 A couple of things about this track. We do not do young adult specific stuff in these workshops. And I'm going to tell you why. So years ago, anybody know who Andre Rignier is? Andre Rignier, who runs CCO? So Andre Rignier and I did this track for many years together. He's a good friend of mine. And when COVID hit, they had to cut back some of the folks. And unfortunately, all the Canadians got caught. So Andre got caught. And I know, but the speakers all got cut. So we let you guys across the border still. But anyway, so I miss my brother. But we rewrote this track to be about evangelization and discipleship. And the reason why is because it applies to everything that the church does. So the other thing is that I could sit in here and help you to run a really good young adult retreat. Because I've been doing ministry for decades now. I could sit in here and help you understand how to do small groups better. And I could do sessions on that kind of stuff. And that's what the track was before we got a hold of it. I don't want to do that stuff. What I want to do is give you principles and help you to be better at your job in the sense of understanding what the mission and the purpose of your job is so that I can do it better in my own context. Because it's not about plug and play. It's not about a silver bullet. It's not about having all the right answers right now for an event or a class. It's about you, you, as a missionary, given a specific task, whether it's a staff or a volunteer's position, to be in the world as a missionary disciple. It's not about the programs, the events, the classes. It's about you. And we wanted to make better missionaries, OK? So that's why we do it. Now, with that being said, for the rest of today, outside of the sessions, this session and one more little while, outside of those sessions, my time is yours, OK? So young adult track people, if you want to talk specifics, if you've got an issue, if you've got something, you know, you're working the diocese and you're running something and you're like, I don't know how to handle this office dynamic, come ask. I may not have all the answers. I know I don't have all the answers. But I've worked in ministry for a long time. And all I do now is I coach Catholic leaders. That's all I do. I coach Catholic leaders. I get to coach bishops and priests and their leadership teams in diocesan and parish settings, OK? That's what I do. So I've also learned a lot about how to help people by asking the right questions and leading stuff, OK? Now, with that being said, anybody here want my time? Just come pull me off and say, hey, can we sit down? Also tonight, OK, tonight after the last session's over, I have already told a bunch of other speakers and friends that we're going to be up at the hotel, the best Western. I'm going to have a bottle of bourbon. It's going to go really quick. Bring your beer or wine or your water. Or if you don't drink, you know, bring sparkling water. By the way, le croix is my thing now. So anyway, bring your coffee and we can chat, OK? I'm here for you, OK? All right. So we're going to talk about a missionary mindset. We're going to talk about what it actually takes to do this. And it starts like Katie was talking about last night. Who are you? If you were here last year, I did some of this stuff last year, too. But I need you to understand this deeply. If you don't have your identity straight, you won't have any of your work straight. So I've got friends who are dentists, accountants, lawyers, roofers. I got friends who do all kinds of different things, you know, labor, they do professional jobs, whatever else. I have friends who are priests. When I say, you know, tell me about yourself, what do most people start with? Their job. I mean, they don't even start with like a vocation, most people, unless it's like a priest or religious, which is, you know, a little bit different. But they, because they're tied up, right? Job and vocation together. So here we have, you know, you start with a job. Well, I work in Catholic ministry, something like that. What's the second thing we talk about? Family, generally speaking, for laypeople, right? You know, in some relation, or if you're single, maybe, you know, you talk about where you're from, or something of that nature. Do we ever start with the fact that that's not our identity, none of that stuff? Not even husband gets to deepest identity for me. Not even father gets to deepest identity. That's part of my identity. But when I die, or my wife dies, whichever happens first, I'm no longer married to my wife. Just wanna remind everybody that. That's not my lasting, deepest identity. So what's your lasting, deepest identity? What is it? Do you believe that? Like in your heart of hearts, in everything that you are, do you believe that? Do you live that? Is that everything to you? Does it flow in how you pray, how you live, the decisions you make from moment to moment, and in your work? Because if it does it, then you're never gonna get a missionary mindset. This is where the missionary mindset starts and ends. To know that you are loved by a God who cares for you beyond measure and will never, ever stop loving you no matter what. Realize that God loves the souls and hell. They just don't love him back. He desired for them to live in eternal union with him and they chose not to. And he has sorrow for that. Friends, God made you because he loves you. For no other reason, he didn't need us. God is love, God loves us, and God desires to have that love forever lived out and give him back to him. That's who you are. That's who you are. Now, let's supply this to the church. Supply this to the church. Who is the church? The body of Christ. What was that other, second answer? Yeah, make it more personal. Who is the church? Let's do it again. You and I are the church. If we don't live out of our identity as being loved by God as sons and daughters of God, if we don't have that, then the church doesn't have her fullness of her identity, not being lived out at least. The church, us, the baptized, is in wide measure in the 21st century unaware of her identity. And the culture, especially in the West, and we'll be more specific in the United States and Canada, the culture of the church, I'm not talking about the wider culture, the culture of the church is that we are institutional. We have an institutional mindset where what we do is we work to perpetuate and manage the monster institutions that we had, especially that the height of it in the turn of the 20th century, in the middle of the turn of the 20th century, where we had all these priests and all these religious and so we built all these parishes and all these institutions like schools and orphanages and hospitals and everything else. And when it started to dip, we panicked and all we did was try to hang on to these institutions. So now we're suffering because we're having to shrink the institutions because budgets are shrinking, vocations are shrinking, numbers of Catholics percentage-wise are shrinking. And you all know that, right? And you all feel that, don't you? I wanna tell you something, flip the script. This is an opportunity because in the midst of these problems, we can regain something we've lost and that is our missionary identity. Why weren't we on mission? Why do we lose our missionary identity? Because all the effort and the time and the people were put to the management of the institution, to the perpetuation of the institutions and therefore we didn't go on mission because we're like, oh, we kinda won the culture. We're a Judeo-Christian culture in United States and Canada. Oh, look at all the things we've accomplished. And something I tell leaders all the time, this is like principle number one that you might wanna write down. And by the way, I'll tell you upfront, if you want these slides, I'll give you my email at the end, remind me of somebody to give you my email and I'll just send them to you, okay? So you don't have to take pictures of them all. And now I forgot my thought, but anyway. Oh, principle number one, okay? Principle number one. If your entire mindset is built upon all of this management of institution and you're really supposed to be missionary, okay? So what's the principle that informs this? If we're flipping the script, this opportunity that we can now have, it's that we can regain our identity if we make the choice to take advantage of this opportunity. God never fails to work in any age. Why would he allow this to happen? I want you to think about it. Do you think God's up in heaven frustrated by the institutional decline because he can't do anything about it? Then why do we get frustrated by institutional decline? It's because we feel like we can't do anything about it. And I wanna tell you something, you can. So let me stop and tell you a story real quick, okay? Before we get into this a little bit more. When I went to school and university and went to Texas A&M, I was a terrible student. I parted my way through the first couple of years. I didn't even know where the church was, but when I did show up at the church, it had two diocesan priests, a deacon who didn't do anything. God rest his soul. Secretary that got paid about $18,000 a year. It was in the early 90s, which was still scandalously low, okay? And an accountant that came in a couple of times a week. So really it was about four staff members. If you take the two part timers, four staff. They ran a budget of about $150 to $200,000 a year. Anybody got a budget about $100, $200,000 a year? Maybe even lower. They had the building that we were in literally had a roof that almost fell in. I had a friend, we called him Peanut because he was a peanut farmer before he came to school. And he was a big old boy, he was a big peanut. He weighed like 360. Peanut was like 64 and he fell through the roof of the student center because we used to have to go up there to try to plug the leaks or put out the pans when it rained because it would always leak. We had no parking lot, we had a church, a rectory in that little tiny student center where the leaky roof, no budget, barely a staff, no vision. And before that we had had about, I think it was 12 priests in like five years. Turn over, turn over, turn over, turn over, turn over. No continuity, nothing. If you were to look at that campus ministry today, it would look like a lot of campus ministries or young adult ministries or parishes around our contacts today, right? There were some scandals that had happened, some other stuff. I wanna flash forward. I worked there for 11 years. And during my 11 years and the time prior to that, we grew that ministry to the point of over about a 20-year period. When I left in 2017, I'm gonna give you some numbers. Oh, and by the way, we had about a couple thousand kids that would go to mass, because this was a large school, large state school, but we just threw open the doors and they showed up, right? We had like one or two vocations every couple of years. Okay, flash forward. By the time I left, it was the largest campus ministry in the world. We had a three and a half million dollar budget. I had 63 staff members. We had state-of-the-art facilities. And if you wanna see the pictures on my phone in two weeks, less than two weeks, we're going to dedicate our new church, which seats 1,500 people. It is gorgeous and it costs $31 million. We had, when I left, 12 to 15 vocations every year to the religious life and priesthood, we now have several bishops that have been ordained coming out of our ministry. The two of the previous pastors, the two that oversaw the major growth are now bishops of St. Angelo and Tulsa, Oklahoma. We have confession lines out the door with two to three priests six times a week for over an hour. 4,500 to 5,000 kids go to mass. Now, part of that was the growth of the school. Part of that was the culture that we changed and the culture that we changed is we didn't do any kind of rocket science, big programmatic things. You know what we did? We preached the gospel. We formed people to be disciples and have prayer lives. We helped form community and we sent them out on mission. It's not hard to conceptualize. It's hard to do because it takes time and it takes effort and it takes a change of habit. And unless you're willing to change your habits, you will not have a missionary mindset. The church exists not just to get you to heaven. The church doesn't even exist just to get those people who go to church to heaven. The church exists to get the world to heaven. I don't know about you, but I don't think there's a lot of Catholics right now who care that their souls go into hell. I don't even think there's a lot of Catholic leaders who care, not really. If you ask them, they say, yeah, I care. And I say, well, what are you willing to give for that person who you just met to go to heaven? Are you willing to give away your comfort? Because that, my friends, is probably one of the biggest obstacles to 21st century people today. It's our comfort and I will raise my hand and say, absolutely, I am a comfortable human being. When I went to the best Western down there, I'm from Texas, it's like 105 degrees and feel like temperatures like 115, okay? There's no rain in sight, it's miserable because it's like 60% humidity in 103 degrees. It's stupid right now, okay? Even Jesus is like, oh, hell no, I'm going to Minnesota. So I get in that room, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, 68 degrees, oh, air conditioning. I change the bed up, make my little hole there. I sleep, I'll comfort, put on my white noise thing on my phone. I'm a high maintenance sleeper. That's what I tell people. And then when I wake up, what do I go do? What do you think the first thing I do is? Praise the Lord for copying. The sweet elixir that's gonna get me and all of you people to heaven, okay? Cause without it, all of you go to hell just by being around me, all right? And with it, you all get a plenary indulgence just by being here. I'm just handing them out, it's like candy here. Have some, okay? So the fact of the matter is we're comfortable. Are you willing to give that up? Like for real? So Katie told some plain evangelization stories. I'll tell you one, get on a plane. Ladies sitting next to me, and I just trained 40 nuns on how to evangelize for like three days and I was very tired because a bunch of religious sisters, they wear you out. It was me and 40 religious sisters. They plumore me out. I get on the plane, I just wanna put on my noise canceling headphones, which we need to buy Pope Francis when he flies. And we get on the plane and I wanna put those on and I clearly heard this call, talk to this woman. So I'm at the window, she's at the aisle, there's an empty seat in between us. Really, Jesus? Yes. I don't want to, I don't care. Okay, can I ask what you're reading? And she hands me this magazine and I'm not kidding. I'm not exaggerating. It was a heal your shock with Crystal Power magazine. I didn't know they printed these things and I'm going, this is not funny. Really? Oh my goodness. And so I flipped through it for a couple of minutes. Oh, this is very interesting. And I turned to her, well, she's got her noise canceling headphones on and she's sleeping. So I put that magazine on that empty seat next to me and I wait for her to wake up. Guess what? She never woke up. We land, get to the gate, ding. People are standing up, she's still asleep. Finally, she finally realizes it when people around her like getting off the plane. She gets up, grabs magazine, walks off the plane. I didn't make eye contact, wouldn't look at me, just off. And I asked the Lord in my prayer, what? And here was the clear answer. It was not about you being successful in evangelizing her. It was about you being faithful to the mission regardless of the outcome. This is a missionary mindset. Friends, the rich young man walked away from Jesus. Judas betrayed him. The other 11 ran away when he most needed them. Peter denied him three times. Paul was an accessory to murder and you think you don't have anything to offer a God who powerfully worked through those men so that the mission of the church now exists today when back then it was so tiny and they didn't have any budget. They didn't have any buildings. They didn't have any programs. They didn't have any events. And we complain because we get a little uncomfortable that the things aren't going our way in ministry. You don't need a building or a budget or an event or a program to do ministry. It's been proven through the ages again and again and again by men and women who left their comfort zones to go out into a world that desperately needs to know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. Do you have that in your heart? And if not, that's where it starts. I am a child of God. I'm loved and so is everybody else that's supposed to be in relationship with God called to a relationship with him if they don't have it. And I'm the instrument that God wants to use to do that. And no, I am not perfect. No, I am not without sin. No, I don't have every talent. No, I'm not the greatest speaker in the world. No, I'm kind of grumpy and high maintenance when I sleep and all these other issues. And still God wants to say, that's true, so what? Now, since this is a catechetical conference, read your quotes. Come on, you all know this one, right? I hope you do. If you haven't, you need to read this document. Pope Paul VI, even Jelly Nuntianti. The church exists to evangelize. What do you think if you ask the average Catholic on the street, you stop, you know, you do one of those man on the street kind of thing, person on the street, like, excuse me, excuse me, I have a question, would you mind being on camera? No, no, what's wrong? So are you Catholic? Yeah, so why does the Catholic church exist? What do you think they say? Give me some answers. You gotta say it loud, because I'm also going deaf in my old age, so. Go to mass, what else? What was that? They don't know. They don't know, yeah. Feed the poor, some people might say. Run schools, hospitals, give us the sacraments, stuff like that, right? So why does the church exist? It exists for the salvation of humanity. It exists in order to evangelize. That's why it exists. And it says it right here. This is her deepest identity. It's not just part of the identity. It is everything, just like your deepest identity is to be a son or daughter of God. The church's deepest identity is to evangelize. And if you are the church, then what's your deepest identity tied to? Being missionary. I'm gonna tell you a secret. Are you ready? You know that thing in your prayer and in your spiritual life, you feel like you've been missing? Do you ever feel that, like, you know, sometimes I feel a disconnect from God, or I don't feel like I'm getting everything out of my prayer I should or my spiritual life, and sometimes God feels distant, and sometimes I don't feel like I'm, you know, I'm pleasing to God and all these other issues or distractions or problems in prayer. Let me tell you what another problem in our spiritual life is. You ready? This is just beyond the distractions and the issues and the wounds and all the other stuff. Let me tell you another reason that a lot of people struggle spiritually is because they don't evangelize. They're not on mission. Now, how many of you have ever given a gift to a little kid that got super excited? Yeah, like a Christmas? Tell me what happened. What happened when you gave a kid a gift at Christmas? They freak out, right? Oh my God, it's everything I wanted! Ah! You know, they start, oh thank you so much! No, this is amazing, it's the best thing ever! And then like, you know, two days later, you never use it again. But you know, right then, I got five kids. You've seen this every Christmas and birthday, you know? When they're little, now they're teeny-tiny like, ah. Young adults are like, thanks mom. Okay, so you give them that gift, how do you receive their opening that gift? It's the best feeling, right? Don't you get something back? How does John Paul II define, by the way, J.P. II sucks, how does John Paul II define love? Love is a true gift of self. Okay, and then he also goes on to say, in that giving of self, there's also a reception that comes back. Just like the father gives everything to the son and the son receives it beautifully, so then the son in that reception gives back to the father everything he is. When you give a gift to a kid who gets super excited, you get back joy and happiness and satisfaction and all that other stuff, right? The giving and receiving is blurred. It's blurred. You ever give something to somebody and they're very thankful? Like, this is, thank you so much. You get back, right? The gratitude and the, okay, friends, when you evangelize and you give the greatest gift you possibly could give to another person, that is knowledge of salvation and being the instrument that God's grace could save that other human being. What do you get back? Great satisfaction and joy and knowledge that God is working through you and your identity. There's something good going on. And guess what? You're now fulfilling part of that missing part of your spiritual life. This is why all the great saints are great evangelists and all the great evangelists are great saints. You cannot separate the two. So if you've ever prayed the prayer, God, may I be a saint or God, help me be holier. You know what God's calling you probably to? A deeper missionary identity. That's what he wants because they go hand in hand. And he wants to answer your prayer. He's just waiting for your consent because God's a giver of a gift that has to be received. The Senate of Bishops for the new evangelization. Being Christian and being church means being missionary. See, the problem is that we've made Christianity about going through the sacramental hoop jumping. And sometimes professionally, we've made it about fulfilling my job. I did my job, I go home, I've done my missionary work. I've been guilty of this. Lord, forgive me. I did my work, I'm now done. Gonna go home and chill. Gonna watch some Netflix. I'm gonna eat some wings. I'm gonna go play with my kids. Well, now I don't play with my kids. I just listen to their bad music. Anyway, the lack of missionary zeal, look at that last sentence, is a lack of zeal for the faith. Ooh, ooh. Do you love being Catholic? Sometimes. Yes, right? Most of the time. Do you love your faith? Like the content of your faith and the beauty of the gospel? Yes. Why on earth would you not share that? At every opportunity you could. Well, it comes down to, it's not about that stuff, it's about me. The missionary thrust belongs to the very nature of the Christian life, JP too. Let's go on, Benedict the 16th. Hence the mission of evangelization is necessary for the church. It cannot be overlooked. It is an expression of our very nature. Notice the magisterial text again and again and again, talk about this. The proclamation of the gospel remains the primary service the church owes to humanity. Now, it doesn't say gives to humanity, it says owes. This is in, this is justice, friends. Justice is fulfilled when we evangelize. You have been given a great gift. How could you not give it to somebody else? If you're a believer, and here's the thing though, I'm gonna give you another principle. You ready for this one? Stop assuming that because people have titles or roles or jobs, because they volunteer, because they go to church, because they're involved, that they know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and they've given him their life and become disciples. I know priests who are not disciples. I've known bishops who are not disciples. I've known religious who are not disciples. I've known DREs who are not disciples. I've known campus ministers who are not disciples. I've known young adult ministers who are not disciples and I know a whole lot of self-identified Catholics who don't know and follow Jesus Christ. It is not a statement of whether you're a good person. It is not a statement of whether I'm judging whether you go to heaven or not. It is a objective statement. Do you know and follow through faith by a response to the graces that you've been given to say, yes, I consent to that grace, I want to believe in you, because faith is a choice. A choice and a movement of the entire being, yes, but it has to be chosen. It is not accidental. The church again and again, I could show you all the magisterial texts. Again and again says this thing and we've somehow lost this idea that we need to help people make this choice because it sounds too Protestant. Shut your mouth. It is so Catholic that the Protestants stole it from us and tried to make it their own and we were like, meh. And we need to reclaim it. It is ours. In Catechesis Shredinde, Pope John Paul II, and I don't know, I think this might be in another one of my presentations. I don't know if I took it out or not, but he says that in most of the, or many of the baptized, he's gonna say most, many of the baptized, the graces that you have been given by being baptized are merely held there. And because they're not, I'm paraphrasing, and not consented to, lie dormant. They lie dormant. Do you receive grace every time you go get the Eucharist? Okay, this is like, okay, ex opera or whatever. Do you receive grace every time you go to the Eucharist? Yes. Does that grace operate in your life every time you go receive the Eucharist if you don't consent to it? No, it never does if you don't consent to it. Never. Same thing with your baptismal graces, the graces of matrimony, the graces of holy orders. Some things like confirmation in holy orders literally change your soul, right? But that doesn't mean you're gonna take advantage of those graces on the day-to-day level, on the spiritual level, on the level of me being a disciple. So when you go get the Eucharist, it is not magic. And Catholics have for too long treated grace like magic. Magic is, I am Gandalf, right? And Gandalf stands at the bridge, cause I doon, you shall not pass. And then he slams his staff into the bridge. The lightning comes down, the fiery rups. Here goes the demon into the depths. Blah, blah, blah. Or Harry Potter, he says, whatever. With his wand, and he waves it and thook, it happens. All right, that was for all you millennials. All right, so. I don't get quite into the Harry Potter as I do the Tolkien, but that's just cause I just turned 50 on Sunday, so I can do my Tolkien and I'm not doing the Harry Potter for you. Okay. Magic works by the person doing the right thing. Saying the right things, going through the motions. That's how magic works. Grace works by you choosing to say yes to what God is doing, not you. That's how grace operates in our life. The potential is there. We have to say yes to it. Does that make sense? It's like getting in a car and not turning on the engine. The car has everything necessary to move you forward, but until you turn on the engine, I choose to turn that sucker over. Nowadays you just press the button, I mean. Or you have some DNA sample you give it. And as your AI master, I shall allow you to move this vehicle. Sorry, okay. I for one, I'm very happy to allow our robot masters come and take over, okay? Cause maybe they'll do better than us. Evangelization is not optional. But boy, don't we make it optional, friends? And then Francis, by her very nature, the church is missionary. Did you notice we went through a progression of pretty much all the popes since Vatican II? And by the way, Vatican II says this as well. And if you want to go further back, you can go all the way. And you can even go back to, I don't know, this guy named Jesus where he said things like, go and make disciples of all nations. Friends, this is what we're supposed to be doing. Is everybody convinced? Is anybody want to argue this point? I will stop and we, because if you want to talk about this, like evangelization is just one part of the church. Does anybody want to talk about that? I'm fine with talking about that. Because if we don't get past this, yes ma'am. Yeah. So, absolutely, yeah, go ahead. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So sometimes it's the people above and sometimes it's the people below. This is, yes, and you're right. So here's the thing. Isn't that frustrating? Isn't that, so let's all, yes. Let's all state, I'm frustrated God. What can I do about it? Look, I get to go literally talk to Archbishop Bishops Cardinals. I, for some reason, Bishop Cousins just put me on the national team for the Eucharistic revival. I get to coach diocesan leaders across the country. I get, I told my wife like a month ago, I was like, why the heck did this happen? I'm not some super, yeah, exactly. I'm not some super duper skilled, super intelligent. I don't even have a voice like Petrock. I mean, which is gonna like lull you. Hello, my name is Petrock Willie. Come I shall, I shall now, in the balm of my very voice, teach you how Jesus love is all, okay. So that's enough of that. I don't look like Father Mike Schmitz. Well, I mean, kinda. I mean, come on, I mean, just. But the thing, yeah, not only do I need a little bit more hair, I need a little less of other things too, so, you know. So, so what's, okay, so this is a sidebar. One of them, one of the things is that, you know, I've been speaking for like 20 something years around the country, so I get to know all these, you know, these men and women that do the same thing. We meet at conferences or, and Father Mike's a campus minister. That's his primary thing. So we met years ago before he was old big old Father Mike Schmitz, you know. And he came and visited us, you know. And he's like, tell me how to do campus ministry. And so we became friends. And so anytime we do an event now together, I'm like, by the way, if you're confused as to why I and Father Mike look so much alike, I understand. Handsome men sometimes run together, you know. And that's, so anyway, it's a big joke. So look friends, it's true. So anybody else wanna argue that? Anybody wanna talk about it? Okay, let's talk about this frustration though. What can you do? What can you do? Let me tell you something. I get to work with all these people, do all this big stuff. You know what my greatest passion is? My local community. You know, but there's this saying that comes from this book. It's, you know, that a prophet is not respected in his hometown. Jesus went to Capernaum, his hometown, and they ran him out of the synagogue. They wanted to stone him. Okay, so I go to a Deenery meeting in my town, which is basically all the parishes and all these, I know all these priests. And one of the priests who is a real good friend of mine and a amazing man of God who wants to go get all the souls in town, he and I schemed for months and months. And I finally decide I'm gonna present this proposal on how we're going to go and get all these people. And here's the methodology and here's how we're gonna pay for it. Here's how we're gonna do it. And the rest of the pastors were like, meh, meh, it sounds good, but you know, what about this and what about, all they could think about were the problems and the issues and their time and the money stuff and all that. So Father Brighton and I said, screw it. I'll be, I'm a little blunt if you didn't notice. I said, screw it, we're just gonna do it anyway. So we're doing it. I'm not asking permission. I run small groups myself and I'm teaching men to go do the same. We have women who are running small groups and going to teach others to do the same. We have a process of evangelization where people can then move from that into small group discipleship, which then the next step after we get this established and it's gonna take us a couple of years. This is not really, really fast moving stuff. This is decades we're talking about. We're planted, this is roots, okay? Where we're gonna start in a few years to do neighborhood large group stuff where we gather families and backyards so that the people who don't go to church can start to get to know these other people who are doing these groups so that we can come back to, hey, by the way, this evangelization group over here. All of it built upon community and small group and one-on-one time. Friendship, building and relationship, all of it. Not, none of it is done at the church or any church, none of it. And the reason why? Because people will not go to your churches anymore. So I want you to think about in your young adult track right now, okay? Young adults, you're in young adult ministry and you're doing it all up at church and I want you to think about Gen Z and millennials right now. That's your young adult population. Do they go to church? Sometimes if they're called themselves Christian or Catholic. But do they like going up to church for programs? No, they feel out of place. They feel like that community doesn't want me. So why are you doing stuff up there? Don't do it up there. And the same goes for my generation, Gen X. Even my generation's like, you know what? If I don't go to church, I don't want to go to something at church. And so if you invite me to something at church, it's not gonna work. And you know what the number one evangelization tactic that I hear by Catholics, regardless of position or anything else is, let's get them back to mass, okay? Maybe this is why I'm on that, you know, Eucharistic revival because I'm gonna, we're gonna be talking about this. By the way, on Monday, Tuesday, y'all pray for us because this is my hand grenade and poor Bishop Cousins, he has to listen to me. I'm gonna pull this hand grenade. I'm gonna toss it in the room and be like, you can't evangelize to get people going back to mass until they know Jesus Christ. Boom, blow the sucker up. Stop inviting people to mass. That is not an evangelization technique. That is a way to push people further away. When's the last time you went to mass and felt welcomed? When's the last time you went to mass and felt awkward? And if you don't go to mass, what, is that gonna be heightened or lowered? Okay, so why do you go to mass? Because you know that's Jesus, right? I don't go to, okay? I go to mass and the secondary stuff, seeing my friends, getting to welcome other people, it's a, I go to worship God. That's what it's for. And mass is for disciples, not to evangelize non-disciples. Stop using it as an evangelization technique. Oh, I'll blow them up, yeah. Yeah, so here's the thing. What's the source of our evangelical graces that sends us out? It's the Eucharist, right? What do we wanna bring people back to? The Eucharist, right? The mass, the source and the summit, the source of our graces, the summit of what we wanna bring people back to. What I'm saying is, when somebody doesn't know Jesus Christ, does not have a relationship, let's put it this way. Let me, let me, yeah. So this is not, we stop there, okay? The whole phrase meet somebody where they're at is true, but you don't stop with that phrase. You meet them where they're at, so you can take them somewhere better, okay? So when I'm meeting a Catholic who doesn't go to church, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to pour into that person a relationship, because that's what they're longing for right now is somebody that cares for them where they are. And I'm gonna start to do things like, tell me about yourself, what was it like growing up? And if they're willing and able, I wanna hear their stories as to why they laughed. So that I know what they need and where their woundedness is or what's going on or what they lack or whatever else is going on. My next step is not let's go to Mass and I'm gonna tell you all about it because then I'm gonna have to probably tell you have you gone to confession because you can't receive the Eucharist and by the way, that might push somebody else away. You notice? So we're gonna back up and we're gonna take our time over here to where I earn trust, earn trust, okay? If I meet a non-Catholic who's not able to go to the Eucharist either, I don't wanna take them there because it's awkward because let's say that it's an evangelical or something who's not going to church anymore either but they experience like real community and hospitality and stuff at the church growing up at least and I take them over here and they don't have community hospitality at this parish, they're gonna reject it, not because of the doctrine of the Eucharist but because of the lack of hospitality and welcome. Do these things make sense? So this is why we don't wanna create awkward experiences for non-Catholics or Catholics who don't go to Mass by saying let's go to Mass. You know what you wanna do? You wanna say come over and have a drink, come over to dinner, let's go get a cup of coffee, let's have lunch, you know, wherever the stage of the relationship is and you build that relationship, I got so many stories, okay? And I'm gonna tell you also this, I am not the greatest evangelist in the sense of my personality because I'm not the nicest guy. I'm not, I'm not the nicest guy. I mean, you meet a nice guy, there's some nice guys that are on the Catechetic staff, okay, there's several nice guys on the Catechetics, not Bob, okay, and not Scott, but you know, the rest of them are pretty nice, okay? I'm not a nice guy, I'm not. I'm also a little too blunt. I can be too sarcastic and I can be a little too bold. So I see people with personality stuff that makes, but you know what? I'm more fruitful as an evangelist than a lot of the people who have better personalities. You wanna know why? Cause I actually do it. I go out there and do it. And you're thinking, what does this have to do with young adult ministry or what does this have to do with DRE? What does this have to do with youth ministry? It has everything to do with it. Those people don't care about your programs or your events or your classes. Those are not the answer, you are the answer. Those are methodologies and tools as part of your programming and part of what you do to go and gather people and to teach and to do other stuff. Fine, but don't make it your ministry. Your ministry is relationships. And if you don't have them right now, and maybe there's a lot of people right now who don't even know how to be a good friend. I've literally had to teach my friends how to be friends. Okay, and I'm gonna just speak to guys for a second, okay? Ladies, different world, okay? Guys have bros and dudes. Guys have, we hang, we go do stuff. Like, hey, you wanna go fishing? Yeah, I'll go fishing. You wanna go hunting? Yeah, I'll go hunting. You wanna play a sport? Let's go play a sport. Hey, let's go to a movie. Let's go to a movie. Guys do stuff together. And that's why guys do things like, let's go party. Let's go chase girls. Because they're doing stuff as a pack of guys. Am I right, guys? Yeah. See, guys don't even have to talk. We just use noises. I remember when I was a young, this was years ago, I picked up a phone and one of my buddies called me. He's like, hey, well, hey, yeah, all right. Well, we wanna do it. I don't know, later? Yeah, all right, you wanna come over? All right, see you, all right, bye. And my wife heard only my responses. It was like, hey, nothing, yeah, all right. Sure, okay, yeah, see you. And my wife was like, what the heck did you just say? I was speaking guy, we completely understood each other. What's the problem? So you gotta, look, I took all these guys, about 15 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, I realized I was lonely. I had a bunch of dudes, bros. We used to go do all these things together. We'd go, you know, weekends together, we'd arrange and all this other stuff. But I was actually lonely in the day to day because I didn't have guys that I was walking with and pouring into and they're pouring into me. So I told those guys, hey, I wanna start going to lunch more regularly. That's easy for guys. And at the stage we were in, we all had younger kids. We had jobs. It was hard to get together outside of a lot of other stuff. So we started going to lunch and I would do it, make sure it was at least once a month with about five, six guys. And I started asking them probing questions. Where's your prayer? Because I know these guys and I know they were all disciples. Okay, first of all, I know them and I know them for years and I know where they are with Jesus. But I needed to know exactly like today, how are you with Jesus? So I'd ask them about their prayer. I'd ask them, how's your marriage going? How are the kids? And what I realized was a lot of these guys had had like this young adult big thing, you know, get married, have kids and then their spiritual life would do this or start doing that. And their health, maybe they stop taking care of themselves a little bit more. Or maybe something else became more important, like their job or something else. And so they, you know, and what happens is all these guys do this stuff, right? And they want the same thing I do, but they don't know how to do it and everybody's waiting on somebody else to take the initiative. And an evangelist takes the initiative. A disciple who is missionary takes the initiative and I was convicted by this. So I said, do you want more? Not all the guys said yes. After months of pouring into them, like with this, you know, lunch and asking them deep questions and where are you and figuring this out? I said, do you want more? Cause I do. I want deeper relationships. And a couple of the guys are like, I can't do that right now. Okay. If you come back to that in a future date, let's talk, but, and let's continue to go to lunch, right and cut off the relationship. But those guys who were ready, we started going. We started running together. And I'm going to tell you another principle. So one of my favorite ones, fruitfulness in ministry is named more than numbered. Fruitfulness in ministry is named more than numbered. When you get to heaven and you're standing before God and he says, why should I let you in? He's not going to ask you for how many people did you bring? He's going to say, who did you bring? He doesn't want the numbers. He wants the names because the names matter. And we know the names matter because of Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew. You get the point? Paul, Mary, Mary, Martha. You get the point? Who did he invest in? We know their names. John the apostle left. He invested in Ignatius of Antioch. Who invested in Polycarp? It passes down generations. You want to know names? Trey, Keith, Gerald, these are my names. Kurt, Will, these are my names. These are my boys. These are the ones I do life with. The other day, one of these guys was having a bad day. Like awful. He didn't call the priest. He didn't call anybody up at church. He called those guys that are in his group and we went and we met and we talked and we prayed. Because we are the hands and the feet of the church. We are that's being on mission together. Do you guys want that? You want something like that? Somebody's going to pour into you? You got to teach people, though. You got to teach them how to be friends. The catechism says this, and I think this is one of the craziest things that people skip right over in the catechism. 1860. The disciple of Christ. OK, I don't know who's a disciple in Christ in here because I don't know any of you people deep enough to even know if you're disciples. I once told the head of one of the largest Catholic apostates in this country that until I got to know him, I was going to evangelize him. And he looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head. And then about two years later when we became friends, he goes, I still remember that conversation and it changed how I do ministry. The disciple of Christ must not only keep the faith and live it but profess it. Oh, oh crap. Now look at what's on the line. You got to profess it, bear witness to it, and spread it. Service of and witness to the faith are what? Say it with me. Necessary for salvation. Do you want to go to heaven? Start sharing your faith. Now, I was convicted of this by an atheist. You guys ever seen this video by Penn and Teller? Penn Gillette from Penn and Teller. It's an older video. It's about 20 years old now. You can go find it on YouTube. Just go Google on YouTube, Penn Gillette or Penn and a Bible. OK, Penn and a Bible, P-E-N and a Bible, and it'll pop up. So he's a magician, comedian in Vegas and does HBO specials and stuff. He and his partner, and they're talented. They're also rabid atheists. When I say rabid, I mean, they're evangelical atheists. They share that they're atheists and try to make other people become atheists. And after this show, I'm going to do this quick story here. After this show one time in Vegas, he says, I noticed we signed stuff and so there's a line for him and then the last guy in line waiting patiently. I recognized him because we had him come up on stage and he came up, and so we had time to talk because he was the last guy in line. And so we talked a little bit more and he's very complimentary. Great show, really enjoyed it. You're very funny. You're used to language and stuff. And I asked me to sign something and he said, but I'm going to be forward. I'm a Christian. And I want to give you this and he gave me a Bible. So he gives him a Bible and Penn takes that Bible and says, and I'm going to paraphrase a little bit to speed it up. But he says, I'm not going to become a Christian because a good man gave me a Bible. And let me tell you, he's a good man. You know, he looked me in the eyes, very complimentary, nice man, but I'm not going to become a Christian because a good man gives me a Bible. But I'm also going to tell you, there's a lot of atheists and a lot of Christians who say you shouldn't share your faith. You shouldn't force it on somebody because that's just not polite or you're not supposed to do that. And I disagree. If you believe there's an eternal place of punishment and an eternal place of reward, if you believe there's a heaven and a hell, and here's what got me, folks, I want you to stop and I want you to think about this because this literally is like, oh, right to the gut. This changed my life, this statement by an atheist trying to tell people something. He said, if you believe there's a heaven and a hell and you don't tell people about it, how much do you have to hate them not to do so? Let that sink in for a second. How much do you have to hate someone to not tell them about heaven or hell? Is it real? Is God real? Is Jesus real? Is salvation real? Do those people in Steubenville and in your hometown in Canada, all over the United States, is it real, folks, that you long with the Father's heart for their salvation because that's on the line, everything. And this atheist gets it. And this is where our missionary mindset really comes to play. It starts by seeing everybody else like God does. And I think we struggle with this, even Katie last night was like, I struggle with this with my kids. I don't know how much time I got left. Oh, screw it, we're going long. All right, you can leave at noon and we will check your box if you need that stuff. I'm going long, okay? And we're going to do something right. I did this last year. I did it the year before and let me tell you why is because I think people need to know this stuff. And this is one of my steaks as a speaker, but it's one of the things that has literally changed lives. So we're going to change some lives in here. You ready? I need a volunteer. Somebody want to volunteer? Now the people who just raised their hands, you can't volunteer. Why do I do that? Because I want the person who never volunteers. This is your opportunity to be a little bold. Step out of your comfort zone. Remember we talked about that? All you introverts that are looking at the floor consider that God might be calling you to come up here. I will not embarrass you, I promise. I can't promise you won't feel embarrassed. I will not embarrass you. Come on, y'all clap her up here. It takes some guts to get up here sometimes. What's your name? Elizabeth? Okay. Everybody say hi, Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth. It's our AA meeting now, so, you know. So if you come to the hotel tonight, you might need an AA meeting tomorrow morning. Okay, so Elizabeth's job, I'll tell you your job, you ready? This is gonna make some, are you introvert? Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. Let's all apologize. Sorry, Elizabeth. Okay, so your job, unfortunately, is you gotta look at them. Okay, so try to keep your eyes on them, not me. Okay, you guys keep your eyes on Elizabeth. Now I want you to look at Elizabeth like God does. Can you do that? Try, like try your hardest. Like, this is what God sees. Are you struggling with that? Yeah? Are you sure you're not struggling with that if you say no? Okay, let's do a little exercise to see if we can help you, okay? Okay, let me ask you some questions. Okay, these are easy. These are easy, but this is not like theological task questions. Don't worry about that, okay? Okay, what's the most beautiful scene of nature you have ever seen in your life? Like, it could be a mountain, it could be, you know, a river, it could be the ocean in Hawaii, it could be Blue Bunits in Texas where you go take selfies. You're lying, what is it? You ever sit in front of the ocean, just watch the waves crash? Yeah, it is in, it's peaceful. And then like this great white shark comes and gets a seal, and they're like, oh. Okay, what's your favorite animal? Penguin. Penguin, I've never had that answer. All right, in Family Feud, Survey says number one answer is dog. Number two, cat. That's right, see, thank you for playing Family Feud with me, all right, so. All right, so you like, you like the ocean? And you like penguins? Well, they do go together. I mean, they go together, okay, so we're having a thematic discussion right now, okay? Have you ever sat outside, like outside of cities in the country at a night when there's no moon, there's no clouds, and the stars are just amazing? Have you guys ever been to Yellowstone or how about Big Bend in Texas, by the way? Best star watching in the country is in Big Bend in Texas. And you go out there and you just, like you can see the Milky Way and you're just like, holy crap, we are so small, look how small we are. You ever had that experience? Yeah. Have you guys had that experience? Everybody's had that experience, haven't you just feel like, you know, you do that like movie zoom out thing, you know, and then you're zooming in from the university of the Milky Way and then you go down to earth and you're like, tiny little thing. Like, wow, the majesty of creation and who God is. Okay, now Elizabeth, you look at them. Now I want you guys to look at Elizabeth. If you were to take all that stuff, the oceans, the mountain, the penguins, the cats, the dogs, the sharks eating the penguins, all that stuff and put it in a ball with the stars and the planets and everything else that was ever created ever in nature. And you put all that stuff where you could see it right here next to Elizabeth. God looks at all that other stuff and says it pales in comparison to this one who is the most beautiful, amazing, wonderful thing I've ever made. This is my daughter. This is the one who I created all this stuff for. I didn't need it. I created it to show my wonder. And this one is the one that I had a plan for before she was even formed in her mother's womb, who I crawled up on a cross for, who I suffered for, who I died for, and who I rose for, who I sent the Holy Spirit down on earth for, who I gave a church for. This one, Elizabeth, is the one that I did all of that for and I love her. She is my daughter, my beloved, and I will never stop loving her no matter what. Now look at Elizabeth, friends. Can y'all thank her for coming up here? Thank you. That's you. That's you. This is the good news. God has a plan to save us so we can be with him forever in heaven, forever. You are worthy of this. God doesn't see you as your sins or your collections of faults or your wounds or the things you struggle with. God loves you for who you are right there in that mess and he has a plan and for everybody else. And when we can see others, when we get that little glimpse, because it comes and goes, right? But when we get that glimpse of who the other is, we must grasp it so that we can pour out our lives for others because at the end of our life, it's not gonna be about the things we attained, the successes we've had, the names on the billboard, it's gonna be about those around us and what we did to love them, just like God loves us. Amen? So we're gonna go rocket speed now. God wants you to reach others. God doesn't need you to be perfect to reach others. Right after I had my first initial conversion, which was in college, and I went literally from like party and chasing girls, doing stupid things, never going to church, thinking I didn't care about God or heaven or anything else, literally over a weekend retreat to, I want Jesus to be the center of my life. I've chosen him, I'm now his disciple. And that night after I got back from that retreat, I took a friend out and we sat on a grassy knoll on the campus of Texas A&M University and we talked about Jesus Christ and I shared my faith with him. And I did so completely and utterly terribly. And then I went for the next few weeks and I told all my drinking buddies about how I couldn't go drinking with them and I couldn't go chase the girls with them because I had met this man Jesus Christ and I did it terribly and I was obnoxious and I was in your face and it didn't matter because God doesn't need me to have a perfect presentation of the gospel to be able to be impactful in their lives. Evangelization becomes a lifestyle, not a checklist, a duty or a portion of your life when you have a missionary life. When you have the mindset, it's not just I compartmentalize, I do this stuff at work, I do this stuff when it's convenient, I do this stuff when I'm comfortable, I do it because it's the right thing to do, not just obligation, but because it pours out of me for love of other people. That's when you have a missionary mindset, okay? There's no other way to do this. You can't concoct it, you can't dream it, you have to just start it and so by starting it, you get uncomfortable, you start to try things and you do these, like when you come in here and nobody else at your parish is talking to anybody and you go talk to somebody. You don't have to talk to everybody, you just talk to somebody, right? And maybe that starts to change things. Do you think that St. Francis Xavier had a bunch of people walking around with him in changing Asia? No, do you think St. Francis DeSales had a bunch of other Catholic co-missioners to help him go evangelize all these places in Switzerland? Well, it was France at the time. No, and I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're not there yet to need to pray that God would give you the grace to make this happen because conversion is not a one and done deal as Catholics, amen? We don't do it once, we do it again and again and again and if you need a secondary conversion to mission, then you need to pray for it. See, I was one of the blessed ones in that mission came naturally after my retreat, but most Catholics, most Catholics need a secondary, now I had to get a secondary conversion to actually do that day in, day out. I would do it when it was convenient. I would do it when it was with my bros, but I wouldn't do it with all the other folks and I had to have that and you know what? That atheist was part of my conversion, a secondary conversion to mission. So if you need this, pray for it and then God will answer this. I'm gonna tell you right now, friends, God's gonna answer this prayer. This is a dangerous prayer. So here's how he's gonna answer it. The moment you pray that prayer in faith and say, God, give me a missionary mindset. God, help me be a better evangelist. God, help me to actually share the gospel. God, help me to do these things. You know what he's gonna do? He's gonna say, yes, here's the grace. And then it's up to you to say, I believe that you've given me the grace and now I'm gonna go do it. It's there. You know why I know it's there? Raise your hand if you've been baptized and confirmed. It's there. You got all the graces you need. Okay, I can't get into this. Sorry. I believe I have this in one of my other sessions and I'm gonna tell you something. Oh my gosh, that's good stuff. Okay, I will do that in another set. Yeah, we're done at 12. There's no chance. Okay, so we're gonna skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. I think I have this stuff in another session if not I'll even come back to it in another session. I promise, I promise because my prayer session is gonna have a lot of time. Okay, at least that one. Okay, so look at what Benedict says here. Discipleship and mission are like the two sides of a single coin. When the disciple is in love with Christ, he cannot stop proclaiming to the world that only in him do we find salvation. You can't, you can't help it. You just kind of flows out of you. And sometimes it flows out of you even like it's hard. Like there's something clogging up the drain, you know? But it comes out. Okay, I can't do this stuff, sorry. Okay, so remember this. How did Jesus make disciples? Katie said it last night, right? 12 guys, three years. Or who was it that said that yesterday? Was it Katie? So anyway, a lot of time. Okay, again, let me give you a percentage. 75% of the time recorded in the gospels was spent in his missionary three years with 12 men. So what do we do in our young adult ministry, our parish ministry, our diocesan ministry? What do we do? Things like this. This is big event stuff, right? Put on events and classes and other stuff. And then we gather people and say, oh, we're successful. Let me tell you something real quick. And this will bug some of you, okay? This is gonna annoy some of you. I don't consider this my real ministry. This is seed planting for me. When I wanna go tend the soil, when I wanna go fertilize, when I wanna go prune, when I wanna go harvest, I do that in relationship with people who I'm doing life with. Or in a smaller sense, a secondary sense, I do it with the leaders I coach. And when I coach leaders, I do it in cohorts of leadership teams over a year, which is why I can only do a few at a time. And people say things like, oh, that's inefficient, and I say absolutely, that's because Jesus was inefficient. And you cannot argue that he wasn't. You can't. The Bible tells us so. So the first thing is you gotta walk the walk, right? Everybody knows this. You got it? You can't just expect it. What do we call somebody who says one thing and does another? Don't be a hypocrite. All right, next slide. So missionary and growing in holiness and being a saint, okay? So here's the second thing. I'm gonna give you all these slides, don't worry about it. Not only do we have to live it, but we have to speak it. And this is the hard part for most Catholics. I've never had somebody argue with me, hey, you gotta go live it out. Do you guys know what the Catholic opt-out phrase is? You guys ever, okay. No, say it loud, what was that? Anybody ever heard that? Preach the gospel at all times when necessary, use words. Who said that? Thank you, yeah. It's a misquote of St. Francis, yeah. He never said it and he never would have. Why? Because we know St. Francis, use words all the time. Okay, stop and ask yourself, what if Jesus only spoke about the Father and about salvation and about sin when it was convenient? We would not have the scriptures as we have them today. What if the apostles never really talked about, inconvenient, tough stuff? Well, they wouldn't have been beaten, thrown out of the synagogue in the temple. They would never have gotten and gathered other people. They never would have grown the church. So you wanna know why we're not growing the church? It's because we're cowards who won't share the gospel with our lips. Romans, if you believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess that he lives with your lips, you will be saved. You have to confess it. Paul also says, woe to me when I don't preach the gospel. You gotta use your lips. How are people gonna know? It's not optional, okay? So I'm gonna go to my last slide and then I think I am. Yes, I am. Where's my last slide? Last slide. Okay. So the church exists in order to evangelize. We've come full circle in a sense, okay? So what was our reading today in the first reading? Yeah, anybody got a Bible on them? Sorry, I don't wanna look this up. This is not planned. By the way, we're right about three minutes away. Again, I don't care if you leave. We're gonna go a little bit long, just a few minutes. It's not gonna be too much long. Thank you. All right, I might have to, now I gotta get out my reading glasses probably because I'm that old. All the people that are older than me shut up. I get it, but I've been feeling old. I hit 50, it just changes things, doesn't it? Okay. Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro. First of all, I love the fact that he's named Jethro and I always think of cement ponds and Beverly hillbillies. I don't know about you, but that's just because I'm 50, okay? So he's keeping these flocks and he's out there in the desert and he sees a bush and it's being burned, right? Everybody got that? You've heard this story? You're in mass and if you're not, well, I get it, it's kind of a long conference. Okay, so here we go. Bush is burning. What's going through Moses' head right now? Why? That's weird. Okay, come on. You ever seen it? First of all, there's a bush burning and there's nobody around. It's clear sky, it couldn't be lightning. There is a rock over there and Aaron might be hiding because he is a pyro, so maybe he said it as a joke. It could also be somebody's trying to jump me, because I know that sometimes Jethro really, we don't really get along. I mean, he is my father-in-law in all and laws outlaws. So I'm gonna go over there and check this out. So he goes over there, he checks it out and he hears a voice coming from a bush that's on fire that's not being consumed. Are we freaked out yet? Kick off your shoes, it's holy ground. Okay, who are you? By the way, the spirit is moving in the lights, just FYI. Angel of the Lord appeared and said, Moses, Moses, come no closer. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham. By the way, we don't know that that was his voice. Like some deep manly Godly voice. It could be Moses. I just ruined the scripture for everybody in here. Moses, Moses. Okay, stop, stop. Sorry. Yeah, that's just terrible, isn't it? I'm probably gonna be forever in purgatory after that. Okay. I have observed the misery of my people in North America. I think it says that. This is like the actual translation. And I have come to Steubenville, Ohio on account of their plea to rescue them. And what are you thinking? Because you wanna be Moses right now. What are you thinking right now, Moses? Good idea. God, come down. Save your people. Save your church. Save this world. And you're thinking to yourself, oh my goodness. That is awesome. Here comes Yahweh gonna kick some butt. You know, your thing, you start singing like kids' songs or whatever, you know? I don't think they say kick your butt in kids' songs. Maybe in my house. Anyway. And then he says, Moses is like, this is good. This is good. And he says, come now, I'll send you to Pharaoh. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Quick, right turn. No, this is not what I want, right? This is how we all react. Moses is us, folks. So now he's like, he's got a couple of excuses. What's the first one? Who am I that I should go? And what does God say? I will be with you. I am the Lord your God. And he says, when they ask you, what am I supposed to say? I don't have all the answers. I don't know everything. I don't have a degree in theology. I don't know, what does he say? I am, tell them that I am. In other words, I've done enough already for you to be successful. You got that? God's done enough in you already for you to be a successful evangelist, a successful missionary disciple, a success in what you're doing. Okay, so that's his first excuse. Who am I? And Moses has another. He says, if I come to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your ancestors sent me to you and they ask him, what is his name? What do you say? So who's the power here? Who's the one with power? Is it Moses or is it Yahweh? It's Yahweh. God has the power. So why do you rely so much on your failings and your faults and your lack of power when it's God who's actually doing it? You want to know who the least important person and the trifecta of those who are in evangelization relationships is? It's God, the other person in you and you're the least important. You just have to say yes, give God a little crack and he's gonna do it. Because Moses barely cracks the door here, folks. He's barely cracking the door. And what ends up happening? Red sea parts. People are miraculously freed. Plagues come upon Egypt. And he's barely cracking the door. He goes on. Moses isn't done with these excuses, okay, people? He says this. I have to find it because I barely can see these words. Okay, he'll just give me a second. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Ah, and he says then. So, and I'm gonna paraphrase because I literally can't see this without my glasses. I don't want to get them out. So one of the excuses is, well, I don't, you know, what am I supposed to, you know, I'm not a very, but not good speaking bad, me. Moses bad. He says, well, who's that over there? Aaron. Aaron was the one who did all the speaking for Moses. He was the one with the gifts. Whenever you evangelize, you don't evangelize by yourself. Even if it's just a one-on-one thing. God's with you and the church is with you. You've been given truth. You've been given grace. You've been given the gifts and charisms that God has planted in your soul. You're never alone. The Holy Spirit is always the one who's the real one doing the evangelization, the one that can change hearts. You can't do that, okay? And sometimes you're afraid, well, what if they reject me? What if they won't listen to what I say? What if I tell them all this and they reject me? What if these Egyptians want to kill me? And don't you have that sometimes? You're like, what if I lose a friendship or a family member or something else? And God's answer is this. If they won't listen to you, then let's lean into something else, the one that's got the power. What's that in your hand? Oh, it's a staff. Throw it on the ground. Oh, it's a snake. Oh, crap. I'm very afraid of snakes, God. They're four poisonous snakes in Texas, okay? And I have copperheads all over my yard. By the way, I do have copperheads in my yard and coral snakes as well. Pick it up. No, I said pick it up. Okay. Picks it up, turns back into a staff. All right, take your hand, stick it into your coat. Pull it back out. Leprosy, now I'm unclean. Put it back into your, pull it back out. I'm clean. How did this happen? Miracles and signs. Miracles and signs. Now God doesn't always work miracles and signs through everybody, but he can do big things in you. If you're a disciple of Jesus and you've chosen him, he's changed your heart. He said, in baptism, God, you had a rebirth. You were reborn. You went from sin and death and slavery to sin to being a child of God. God can do big things. Don't be like Moses in the sense of just making excuses. Be like Moses in like, be honest with God. Tell him what your problems are and your excuses and allow him to answer them and then go do the mission. And when you do that, fulfillment will come to you and salvation to other people. Amen.