up happening was I was involved in the life of of the parish, but more on the school side.

:: 07:16:15

Right. And so I really wasn't in ministry. I didn't really do any volunteer ministries at the time because I didn't even really know about them. And nobody really even invited me into them. Nobody talked to me about stewardship and so really my giving at that time was more of a more a more selfish nature. Right. Because I wanted to help the schools so could help my children.

:: 07:37:10

But I did have a friend who actually invited me to go on a retreat, and I really didn't want to commit to a whole weekend. And so I said, Look, I can give you a bunch of excuses as to whether or not I'm not, you know, would or would not go on this retreat. But the truth is, is if I choose not to go, it's more about I it's not a priority.

:: 07:55:03

Right. And so that night I went home and I decided I was going to watch The Passion of Christ. And I watched The Passion of Christ. And I. I told the Lord, Lord, if I'm at all moved by this movie, I'll go on the retreat. I don't like viewing it. Not totally normal thing to watch. Right. And who could possibly not be moved?

:: 08:14:07

I watched it by myself. Afterwards. I said, okay, Lord, I'm going on this retreat. So I went on this retreat. And that is really what sparked the the desire even more. I was like, I, I have encountered the Lord. Wow. I've been so abundantly blessed throughout my life because of this. And I want everybody else to know this.

:: 08:34:28

And so then I that kind of was the start into ministry for me. And and from there I felt this call that the Lord was really asking me to help start a youth program in our parish because we had nothing. And so that's kind of where I got my start in ministry as a volunteer in the parish. But I am also a registered nurse and so was working as a nurse and doing, you know, ministry part time.

:: 09:00:14

And so that's that's the, you know, just the very top. And then he kept calling you deeper, though, coming up there. Right. Right. So, you know, from there, you know, I worked I eventually just worked as a volunteer and then over time, you know, did that for years as a volunteer. And then and then I was hired as the youth minister.

:: 09:22:10

Unknown

And then from there, I worked part time for the church and I worked full time as a nurse. And I had the pastor who inherited me, a new pastor who came on, you know, worked with me in youth ministry and said, you know, we were always dreaming about ways that we could reach more people in the parish beyond just our youth.

:: 09:43:23

How can we reach our parents? How can we reach, you know, all the people in their parish? And he said to me one day, I really need you working in evangelization. Have you ever considered working full time for the church? And he recognized that, you know, if I was going to do that, that I would be sacrificing my job as a nurse.

:: 10:03:19

And then let's be honest, the church is not pay. I don't know what you mean. Great. But. But it was about a mission. So I went home, talked to my husband, we prayed about it, and he said, it's the Lord's calling you to this. You can't say no. Right. And then I asked the Lord, I said, God. I said, Where do you want me?

:: 10:24:14

And the truth is, is what I heard in prayer was I have many people to care for the body and I have far less people to care for the soul. And so that is why I felt, okay, I am going to do this and just trust that he's going to provide did that for a while, worked part time as a youth minister, part time as a coordinator of evangelization, couldn't quite make it work because we were paying for school tuitions.

:: 10:51:11

And so I had to pick up part time nursing, you know, shifts to kind of help supplement the income. And then father said, you know, eventually he moved me into this full time evangelization and I became the director of evangelization in the parish. And how much schooling do you have in that? I have no schooling in that. And I wanted to point that out, not to like shame you and say you're under-qualified for what you do because you're not.

:: 11:15:28

Because every single one of us in our baptism is called to be a missionary disciple. Pope Francis talks about that and the joy, the gospel by the virtue of their baptism. We've all become missionary disciples. Now, there are some things in the church you need certain certifications or training for things you want to have. But I know there's people who are out there, you know, listening to this, watching this, whatever, who think I could never do this because I don't know enough or I'm not trained or, you know, fill in the blank with whatever excuse they might have.

:: 11:45:13

But the reality is the Lord is calling you, not if the Lord is calling you, you can do it. It's that the Lord is calling you to evangelize in some way. It looks different for everyone, but the Lord is calling you. And the most important thing is for you to discern how He's calling you and then to pray and to respond to that call.

:: 12:04:18

Right. You know, I would say that I think that sometimes the evil one likes to taunt us with our inabilities and our lack of gifts. And, you know, I I've said before, I am very, very far from perfect, Right. Praise God for the gift of reconciliation. Right. Because we often don't feel worthy even in through our own sinfulness.

:: 12:29:16

Right. So we forget that that, you know, don't let that be what stops you either. But then our qualifications to a lot of people will say that to me, Well, I can't do what you do because I don't know what you know. And the truth is, is what gives me or you the authority to really even share this is because I love the Lord and he loves me.

:: 12:54:27

And my life has been richly blessed because of that love and the mercy that he's given me. And that qualifies me. And the fact that he loves me and and I am baptized and he calls me to it, that is what qualifies me. Right. And, you know, we can learn, we can learn and grow in our faith, right?

:: 13:15:04

I've learned so much over my years of volunteer ministry and being, you know, working full time for the church. And in fact, I work really hard at that. And because I feel like I need to make up for it. But the truth is, the things that people remember most about the way that I have walked with them is the way that I've loved them, right?

:: 13:38:15

Not so much what I've taught them, but the way that I've invited them into that relationship with the Lord through our relationship and our friendship, If that makes I mean, yeah, I went to, you know, youth group all throughout high school, had a profound conversion when John Paul II came in 1999. I was a freshman in high school and I went to youth group consistently twice a week for four years, and they taught us well and they taught us a lot.

:: 14:02:22

But I can't remember the specifics of a thing, you know, of more than three probably nights were what the topic was of what we learned. Because what I do remember was the men in particular in our youth ministry who took me under their wing and invested in me and loved me and challenged me to walk that path of discipleship.

:: 14:20:18

And I think that we have to know because you can't love what you don't know. So the more we know our faith, we can more perfectly love the Lord and give him our yes. But it's so important to so grounded in that relational love. And that's really what the incarnation as Jesus came and became man to show us how to love so we can become like him because he became like us.

:: 14:40:29

So I think it's really a profound insight of of how we evangelize. I think that's really actually a great transition for us to talk about here in the archdiocese. You know, one of our goals is to help people understand, practically speaking, how do we evangelize, What are we going to do when we go out and go forth? And as we've talked, one of the things we want to make sure people know is that there are kind of a few different categories or areas that it's helpful to think in.

:: 15:02:25

So I think as future episodes of this go, we'll get more into the practicals. How do I give my testimony? How do I go out and make Christ known as I serve the poor and proclaim his name to others? There's there's so many different things we can talk about, practically speaking. But for this part, I think what we want to do is just to step back and think about what are those big picture categories of kind of a vision for understanding evangelization.

:: 15:26:18

And as we go through those, it'll help us understand what the practicals look like along the way. So I like to think in like in categories, help us remember things very easily. So I came up with four M's of things that we need to think about as we understand the evangelization. The first is the moment. What is the moment that we're living in right now?

:: 15:45:22

The second is going to be the message. So what do we do in terms of proclaiming the good news? What is the charisma, as we might call it? The third thing we're going to talk about is the model of evangelization. So how do we live this path of discipleship? We'll talk about that. And the fourth is what is the method, right?

:: 16:04:12

The method of accompaniment and discipleship, relational ministry that you were just talking about. So let's just dive right in the moment. What is the moment we're living in right now? I think this is like the joy of the gospel post-Vatican II call to engage the world moment that we're living in, that can be succinctly summed up by the great book by Monsignor Shea from University of Mary.

:: 16:26:03

The We're Moving from an Age of Christendom to Apostolic Mission. Pope Francis, again, is that we're not living in the change of an era, but the not living in an era of change. Excuse me, but we're living in the change of an era that things fundamentally right now are just different than they were a generation ago, and that the church can't continue just to do things the way we've always done them, and that this idea of Christendom is that we have these structures built up which are meant to preach the gospel, but sometimes our structures become so institutionalized and so kind of just on repeat and on routine.

:: 16:57:22

They actually don't have the heart of the gospel very much. They're in that personal relationship with Jesus Christ we like to talk about now. And Pope Francis has talked about, again, joy, the gospel, so good, talking about what evangelization is and what we're called to do, but in Joy of the Gospel 27 He talks about this missionary option. He says it's a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything so that everything we do as a church, our time schedules, languages, structures can be channeled for evangelization of today's world rather than our own self preservation.

:: 17:27:20

I think we get so caught up sometimes in, you know, my parish, my school, my fish fry, my, whatever it might be. And we want to keep those things because we know that those are good and we know that those are a way that people come to the church and people engage the church, but they're not actually going out and helping people convert to Jesus Christ to drop their nets and to follow him.

:: 17:47:04

Then they're fundamentally missing something. So really, if we're going to evangelize, well, we have to understand the moment that it's time for action, it's time for change. We also need to understand the moment that the world is in to the secular world. We have to understand the idea of moral relativism and the kind of cultural worldviews that prevent people from encountering Jesus in the gospel.

:: 18:07:03

That's the moment. That's the moment they were called to. When we talk about to the way that we approach people, we want to also before we move into the message, we want to know where they are right? So if I've had people come up and say to me, I, I invited my neighbor, who is a nonbeliever to join RCIA, okay?

:: 18:32:29

And so I said, Well, but but maybe they're not ready for that yet. So I think it's important before we evangelize individuals and before we evangelize, you know, even in our parish, we need to recognize where people are on the journey. Right. Because we don't want to give them something that they're not ready to receive yet. Right. So, you know, there is this model of pathway that we call the pathway of discipleship.

:: 18:57:28

And, you know, there's this there's this part that is called pre evangelization from the thresholds of conversion from Sherry model. And we we go we're not going to go into depth of those today. But it is important to recognize and maybe to familiarize yourself a bit with what those are, just to kind of have an idea of this natural pathway that people will take toward the Lord.

:: 19:21:28

Right. It just doesn't happen overnight. And it's not just because we opened a catechism and said, but look, here's the catechism and this is what it says that might be great and it might really move you. But the majority of people, that's not the journey that they're going to take, right? So we have to have an awareness of where they are on their journey and where they are on that pathway.

:: 19:40:27

And it's not just knowing that. It's kind of knowing how to walk with them and how do we know how to walk with somebody if we don't if we don't have a relationship with them. So that's why it always starts with that relationship, right? So let's get to know this person first. Let's show them that positive influence with the church, right?

:: 19:59:13

So that initial trust that Sherry Weddell refers to in the pre evangelization states, that they have this positive experience with a Catholic or with a Christian. Right. So that's that's that's where we're going to start with somebody. And then as we build the relationship and as they grow in understanding and openness to the Lord, then eventually, you know, they're going to be ready for this encounter, right?

:: 20:21:06

So we want to provide them that encounter, that first encounter with the Lord. And that might be the moment where then kind of like for me, you know, I was already a Christian, I was already in love with the Lord. But once I had that encounter on that retreat, then I was like, Oh, I want to know everything, right?

:: 20:38:13

I know everything about this church. I've been missing so much all this time. And so then we move into more of that, that the growth stage right where we're going to. What do you want to grow in and knowledge of of the one you love, Right. So, you know, I fell in love with my husband. I certainly didn't know everything about him.

:: 20:56:10

But once I fell in love with him, then I went to know all about his childhood. I wanted to know about all these little ins and outs, not just about him, but about everything about him. Right? What makes him tick? What makes his family tick? I want to know everything. So then this period of growth happens, right? And so what does that look like it?

:: 21:13:11

You know, it can be for individuals. It might be they're invited into a small faith sharing group. It could be that a parish offers different opportunities during the liturgical season. Opportunities to grow is to grow in relationship and knowledge and love, not only with the Lord, but with his church and with his people. Right? And then from there people are they can't help but spill over.

:: 21:35:24

They've been fed and now they want to go out and feed others. Right? I want to share what I have encountered with others. And so then that's the witness part. And so it's important to know where people are in the journey and on this pathway of discipleship that is the model, right? So that we know how we can best walk with them.

:: 21:54:27

I think that that witness element too, is really important that we talk about. We share the gospel in word and deed, and we're not always very comfortable with both of those. Usually like to pick one or the other or we like to keep them separate. I think that's where it actually talking about the model. It's a great transition into this idea of what the method of evangelization is and again, we're going to use like churchy buzz words, which I know we do sometimes, but we're talk about accompaniment and discipleship and really those words are often pretty interchangeable, I think at this point.

:: 22:23:19

Again, Pope Francis talks about the art of accompaniment. How do we walk with others in their mass towards Christ? And sometimes that means we're walk with them all over the place. When they're not walking towards Christ, and eventually there's maybe a turn around that leads them towards Jesus. But it's again, it's the same thing that I experienced in high school youth ministry.

:: 22:41:24

It's something I experienced as a focused missionary. It's what you experience in your art. A process is that people love you enough to share their life with you and to share the gospel with you. So this idea of the method of how we evangelize, it's not programmatic. Like people are always calling our office or calling us and asking us what is the one thing I can do in my peers?

:: 22:59:04

What program do I need to run that's going to help our mass attendance grow? And if it were that simple, you know, I think we wouldn't have jobs. People would have it figured out already. But people want to know that their love and they want to know that you care and they want to know why you have the joy that you have.

:: 23:14:29

So if you start to live that joy in a new way, people are attracted to that. And really the Bible verse I love that talks about what the method of evangelization is, how we live it as First Thessalonians Chapter two verses as being so affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but also our very selves, so beloved you would become to us.

:: 23:38:00

And I just I love that because it what it does is it separates out, you know, the gospel of God and ourselves and has not only one or the other in our parishes. So often we're ready to share life. We have sports and fish fries and schools and all the wonderful social activities of a parish, and they're good.

:: 23:54:22

And then on on Sundays we come to mass, we go to a faith formation class or we have a talk or whatever it might be. But the reality is, is that we have to merge those two things that as are walking through every single part of our everyday life, then we're ready to share the gospel as a part of that.

:: 24:09:15

Unknown

Those two things are actually inseparable. And I think as Catholics, we're not always really comfortable with that idea of proclaiming the love of Jesus to someone or making an invitation to someone to consider that. But ultimately, if we love them well and we're engaged in our lives, we're going to know when they're ready for that invitation. I think that's really what the art of accompaniment is.

:: 24:27:02

It's more art than it is science. Yeah, and I would add to that as well that it's not just about loving people because that's that is, that's the bulk of it. But it's also remembering to not judge right? People feel that judgment. A lot of us carry shame. And so, you know, that keeps a lot of people away.

:: 24:49:01

So being open to kind of not being judgmental and being patient with them, to walk that journey with them, I think is really important and patient with yourself as well, to know that you're not always going to have all the right answers. You're not always going to say the right things. You're still going to make mistakes. We're still going to be sinners, but always to remember that, you know, be patient with this process.

:: 25:09:19

It doesn't happen overnight. It's a very the art of accompaniment is very slow. It's is very labor intense. And sometimes you can walk with somebody for an entire year or longer and they still may turn away from the Lord. But that doesn't mean we give up. That doesn't mean we just keep on going, right? We trusted that the Lord is the one who is going to cause that conversion.

:: 25:32:11

So maybe we just planned to see maybe that was just the moment that the Lord gave us. But sometimes we're called to give them that explicit gospel message. Can you talk about slowly? Yeah. And sometimes people are like, Well, what is this really about? And this is actually happened with me in a line before at a store. So incredible, you know, that the Lord sometimes provides us these moments.

:: 25:53:19

So, you know, people are like, what is the good news? Right? So the good news is really not only how God has moved in your own life, but that but how God has moved in and all of humanity. Right. And so it's the story of a vase. It's a salvation story. Right. And we don't have to have a theology degree.

:: 26:16:27

We don't have to have all the details. We all know it. But maybe you've never real souls. Didn't have theology, right? Maybe we didn't. Maybe we didn't. We've never actually expressed this, but we know it, right? We know that the Lord came. We know that he created everything from nothing. We know that He created us. He created us to be in relationship and love with him and with each other.

:: 26:40:11

Right. And then we know how the story goes. Sin enters the picture, and that separates us. Not only it causes division, not only between each other and through all of his creation, but it separates us from him as well. And so we were unable to fix that chasm. We were unable to fix that gap that happened. So the Lord comes and His salvation comes to us through Jesus, right?

:: 27:03:23

And Jesus comes and He saves us from ourselves in our own sin to help bridge that gap so that we can be reunited one day with him and have this perfect harmony not only with him, but with all of each other. Right. And out of that knowledge of this salvation and story and out of this knowledge of his love comes this response.

:: 27:26:09

Right? And that response is that we have to go. We have knowledge of this. And so what is this that we are called to go out? He's given us the example of how to live. He's given this example and knowledge on how to not only grow in relationship with him, but relationship with each other, to create this beautiful experience of life here so that one day we can be with him, and that is the responses, our witness, right.

:: 27:51:23

And how we live our life here. And I think that, you know, as Catholics, again, we're not very good at this. And and oftentimes are not very good at evangelization, which is ironic because actually we've evangelized the whole world once already. We had this idea of Christendom, and we have a rich history in evangelization. But I think that people look at our Protestant brothers and sisters and say they're so much better at evangelizing because this is the part of it that they get really well right now in the Protestant evangelical culture, Protestant churches across America are so good at keeping the message at the center of everything.

:: 28:24:29

You do that when you walk onto their property, they're telling you about Jesus saving love. And as Catholics, I think that oftentimes we think that people are going to learn by osmosis. We think that they're just going to kind of eventually figure out that what we're about is what we do. And they're going to witness our actions, which they should.

:: 28:41:07

We should be seen and love the poor. Like that's that is good and important things. We also let people know why we do it. And I think that if we get more comfortable with this as Catholics of keeping the message at the center of everything we do as a church and also individually, that that's actually going go a really long way in terms of evangelization because it can help people understand why we do what we do and we can help them understand that we really mean what we say, that this is so important to us that we are preaching this message urgently, just like Saint Paul did, and just like the early apostles did, that

:: 29:13:19

they couldn't help but go off to the ends of the earth to their martyrdom because they believe so deeply in this message. Yeah, And I would say that, you know, when we love somebody, right, we desire the greatest good for them, Right? And what do we all I mean, I don't think there's an argument among any Christians that the greatest good is for all of us to be with the Lord.

:: 29:31:20

Right. Okay. So we can't sit around and just hope that that happens, Right? We need to we need to boldly be inviting those that we love and those that the Lord puts in our path into this. Right. We need to be able to share with them this great news of the salvation story. I'll never forget when and this is no slight against my wonderful family, my Catholic family.

:: 29:58:08

I love them to pieces debate. But when I became but but no, no. So but when I became Catholic, I was like and I found out about the Eucharist. I was like, oh my goodness. Like, do you guys know? Like, do you know? And I'm like, Yeah, you know, But they were very private, right? And pious. And so, you know, they would pray and it was very private.

:: 30:18:13

Nobody talked about it. And I was like, I mean, this is like great music. Why is why are we not all excited about this? And my my Catholic family, my husband's family, you know, they're just kind of like, oh, but doesn't everybody know this? And I'm like, I didn't know this. I didn't know this about the Eucharist. I didn't know that God could one within me like, Oh, wonderful.

:: 30:39:09

Is that right? And so I just I couldn't make that connection, you know, because I come from a little bit of a Protestant background and they were so good about sharing the good news. Right. And they were excited about their faith. But I think because our faith is so rich and we have these beautiful sacraments that we I think it's easy to kind of become selfish and just kind of focus on me and my relationship with the Lord and what I'm receiving for getting that.

:: 31:07:27

This is why I think we just get used to it like this is a big deal, you know? And so I was really surprised when they weren't excited because I would say to my husband, I guess he would come to our senior classes with me. And he said that was the greatest thing for his faith because there were a lot of things he didn't know.

:: 31:23:15

And all of a sudden he was getting excited, like, did you know? This is like, I didn't know that, right? So we can't just assume that because we are Catholic or because we are around that everybody knows this and everybody's excited and everybody understands that call to go out and share this great news with others. So anyway, love my family, love them, but but they it it was a missed opportunity.

:: 31:48:17

Right? And so and now they understand. And and I remember going to my husband's grandparents, they were probably the most open with about their faith. And I would ask them questions. And so sometimes we get into these great deep spiritual conversations and the rest of the family would be in shock because they had never kind of experienced that, that you could open conversation.

:: 32:13:11

And I was in the process of being evangelizing. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, well, this is a lot and it's all good stuff. And what we're going to do as we continue on future episodes is we're going to dive deeper into these topics and other topics which help us learn to evangelize and really practical ways. But again, the moment, the model, the method, the message, and if we can really understand those things well, and we have other classes and formations and things we're doing for different groups and really hone in on some of these specifically and teaching this kind of vision for understanding evangelization.

:: 32:49:08

But I think that's just a real commitment right now in the archdiocese to do it right. Archbishop has said all things new is about evangelization and it doesn't mean we to figure it out, but it means that we're committed to figuring it out and to doing and responding and discerning how the Lord is calling us to reach our world right now.

:: 33:06:12

And I don't know about you, but I'm just so excited for where we're headed and what we're doing and really the openness I've seen and the pastors and the priests in L.A., leaders of the archdiocese, to learn more about how we can go out and make disciples of all nations. Yes. So exciting, so exciting, So exciting. So thanks for for joining us today on this inaugural episode of Go and Make.

:: 33:31:17

And we will see you next time.