 and you become that person. Back in the ancient days, if you wanted to be a disciple of somebody else, what you're saying is, I want to be you. I want to live like you. So the definition of the first definition is a follower, a learner, who's growing in the character and competency of Jesus. A disciple is growing in the character and competency of Jesus. The character, his holiness, his internal life, right? His virtue, and his competency. Being able to do the things he does. So the disciple is growing in his holiness and in his actions. That's the first definition. The second definition of a disciple of Jesus is asking two questions constantly. What's God saying to me, and what am I doing about it? What's God saying to me, and what am I doing about it? What you see in the lives of the great saints is they lived perfectly in the will of God, right? And how do you live perfectly in the will of God? Well, you ask, and you listen, and then you act on it. It's one of my favorite questions to ask when we're working with young adults, and their young adults can be so angsty, and what are we going to do, right? Young adults from Bronx, yeah, you're with me, right? No, you guys don't experience that at all. They're just like, oh, what's God doing in my life? And it's so nice to be able to boil it down. It's like you want to be a disciple? What's God saying to you? Okay, good. Now, what are you going to do about it? Okay, so that's definition number two, and definition number three, and they're all kind of related, but is living as Jesus would live if he were you. Living as Jesus would live if he were you. And how did Jesus live? I'm going to suggest that he lived in three directions. He lived up towards the Father. He lived in towards his disciples, and he lived out on mission. It's a triangle. I'll help you stick in your brain. He lived up, he lived in, and he lived out. Up in prayer, in in communion, and out on mission. John Paul II said there are three commissions of a disciple, prayer, communion, mission, up in and out. You want a good little gut check of whether or not you're living as a disciple of Jesus? Take an audit of your life and put everything you do for him under the category of up, in, or out, and see which one is unbalanced. Most Catholics I know, we're pretty good at in. We like each other. We're very good at up in prayer. And then there's usually kind of a startling space when it comes to out. And if you want to be a balanced life as a disciple, we need to be living up, in, and out. Okay? So what we see then in the upper room is we have these men and women who have been trained in this lifestyle. They've been taught, teach us how to pray. Okay, that's his character. Then they say, you know, go out and preach and heal the sick and cast out demons. They try to do those things and it works and they come back and they receive more understanding. Some spirits can only be cast out through prayer and fasting, right? There's this constant apprenticeship that happens with these disciples where Jesus is replicating himself in them. And yet we know that something was still missing. They had become leaders. They had become his followers. They had fallen in love with him, but it wasn't until Pentecost that they became spirit-filled leaders in a new way. And Jesus understood that in order for them to truly be fruitful in their mission, in order for this apostolic age to be birthed, he not only needed men and women who are good leaders who understood what it meant to live the Jesus-shaped life, but they needed the power to do it. And that's where Pentecost comes in. Again, I talked about it last night. Peter, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, all of a sudden is a different man. But what that Holy Spirit is doing is activating in him the Jesus life that had been formed in him for three years. I'm going to say that again. What the Holy Spirit did on Pentecost was activate in Peter the Jesus life that had been formed in him for three years. Peter had been modeled into a little Jesus, right? Christian, a little Christ. And now filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, he's able to then go do the same thing that Jesus did, which was identify, walk with, empower, form, and launch. Where the apostles go to the ends of the earth, everywhere they go, they're identifying, they're pouring into these leaders, they're replicating themselves. Be imitators of me, St. Paul says, as I am of Christ. Second Timothy 2, 2, teach others to teach what I've taught you. I think that was right. That was close enough. The general idea, Mark, was there, right? Teaching others to teach what I've taught you. There's replicating DNA, and that's what it means to be about spirit-filled leadership. That at the core of fruitfulness in the church are men and women who are growing as spirit-filled leaders. And I would propose that the solution to what we're seeing of this loss of Christendom in this movement towards apostolic age, the solution for the church to be able to be fruitful, the solution for the church to be alive and be all that she's created to be is the growth, development, the sustainability, and the empowerment of spirit-filled leaders. The church is always healthiest when she is a movement supported by institution, not an institution supported by movement. I'm going to say that one again. The church is healthiest when she is on the move developing enough institution to support that movement as opposed to we are an institution and we have to try to pump movement into it. And the only people who are capable of generating movement, the only people who are capable of sustaining movement, the only people who are capable of discerning how much institution is necessary are spirit-filled leaders. John Paul II said this. He said, the church on Pentecost was born on the move. So the church was launched out of those doors to transform the world and then you see through actually the apostles that when institution was needed they had councils they were able to discern but it was always at the service of this movement of God. Okay? You with me? Okay, so I'd like to give you four characteristics of a spirit-filled leader. These are not an exhaustive list. You could probably come up with a hundred characteristics of a spirit-filled leader. These are just four behaviors, characteristics, common traits of a spirit-filled leader. And I want you to receive these as a bit of a gut check is to say and the activation or the work that I'm going to ask you to do at the end of this workshop is to kind of do a self-evaluation with the Lord is saying, which one of these am I living and growing in and where am I lacking? And be real gentle with yourself, okay? This is not like a condemning thing. Nobody's going to be looking at your list. Nobody's going to be like, really? You don't do that? No, it's going to be just a you and Jesus moment where you can think about how do I step into greater and greater expression of these things. Okay, first one, a spirit-filled leader has a ton of solitude and silence, but you didn't see that coming. Solitude and silence. There's a book by a guy named Henry Nowan called The Way of the Heart. Highly recommend it. It's a book about the desert fathers and mothers where these men and women that as the Roman Empire became more and more Christian, they realized that in order to live a radical life for the Lord, they had to literally flee into the desert that because they were no longer able to be martyred, they had to kind of martyr themselves by detaching from the cares and concerns of the world. So you have like Anthony of the desert who goes off into the desert for years and years and years and is so transformed by his solitude and his silence that when the Lord calls him back into mission, when he comes back to the people in the nearby town, he's so transformed by his time in the desert that literally the whole idea of a halo around saints comes from this guy. There's evidence that like he glowed with the presence of God from his time alone, his time not speaking, his time letting Jesus build in him a fire, build in him a living word that then when he was called to proclaim it, came from a source of abundance as opposed to a place of scarcity. A spirit-filled leader needs to become very comfortable with silence. A spirit-filled leader needs to become very comfortable in desirous of time alone with God, with no distractions, with no noise, separating from everything else and building within ourselves this place, this sacred space, this desert where I can constantly retreat to even in a moment where I can be with the Lord and I can receive from him than what is needed to go out. Henry now talks about this living word that the Lord wants to build in you is like a furnace, a fire that's within you, that every time you open the door of a furnace, heat comes out. But if you leave the door open, it burns out. And too often when we get excited about mission, we get excited about missionary work and ministry and all this, we think it has to be this kind of constant giving, constant proclaiming, lots of words. We're a very talky people which is ironic because I'm up here talking, right? But I promise this has come after lots of prayer, okay? No, but the point is we even hold up those who are constantly proclaiming as the models of missionary life and there's nothing wrong with that and there's something true about that. But all missionary activity, all fruitfulness originates in a desert, in a detachment even from the fruit of that missionary work. Jesus went off into the desert. St. Paul spent many, many years in obscurity, in tarsus, making, you know, what did he do? Not tense, yeah, tense, right? He's just so intense. What's he doing? He's not just wasting time. The Lord is building something in him. Building something in him. And then even Jesus, after preaching for a long time, went, oh, what does he do? All the time, he retreats to the mountain to be alone with the Lord. And it's only in solitude and silence that we can really come to know ourselves and as we come to know ourselves, can realize how desperately we need the Lord so that we can actually have compassion for others. Compassion is born out of recognizing our own lack so that when we see lack in others, we're not thrown off by it. We're not judgmental of it because we know they need the Lord just as much as I do. And I know that because I've met him face to face and I've seen in my nakedness how much I need a Savior. Silence and solitude, practical tip. I'm gonna give you four characteristics. I'm gonna give you four practical tips to immediately put this into practice. Silence and solitude, practical tip. Do it, like turn your phone off. Find a quiet place in your house and if you're like me who silence and solitude is as much of a cross as like breaking my ankle, put a timer on, say I'm gonna do this for 10 minutes. 10 minutes, I'm gonna sit and I'm not gonna check my phone and I'm not gonna read anything and I'm gonna try to quiet my mind and just focus on Jesus, 10 minutes. And if you're like me, the first three minutes will be not quiet. It'll be, your brain will be going in all different directions. It'll be all of a sudden remembering all the emails I didn't send and all that, right? The next three minutes will be wondering if I'm in quiet. Be like, is this silence? Am I being quiet right now? I don't know, it kind of feels like silence but I'm not sure, right? Then the next two minutes will probably be some real contemplative moment. So now we're at eight minutes. The last two minutes will be wondering when the 10 minutes are up, right? I'm like, oh, I just gotta be really close. So here's the practical tip. Set the alarm, throw it on the other side of the room if it's on your phone and then finish the time. If you're an athlete, you know that the best rep in a set is the last rep, okay? If you set out to do 10 reps, the best rep is that last rep. I can't tell you how many times the Lord has put something new in me in the last 30 seconds, the last 10 seconds of a time of solitude and silence with Him. Finish whatever time you set out to do and be gentle with yourself. Don't set out to do 30 minutes if you've never done this before. Do two minutes. Do four minutes, whatever it needs to be, okay? So that's number one. Solitude and silence. And then the practical is actually do it and set a timer. Okay, second characteristic. I call it heartbreak, heartbreak. A spirit-filled leader has allowed themselves to have their heart broken for what breaks God's heart. And the reason this is so important is that when the Lord breaks your heart for a person or a place or a thing, when the Lord breaks your heart for something that's breaking His, out of it emerges new vision and a pathway to how to solve that heartbreak. So what do I mean by this? Heartbreak, and let me make a clear distinction. Intensity is not a fruit of the spirit, okay? Intensity is not a fruit of the spirit. Zeal is. Zeal is something that God gives you that you're open to for a particular purpose, for a particular length of time, but it's not something that you generate within yourself. Intensity, I can develop intensity. I can pump myself up and then get ready to go. Zeal is something that is God-given that propels me to a noble end, okay? And so heartbreak is often the thing that goes right before a gift of zeal. We see this in a book that I'm sure you've read many, many times, Nehemiah. We've all read Nehemiah, just a jogger memory. It's right before Job, okay? In this book, we meet Nehemiah who is the cup bearer of the king, which means when the king wants to drink, Nehemiah is there and he hands the cup to the king, right? Which is kind of a nice job. It's also kind of dangerous because if the king develops a sickness or something, who are they gonna blame? Nehemiah, so it's nice, but not great. It's at the time when the Israelite people are in exile, but there are some who are left over in Jerusalem and because they've been conquered, the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed. Nehemiah hears about this and hears that the people who are left behind are getting ravaged by all these different tribes because they have no protection. Listen to Nehemiah's response. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days. I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. Something snapped in him. He was wounded by the Lord. His heart was broken for his people who had no defense. And why was his heart broken? Because God was looking for somebody who was willing to have their heart broken. Who was willing to receive this wound. And then Nehemiah, when his heart is broken, he doesn't immediately try to fix it. He doesn't immediately put together a step-by-step plan. What's he do? He weeps. He mourns. He fasts. Everybody's favorite thing. He fasts. And he prays. And he sits in it. He sits in it. And then out of that emerges this new vision for the Lord's plan for the people back in Jerusalem. So he goes to the King. He says, King, I need time off. I need some money. And I need some of your soldiers. And I need permission to rebuild the walls of the people you've conquered. What? What a ridiculous ask, you know? Like, that's totally foolish. Why would the King agree to this? What does the King say? Oh, all right, how much time do you need? How much money do you need? Sure, take some soldiers. And go ahead, yeah, go rebuild the walls of the people. And so Nehemiah goes, rebuilds the walls, and with Ezra brings the law back to the people. That's one of the greatest celebrations in the Jewish calendar. What do we see there? A man who was open to having his heart broken by the Lord. The Lord pierces his heart for a particular need. He weeps, he sits in it. He fasts through it. A new vision is granted to him. And in boldness, he goes and does something about it. And the Lord rewards him, works through it, and something is accomplished. I experienced this firsthand. When I graduated from Franciscan, I moved back to Ann Arbor. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. And I thought I was going to be a teacher. I wasn't sure about that. And there was this ministry in town called Renewal Ministries. And Dr. Ralph Martin, Peter Herbeck, were the founders of this, History and Shields. And I had known them my whole life. I mean, Peter was one of the men I referred to last night who took a vested interest in my spiritual life. And so as I was feeling kind of called to do some sort of ministry, Peter was the logical guy to sit down and talk with. I said, Peter, I'm sitting in his living room. I say, hey, do you think Renewal Ministries has any space for me? And he leaned back and he was like, well, not really. But let's pray about it and see what God does. And ironically, I got a job as a teacher, a gym teacher, so sort of teaching. And that's okay. We can make fun of ourselves, you know. And but the sister who hired me gave me Fridays off to pray and to meet with Peter to discern what the Lord might be doing. So one of these Fridays, I'm sitting in an adoration chapel, praying for my generation, praying for a new vision, praying for whatever the Lord want. And all of a sudden I found myself weeping, and not like cute crying, not like kind of like, oh touching like tears pouring down the cheeks, like snot coming out of my nose, and this like travailing prayer, like uncomfortable, and not particularly manly, and just kind of like, what's happening? It just was raw. And I just was pierced by this heartache for my generation. This holy discontent had fallen on me. My heart was breaking for your kids and grandkids and your friends. And I just, I didn't even know what to do with it, but literally it still drives me. That's why I do what I do, because the Lord has pierced my heart and I sat in it and he gave me a vision for what to do about it. It's a dangerous prayer to say, Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours. But that's what a spirit-filled leader does. Okay, silence and solitude. Heartbreak, number three. A spirit-filled leader lives with humble receptivity. Humble receptivity. As the spirit-filled component makes, you know, points to the difference between just secular leaders and a spirit-filled leader is the power source that which we have, the gifts that we've received in order to live this out. First Corinthians, let's see. Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are a variety of service, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of working, but it's the same God who inspires them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. And then St. Paul lists a bunch of them. Wisdom, blah, blah, blah. All these are inspired by the one and the same spirit who apportions to each individually as he wills. Then he talks about, we are one body with many parts, right? The hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you in the eye and all that. One of the things we need to reclaim as a church is the belief and the conviction that everyone through their baptism and confirmation has been given a gift, and often many gifts, not just for their own edification, not just for my own holiness or so that'll look good on a resume. I've been giving these gifts for the express purpose of building the kingdom. And without my gifts, the body is suffering. We need to reclaim this holy obligation to not hold our gifts to ourselves, friends, because the body needs all the gifts. The body needs every part of it to be operational, functional, and mature in order for it to be fully healthy. St. Paul talks about this in Ephesians 4 where he says some are called to be apostles, prophets, shepherd, teachers, evangelists. And he says the point of these things is so that we may grow into full maturity in Christ that we are lacking as a body if you hold your gifts to yourself. We are lacking as a body if the leaders of any community, of any family are not identifying and helping each member identify their particular God-given, spirit-filled role in the discipleship and evangelization of the whole. I'm gonna say that one again. This is an idea of what we call communal discipleship. Everyone has a role to play in the discipleship and evangelization of everyone. Do you get that? We're not all called to do what I'm doing. We're not all called to do what ma'am you're doing. But I'm sure you've got a big mission because you're just glowing with the Holy Spirit right now. I like you. We're all called to play our role and when we all play our role together, the body is healthy and the church is alive. And too often, we're siloed. We're worn out. We're trying to be kind of like all things to all men, which is a false understanding of that word from Paul. Or I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to do this. And I don't know who else is out there to help me. And I got to hold on to this little thing because I've been doing it for 30 years. And I used to be really good at MCing and people used to say I was good, but now I'm not sure anymore. And why isn't anyone asking me to speak? And this seems like such a small role and blah, blah, blah. All these lies, all these divisions that the spirit or that the devil sows into our communities, instead of saying like everything I have is a gift. Everything I am is from the spirit. None of this is something I can claim or own. It's that I'm cooperating in what the spirit is doing in and through me. This was like drilled into my head the first time we ever did a monthly meeting for our young adult community. Okay, so first one ever. We didn't have a place to meet, so we were meeting in a middle school gym. And so we were going to have mass. We were going to have a dinner and a talk, because that's a good format for ministry, right? We all know that. Mass, dinner and a talk. It's great. And so Peter, Herb, and I got there early and we got everything ready for dinner. Okay? We had tables. We had chairs. We were ready for dinner. We did have food, I think. I mean, eventually. But we were ready. The scene was set. Tables, chairs. Woo! Let's go. And then we went out to go greet people, because that's actually what we're good at, you know? And all of a sudden, our wives came in. Kate and Debbie walked into the gym. And I'll never forget this. Kate came up to me, my wife, and she was like, hey, why didn't you guys get the gym ready? I was like, what are you talking about? It's ready. We have tables. We have chairs. And she was like, oh, sweetie. Like, just go talk to people, okay? So I go talk to people. And she and Debbie are in the gym for a little while. Mass is over. I come up. I give my announcements. And we're going to go into the gym. And we're going to have some dinner. And you're in for a treat, you know? And they go in. And I walk into the gym. And all of a sudden, kind of like out of like, Mary Poppins' bag. I don't know where this came from. But there were tablecloths and flowers and lamps. I don't even know where they got them from. Like the fluorescent lights were gone. And there were lamps everywhere. And there was like this kind of like aroma in the room. It like smelled good, you know? And I'm like, what the heck? What happened here? And what it was, it was, Kate has a gift, a God-given, spirit-filled gift for hospitality. One of her primary gifts, we've discerned this, is she enhances environments. Whether that's the environment of the heart that's in front of her, helping the person in front of her be to develop, or a room. She's just really good at helping people feel welcome. She's really good at setting the scene. She would never, ever, ever stand on a stage and proclaim something. But without her creating that environment, we would have really missed something when it came to helping people feel welcomed, helping people own the fact that they belonged in this space with us. So, humble receptivity. And I said humble because it's true humility to know your gifts and to operate in them. It is not true humility to know your gifts and not operate in them. If you think you're being humble because you're suppressing your gifts, you're not, you're actually being proud. It is the proud person who decides when and how they use their gifts. It's the humble person who lives in and through their gifts. That was a good line. We should meme that one, that was pretty good. Okay, okay. Finally, fourth one. So we have solitude and silence. We have heartbreak. We have humble receptivity. And the fourth one is bold proclamation. A spirit-filled leader learns how to boldly proclaim the full gospel all the time. Full gospel, full time. And the only way we can get to bold proclamation, well, there's lots of ways we can get to bold proclamation, but the things I want to highlight about bold proclamation is this. First is we have to know and be able to articulate our story. We have to be able to know God's plan for humanity like I talked about last night, but we need to be able to know His plan through the lens of our story. His plan becomes your story, and that's what you're proclaiming to people. When the apostles went out to all the ends of the earth, they didn't go around saying, Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Universe, and I know this because it happened in Peter. Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Universe because it happened in Philip. They say, Jesus Christ is the Lord of the Universe. He set me free from my sins because He did it in me. I know it's true because I've seen Him. I've touched Him. I've heard Him. I've consumed Him, and my life is different. So first, John, the first letter of John, John says this, what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, that is what we make known to you. One of the reasons we're not bold in proclaiming the gospel is because we're not totally convinced of what He's done in us. We're not totally sure what our story is. And it's the one thing, friends, that people can't argue with without calling you a liar. I mean, because you're going to be like, well, this is what I've experienced, and they could say, no, you didn't. Well, yes, I did. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. You know? I mean, eventually, they're just going to have to say you're lying, which I guess they could. But it's an incredible weapon to be able to be like, all I want to share with you is what God has done in me. This is what life was like. This is how I came to know Him, and this is what life is like now. This is my story. And the conviction to be able to proclaim it is so much easier, so much more authentic when it's pouring out of your own life. It's a lot harder to just kind of preach to an idea. No, you're not preaching to an idea. You're proclaiming what God has done in you. Okay? So that's the first reason we need, the first kind of grounding in bold proclamation. Another way to think about bold proclamation is this. We have to actually bring people, a spirit-filled leader is willing to bring people to decision points. One of the reasons I think we are where we are with my generation is because, yeah, we were sacramentalized, and we were catacys to some degree, but nobody ever asked us if we believe. Nobody ever asked us and gave us a choice. We just got shepherded through all these things, and I was sitting down with a cousin of mine the other day, and I said, you know, dude, why aren't you Catholic anymore? And this was in the midst of a much longer conversation. And he said, you know, I don't know. He's just like, nobody ever asked me if I believed any of this stuff. The proclamation of the gospel has to include the opportunity to respond. A spirit-filled leader realizes that to just say these things, to just feel good about, oh, I delivered the message, but I don't actually bring people to a decision point. I don't actually say, do you want this for yourself? Are you in or are you out? That is a critical, critical piece of this puzzle, and we are terrible at it as a church. And you know why? For two reasons. One, we're afraid of failure. We're terrified of being rejected. Friends, a spirit-filled leader has to get very, very comfortable with failure. We have to learn how to fail fast and fall forward and keep moving. I was at, oh, is that my signal? No, I got five minutes left. I was at, I went to London to visit the church where Alpha was born. It's called Holy Trinity Brompton. It's not Catholic, but it's a beautiful community there. And Nicky Gumbel, the guy who's the pastor there, at the end of one of their services, got up and he said, okay, we're going to celebrate invitation. And I thought, okay. I don't know what that means, but that seems kind of silly. And there was this line of people on the stage with him. He went to the first person. He said, okay, how many people did you invite to this last Alpha? And he said, I invited five people. And he was like, great. How many people came? And she said, three. And everyone was like, oh. And the next person, how many people did you invite? I invited 25. Awesome. How many people came? 10. And they went down the line. And the numbers just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So finally, there was this little old lady at the end of the line. And Nicky was like, how many people did you invite to Alpha? And she grabbed the microphone from her, which was hilarious. And she said, I invited everyone in my neighborhood. And a ripple went through the crowd. And Nicky said, oh, well, how many people came? And she grabbed the mic back and she gets this huge smile on her face. She goes, nobody. And the place went bananas. And she walks off the stage like she says, and I'm sitting there as a red-blooded American, confused out of my mind. I'm like, why are you celebrating this woman? She failed at an epic level. This isn't how this is supposed to work, you know? And so I'm totally distraught. I can't figure this out. I'm like, British, I don't know what's going on here. And so afterwards, I go up to one of the leaders and I was like, you got to explain this to me because this makes no sense at all to me. And she said, well, it's pretty simple, Pete. She said, we celebrate the invitation because inviting is really hard. It's really hard. And we want people to feel totally confident that their job is to invite. It's not their job to decide because they can't. The decision to receive the invitation or not is all on the person. It's all about them and cooperating with God is doing in their life. We have no control over that. And so she said, we want our people to go out emboldened to invite because it's just really, really hard. It's hard to use some of your invitational capital. It's hard to put that on the line and run the risk of rejection. But we're never going to get over the hump of personal piety to public proclamation, to sharing the gospel if we're afraid of failure. And fear is not of God other than fear of Him, right? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. Freedom from fear of failure. That's a lot of Fs. Freedom from fear of failure. All right. Solitude, silence, heartbreak, humble receptivity and bold proclamation. I'm going to end with one story, final story. And before I do that, I wrote a little something. It's called Game Changer, the Role of the Holy Spirit in the New Evangelization. It's very short. It's only 21 pages long. It's a quick read. It's only a dollar. They have it at the bookstore if you'd like to pick it up. I don't want to take any of them home, so feel free to grab one. It's a great thing to give to a friend. Game Changer, the Role of the Holy Spirit, one dollar at the bookstore. That's my least favorite part of any time I have to do any of this, so got that out of the way. All right. Game Changer, the Role of the Holy Spirit in the New Evangelization. You're welcome. Solitude and silence, heartbreak, humble receptivity, bold proclamation. I was on an airplane just a couple weeks ago. And I was one of my first trips since the pandemic was kind of calming down and I got reassigned to a seat. And then what was weird about it is I got reassigned to the seat and then a woman came and sat down right next to me and she had been reassigned to that seat as well, which was weird on so many levels because I was like, I'm still in that kind of COVID mode. Like, yeah, get away from me. And she was a little uncomfortable too and she were kind of joking and talking and all of a sudden, and nothing's really happening. And at some point, we're just kind of talking about where we're going and I'm telling her what I'm doing and she's going to visit her mom. We just had a heart attack and she said this thing. She said, yeah, I've never been a particularly religious person but I might have to give it another look because my mom had a heart attack and the person who saved her life was a Catholic priest. It was like, okay, doorway, you know. Like, hit me with a sledgehammer, you know. So we start talking and she started asking questions about my life and let's put it this way. What happened, what unfolded was completely unexpected but she started to share her story with me and I've never met anyone more wounded in my entire life. She had been literally abused in every conceivable way, my nearly every man she had ever respected or, you know, looked to for protection. She was as broken and wounded as any person I've ever met and at one point she actually looked at me and she said, Pete, when I was a little girl, after having been abused by my father, I was laying in bed and I cried out to God and I said, God, save me, help me. And she said, and I didn't hear anything and he didn't show up and he didn't save me. She said, why should I believe in a God like that? And so, something, you know, a living word was born in me through my silence and solitude. In that moment my heart broke for her. I realized I didn't have what I needed in that moment. I had no idea what to say to that. So I said, I'll be right back. And I went to the bathroom and I stood in the bathroom and I just said, Lord, what are you doing? What do you want to do with her right now? I need something. I don't know what to do. And I felt like Jesus said in my heart. He said, introduce me to my mother as in his mother. And I remembered that I always travel with a rosary and it's the fisherman's rosary. It's made from fishing wire and it has John Paul II's fisherman's cross at the end of it. And I thought, please, God, let that still be in my backpack. And so I went back to her and I went in my backpack and I pulled it out and I said, I have a gift for you. And you know what the most heartbreaking moment was? And I said, I have a gift for you? She recoiled because no man had ever just genuinely wanted to give her something. And I said, no, no, no, don't be weird. Like, this is okay. Like, it's just a gift, you know? And she looked at me. She said, nobody ever gives me gifts. I said, well, I'm about to. And I pulled it out and I said, do you know what this is? And she looked at it and she said, that's a rosary. It had to be a nun when I was little. Right? And that literally had been beaten out of her. And so I explained what the rosary was and I explained who Mary was and then I looked her in the eye and I told her about Jesus, about his love for her and about how the only person who could possibly understand what she's been through, the only person who could relate, was him. And that I didn't know why she had been through this. I didn't know why God wasn't there for her in that moment that she needed, but he could understand. And I said, and this thing I'm about to give you, this rosary, it's not a lucky charm. It's not a get out of jail free card, but it's a way that you can connect to God. And she took it and she started to cry and she put it around her neck. And I thought, okay. It's a step. And she said, thank you. And then we prayed together. I have no idea where she is now. I have no idea what God's doing in her life. And that's just like a more dramatic example, but when we live as spirit-filled leaders, we're able to understand and have a living word within us that we could actually share with somebody else. We can have a heartbreak for the lost and for the heartbreak of God. And we can actually receive what we need in the moment and then we can boldly proclaim the truth about who he is. Amen. So would you pray with me for a moment for this woman? And then when you leave here, your homework assignment, because I went a little long, your homework assignment is to look through these four things and say, Lord, which one do I need to grow in? And then start to create a plan for how to grow in it, okay? All right. Lord Jesus, thank you for this time. I thank you for that. You've called us to be spirit-filled leaders. I thank you that you've brought me into contact with Shannon. I pray right now that you pour out your grace on her and that you pour out your grace on everyone here that you would train us in what it means to be you, Jesus. That you would train us in what it means to walk in your spirit and to receive everything we need. And Lord, break our hearts for what breaks doors and let us be bold in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God here on earth. Amen.