[00:00:00] Jim Jansen: Hey everybody, welcome to the EquipCast. So today I sit down with Doug Schaupp. Now, you may not know Doug's name, but I almost guarantee you know about his work. Doug and co-author Don Everts wrote "I Once Was Lost: The Thresholds of Postmodern Conversion" back in 2008, and their work has made it into the Catholic world via Sherry Weddell, myself, and others who've just recognized that that framework gave us a lens for accompanying people through their spiritual journey.

Doug tells the origin story of how the Thresholds really was the fruit of dozens of missionaries accompanying people through their spiritual journey and noticing and recognizing the patterns where they were growing and where they were getting stuck. But even before that, it was the fruit of desperation when their old mental models and their old ways of sharing their faith weren't working anymore.

He shares how we as individuals and communities can begin to think in terms of thresholds and pathways. If you are trying to accompany someone, if you're a community that's trying to create pathways for people to grow and mature in their faith, you're gonna love today's conversation. But before we jump in Today's episode is sponsored by Faith & Family Life Catholic Ministries. FFLCM and their Pathways Formation Suite offers an integrated set of resources for lifelong family-centered faith formation. To learn more about the Pathways Suite of resources and Faith & Family Life Catholic Ministries, visit fflcm.org. 

Doug Schaupp, welcome to the EquipCast. How are you, sir? 

[00:02:09] Doug Schaupp: Good to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:02:11] Jim Jansen: I am so excited. So I know who you are, and I think some of our listeners do. I came across your work... okay, when did you write "I Once Was Lost"?

[00:02:22] Doug Schaupp: 2008

[00:02:23] Jim Jansen: 2008. I think it was pretty close after. I think it was, like, '09 or '10 that I came across it when I was working in campus ministry, and it was revolutionary for me, and I know has caught on with a ton of people. I love it. It's kinda become a thing in the Catholic world, and that was so not expected. I'm sure that was not in your mind as you're writing this. Right. You're not Catholic. You weren't like, "Let's see. How do I get this to a catholic audience?" 

[00:02:52] Doug Schaupp: How do I strategically angle-- 

[00:02:54] Jim Jansen: Brilliant move, man. You nailed it. So, Okay, I just wanna, like... Again, you and your co-author, Don Everts, wrote "I Once Was Lost." We're gonna talk about the book. We're gonna talk about "The Thresholds," "The Thresholds of Postmodern Conversion." But Doug, just give people an idea, like, who you are. Tell them a little bit of your story.

[00:03:12] Doug Schaupp: I grew up going to church, and God was, like, on the top 10 list, but God was probably more like eight, nine, or 10 on the priorities.

[00:03:21] Jim Jansen: That's great. He was on my top 25.

[00:03:23] Doug Schaupp: Okay, there you go. So, Coming into college, I did sign up for an InterVarsity Bible study. So it was on the top 10, but it was not in the top five. And they opened up the Gospel of Mark with me, and I loved asking my questions.

And InterVarsity's really good about inductive Bible study, and questions fuel it, and that was perfect for a seeker like me. I would go home after these Bible studies, and I would open my scripture with my non-Christian friend, Mark, and I would say, "This can't be true, is it? This can't be, like, really true in life." And we had like, this reverse evangelism thing happening. Even before I was following Jesus he almost became a Christian, 'cause he was like, "Maybe it is."

[00:04:12] Jim Jansen: Wow. Wait, so where was home when you were doing this?

[00:04:14] Doug Schaupp: I grew up in the Bay Area, so born in San Francisco, high school in Palo Alto, came to college in Los Angeles, and Occidental College, 1,600, and the InterVarsity group there created space for me. So this thriving community was like, "Doug's a hot mess, capital M Mess, but we're just gonna let him and Jesus work this thing out." And May of my freshman year, May of '86, I decided Jesus is Lord, and I'm gonna follow him with my whole life.

[00:04:45] Jim Jansen: Wow, that's awesome. And you've kept that promise.

[00:04:50] Doug Schaupp: We are buds. Me and Jesus are buds right here.

[00:04:54] Jim Jansen: Okay, how long-- did you start to do campus ministry, InterVarsity, like right afterwards?

[00:04:59] Doug Schaupp: Yeah. So then sophomore year I came back and I'm like, "I gotta live differently." So somebody handed me a four-part VHS series. We didn't have DVDs or anything, it was a VHS. Becky Pippert, Out of the Salt Shaker, and I just loved and memorized her four videos, and I'm like, "I love how she talks about Jesus. I love how she talks about faith." And it's all in the context of relationship and friendship, and I just decided right there in my room, "I wanna be like Becky. I wanna be a witness, I wanna be a faithful witness like her." So I just started to tell her stories and try all of her things out. I was not a very good evangelist, but I was passionate about it and joyful about it. So that was the like, that was the awakening.

[00:05:49] Jim Jansen: But if you're only gonna have two things, passion and joy, those are good superpowers.

[00:05:53] Doug Schaupp: And joy covers a multitude of evangelism sins, and I was, definitely needing that. So then became a student leader my senior year, co-led a Bible study with my now wife, fell in love, and then they invited me to come on staff with InterVarsity in 1989. And I've been on staff with InterVarsity since '89 with some stints in church leadership as well. So the InterVarsity campus ministry thing is like the A game, but then lots of other church leadership experiences.

[00:06:24] Jim Jansen: And you were serving as a missionary in California the whole time, right?

[00:06:27] Doug Schaupp: Yeah, lived here the whole time. All in LA the whole time.

[00:06:31] Jim Jansen: Which I think is really instructive, right? Because the sub title of your book, "I Once Was Lost," "The Thresholds of Postmodern Conversion." 2010, that was a thing that college students in Nebraska were experiencing, but it wasn't the common experience of a typical pastor quite yet, not in Nebraska, in the Midwest. The coasts tend to be--

[00:06:55] Doug Schaupp: We were right there in the early '90s. 

[00:06:57] Jim Jansen: Yeah. But you guys were there. 

[00:06:58] Doug Schaupp: I got the scars. I got all the scars from the '90s, man. Failed so many times.

[00:07:03] Jim Jansen: Right. You knew what it was to accompany people through their postmodern conversion 'cause you had seen it.

[00:07:11] Doug Schaupp: Exactly. I came in like, "Okay, I'm gonna do C.S. Lewis discussion groups with Mere Christianity, and we're gonna do evidence for the resurrection, and I'm gonna slay them with my apologetics, and they will bend the knee." And starting in '92, they were not interested. I just hit this massive wall, and I'm like, "What is this?"

[00:07:31] Jim Jansen: Yeah, and in Nebraska we just discovered C.S. Lewis in 1992. No, not really, but you experienced that change in the culture much sooner

[00:07:40] Doug Schaupp: That was like the evangelism wilderness years for, we're about three or four years in there, just one failure after another. I regularly would come home after failed evangelism conversations, and I'd get in the shower and I'm like, "Doug, you got owned. You got owned by that person. They just dismissed you, and they didn't listen to a thing you had to say." And I just was like, "Okay, let's try something totally different." And I had to just kinda throw out the rule book on what I had been handed, 'cause I was handed a mental model that was called seeker model. And I'm like, "These are not seekers."

[00:08:18] Jim Jansen: What is the seeker model? 'Cause there are some assumptions there that I think many of us who are well-meaning still carry.

[00:08:27] Doug Schaupp: Open up places for people to seek. They will become seekers. They will automatically move toward Jesus because we just have to create a pathway for seekers. So in '96, '97, I had a 30-week evangelistic seeker Bible study. We had an average of 10 people. We had so much fun. We were having a great time studying scripture with all these non-Christians. And after 30 weeks, that's from September 1st to June zero conversions, and I'm just hitting my head against this wall. "Lord, I did everything right.

We were doing good evangelism. Why didn't they follow Jesus? Why didn't they seek?" And that's when I went back to my team, and I said, "Guys, we've got the wrong model. Let's go back to scratch. Where are they stuck?" And so we just put the Post-It notes on the wall of my apartment, and we spent an entire day trying to chart their journey from stories that we had heard.

And we were like, "Wait a second. They're stuck at curious." Those guys in Doug's Bible study, they were not seekers. They were merely curious, and I had no idea how to help curious people become open and open people become seekers. But I got, My intro to the five thresholds was a sledgehammer upside the head, and it was the failure of that year that made so much godly discontent rise inside of me. I'm like, "I'm gonna change. I don't know what I'm gonna change, but I'm gonna change, 'cause I'm sick and tired of 30 weeks of wasted evangelism."

[00:10:05] Jim Jansen: Oh my gosh.

[00:10:06] Doug Schaupp: I had had it 

[00:10:07] Jim Jansen: I wanna zoom in on that. Like, how do you help curious, become open? How do open, become seekers? But before we get there, fast-forwarding, you and Don write this book, "I Once Was Lost," the mental model that you developed as you looked at the patterns in the lives of these students you're accompanying. This model has taken on a life of its own.

[00:10:30] Doug Schaupp: Glory to God. Glory to God. Only God knew.

[00:10:33] Jim Jansen: I just want you to share a little bit, have some fun with this. Like, how has the Lord used this? What are some of the most surprising ways that you've seen the thresholds show up?

[00:10:42] Doug Schaupp: Praise God. Glory to God, right? 'Cause this is '96, '97, '98. I write a white paper. I write an article on the five thresholds, and then we just go to testing it. I give it out to 100 of my friends in campus ministry, and I'm like, "Is it four things? Is it three things? Is it six things?" Let's just stab this thing with our knives and let's see if this thing can hold water. And after three or four years of testing, they came back and they were like, "Doug, this thing's real. This is exactly the pattern that we are seeing on these 100 campuses around."

And then that's when I decided this is good enough to go to the book, 'cause it, this doesn't just need to be a paper. And then once you write a book, you kinda give it away, and you're kinda like, all right, the baby's grown up.

And then five years later, I join the InterVarsity evangelism team, the national team. My boss says, "Hey, go figure out what's working in evangelism. Go do some research." And this is 2013, and I'm, like, asking around. And everyone's like, "Doug, it's the five thresholds. It's the five thresholds. It's the five thresholds."

So it was a little bit of a no duh, but I didn't see it between 2008 and 2013. I'd just went on to other things. And then God brought it back and said no," "You're onto something." So between 2013 and today, this is now the number one paradigm in InterVarsity. So on all of our campus ministries, this is a part of how evangelism and conversion is how we think, how we see, how we pray, how we disciple, how we train.

So praise God. But that's the part of the field that's right in front of me. Then my buddy Sherry comes along, and Sherry Weddell's got this book, and I meet her three months ago. I reach out because we're doing a rewrite of I Once Was Lost, 20th anniversary's coming out in a year, two years, and we wanna add more stories.

So as Sherry's talking about that, I've sold 50,000 copies of I Once Was Lost. She sold 200,000 copies of Forming Intentional Disciples, and the five thresholds are five chapters right in the middle of her book.

[00:12:45] Jim Jansen: Oh yeah, it's like the heart. In fact, she cited everything right," but many Catholics are like "Doug Schaupp? Who's that?" And it's like he's the guy who actually developed... Just look at the footnotes." But yeah, she managed to popularize it where I think w- we were talking about this before we turned on the microphones.

There's a rediscovery of our missionary identity happening in the Catholic Church, and it was just the right tool at the right time to help people who were, I think, zealous. They were having that missionary experience that you did. It was like, " I love my cousin," and they were baptized, and they were maybe once a practicing Christian, but it's been a minute.

They're not anymore, and I'm struggling to connect. I don't know. I love them, but it's not working. And the thresholds, thank you, Sherry, connected the dots. And again, when I first discovered it, it was with athletes. I worked again at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a lot of great kids, small town kids, , and a lot of them just wanted to be in Bible study.

When we started to work with fraternities and sororities and athletes, it was like, "Oh, well, there's a, there was a less desire there." And we started to recognize, like, how do we connect with them? How do we help them in their spiritual journey? And that's where the thresholds became invaluable because they weren't already disciples looking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. Many of them were not yet disciples, and that was new territory for a lot of us.

[00:14:12] Doug Schaupp: And I've started interviewing some of your friends, you yourself, and some others, and as I scratch the surface of the Catholic experience USA, you guys have just built in the Five Thresholds to the making of disciples process, your pathways, and it's beautiful. Like, I was talking to a buddy, a new buddy, Bobby Vidal, is in charge of evangelization in Los Angeles.

4.3 million Catholics in his archdiocese. 4.3 million. And one of his favorite things to do is to use the Five Thresholds to train, to discern, and to plan. So he- want to hear a cool story from this?

[00:14:52] Jim Jansen: Yes.

[00:14:53] Doug Schaupp: This is one of Bobby's stories. He says "All right. Church, how are we gonna build trust with the non-Christians around us? What do they like to do?" Brilliant question. What do they already like to do? And someone said, "They like old cars." And that is so true in LA. We love our classic cars. And so they reach out. There's five or six secular clubs that all they do is bring their old cars, look at them, and talk about them, and car shows are like their Christmas, right?

So the Catholic Church hosts a car show with these folks. They get 50, 60 classic cars on the lot. They get 1,200 neighbors to come talk about cars, and everything that's happening in the parking lot is trust. Just beautiful trust relationships.

That's first threshold, and then they do a brilliant second threshold, curious. They say "Who wants a tour of the church?" Well, As you know, that's the stained glass. That's Jesus. So there's just cool Jesus stories, and the tour guides are trained, so they do a really good job just walking them around.

So Bobby tells me this story of this woman who is an ex-Catholic. She hates Catholics, and she's sitting there looking at these cars, resenting that she's on Catholic property, 'cause she said she'd never do that again. She's conflicted, but she's there 'cause of the cars, so that's great. They're building trust with her. She stumbles into a tour of this church curious.

God's working on her, and then they, come to the Eucharist, and they talk about this beautiful moment over here, and she goes into the Eucharist room, and she just starts bawling and decides to make peace with God.

[00:16:28] Jim Jansen: Wow.

[00:16:29] Doug Schaupp: I'm sitting there jaw open, right? I'm like, "Bobby, you did perfect trust, threshold one. You did perfect curious, threshold two. You did perfect open, threshold three. How'd you do it better than me?" 'Cause that's like exactly what the church is supposed to be and do. So anyway, I'm loving my Catholic friends.

[00:16:52] Jim Jansen: I love that. So give us a quick refresher or for those maybe who aren't familiar, an introduction to the thresholds.

[00:16:59] Doug Schaupp: Each threshold is overcoming a barrier. Each threshold is overcoming a little mountain, a little obstacle. You're moving from one room to another. And the first room when people meet me is distrust. Paul says, "Preach the gospel in season and out of season."

The church used to be in season 100 years ago. The church is no longer in season. We are out of season, in my opinion, particularly on the coasts. So I'm walking into these conversations, and when they find out that I'm a follower of Jesus, or worse, I'm the national director of evangelism on an airplane, right?

They're sitting next to me. Their eye quivers, their lip shakes. And they have all these negative assumptions about me. I'm uptight, I'm narrow-minded, I'm self-righteous, I'm judgmental. And distrust floods the moment. I can either be defensive, "I'm not like that, I didn't do those bad things," or I can be a trust builder. And we want everybody to be trust builders. Ask questions, engage. Be normal. Don't be weird. 

[00:18:05] Jim Jansen: Right. Be normal. That's one of my phrases for like trust is like how do you build trust? It's wait for it. Be trustworthy. Keep promises. Be normal.

[00:18:15] Doug Schaupp: We borrow from another framework, BLESS. Begin with prayer. Listen, shocking. B-L-E, eat with them, share a meal, and serve them. So I like those kind of practical ... 'Cause those are all trust building habits. Imagine the day when the church will just do that for a year. Imagine if every single follower of Jesus spent an entire year blessing, listening, eating, serving. We would be in such a better place a year later if we just had the year of trust building. So that's threshold one. Then you have, they trust me, but they're indifferent about my faith.

They don't care what I believe, and they're not gonna ask me about it even though they trust me, so they are indifferent. And I think we live in an age of indifference. There's so much information swirling around, people just kind of like, "Whatever. Whatever you believe, you believe. Whatever I believe, I believe. I'm indifferent. I'm numb. Whatever." Jesus is the best at stirring the indifferent of his age with questions. Jesus didn't have Q&A sessions, Jesus had Q&Q sessions. You ask him a question, he answer with a question. Why? Questions open the brain. Questions open the heart. Questions are unnerving, they're irritating, they're troubling. What happens if the church reclaims our place as the best question askers? 'Cause our Lord, our master, is the best question asker. And I think we get preoccupied with theology and the right answers. 

Jesus is asking the best questions. So what if that became a hallmark of us? So after a year of trust building, we're out listening, eating, and serving, then we're the year of curious. Everybody has to learn to ask better questions. And when we become curious about somebody else, they become in turn curious about us. 

[00:20:08] Jim Jansen: Right. It's a natural reciprocity.

[00:20:11] Doug Schaupp: Exactly, that's the genius of the second threshold. Then we go to the third threshold. "Do dogs go to heaven, Jim?" So now we're having questions about dogs in heaven, but it's not personal. It's academic. It's intellectual. And then something happens inside and we go from closed to change to open. We're not necessarily open to Jesus. We're not necessarily open to salvation. We just are realizing, let's get personal, and now we have a from the heart conversation.

[00:20:42] Jim Jansen: A- and isn't there... I-- I- isn't there often there's some dissatisfaction in people's life that kinda comes to the surface that they're starting to connect. It's like, "Huh, I wonder if this... I wonder if Doug, I wonder if this Jesus I wonder if there's something, I wonder if the church has something to say about this dissatisfaction.

Maybe there is a better way." 

[00:21:03] Doug Schaupp: Exactly. And this faith that Doug has, this God that Doug knows, this is not random religion. This has actually made a difference in Doug's personal life, like this week. And so this is where we want fresh testimonies of "I'm struggling with anger. I'm struggling with running out of love for one of my family members." I won't tell you which one, but this is actually true.

[00:21:26] Jim Jansen: Yeah.

[00:21:27] Doug Schaupp: And I have to bring my emptiness to God and say, "God, would you love through me?" And I tell real stories about where I'm empty, and then I look them in the eye and I say, "How about you? Where are you empty? Where could you use more of God's love?" And then they say, "Ah, I'm all good." And I'm like you can tell me that, but when you look in the mirror tomorrow, be real with yourself."

[00:21:49] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Oh, that's good.

[00:21:51] Doug Schaupp: So that's the third threshold. And then I love the open. When they finally get to the heart, they start to wander, and they check out Jesus and Buddha and Krishna and marijuana, and they're just exploring, right? And the funny thing about that is it drives us nuts. "Quit, quit looking at Buddha, and quit smoking pot, and just focus on Jesus."

And the reason that they don't know how to seek Jesus is 'cause no one taught them. That's us. We are the signposts in their life. We're the people that say "If you could ask God one real question to decide if Jesus is following with your whole life, what's the most important question you've got?" And over the years, this question is the gold.

If you could ask Jesus one question, what rises to the top of all the clutter? What do you need to know? And I love it when a non-Christian says to me, "Can I know you? Can I trust you? Can I experience you?" 'Cause now they're asking their real seeking questions.

[00:23:01] Jim Jansen: Are those the patterns? Are those the questions that tend to rise to the top? 

[00:23:05] Doug Schaupp: Oh yeah, now , we've gotten through the garbage, and they're like, "Can I know you? Can I experience you? Can I trust you? And are you worth it?" What a great seeker question. And so we invite people to name their questions when they come into retreats with us. They join us on a Friday night, and we ask them on a Friday night, "What's the real question?" And the beauty of that when they put them on the wall in their Post-it notes or whatever, is now they're shifting from just going through the weekend to seeking. And We've focused that now and said, "That's your question. That's what you're here for. Explore.

[00:23:46] Jim Jansen: And you've started a conversation. Whether they know it or not, whether they would call it prayer or not, they're praying. They're beginning to enter into a conversation. I feel like I can feel the Lord's heart aching to answer those questions. It's finally.

[00:24:02] Doug Schaupp: It's beautiful.

[00:24:02] Jim Jansen: Let's go.

[00:24:04] Doug Schaupp: Yeah. And then, we let them know "Okay we're gonna give everybody a chance to make some decisions. And so get ready, 'cause on Saturday night there's some opportunities to grow. And one of the opportunities to grow is for those who wanna become followers of Jesus. We're gonna let you know what that means." And so we just, it's good to preview where you're going. There's no bait and switch here, but more 

[00:24:25] Jim Jansen: I hear a hospitality through all of this. It's a transparent process. It's an accompanied process. 

[00:24:33] Doug Schaupp: And then for those who are ready, 'cause some of you are ready to put God at the center, not you at the center, and that's the best decision you can ever make. And for those who are ready to do that, we're gonna have this prayer time, and we want you to join in. It's not manipulative. It's not weird. It's not guilt producing or judging.

It's just for those who are ready, and you know now is your time, we're gonna make the invitation, so join us. And there's so much fear of being weird around invitations to faith that people have just thrown it out. That's what I did in the '90s. Jesus and I had to talk about the sickle because in Mark 4:26-29, they put in the sickle at the end, and I didn't have a sickle in my, in my toolkit. 

[00:25:18] Jim Jansen: And this is like for all the Californians listening, the Nebraskans are like, "Oh, naturally, this is a harvest tool," right? The sickle is it's that sharp tool that cuts the grain. So you harvest it. You actually commit to like, "All right, it's in.

[00:25:33] Doug Schaupp: And Jesus and I had a chat because I was like, "Jesus, I hate the sickle. I'll never use it." And Jesus said, "Doug, I'm good at the sickle. Let me teach you. Humble yourself, eat your words, and now it's time for you to be my disciple and learn to do all of the harvest, not just the parts you like." And so I've been working on myself for the last 25 years on how to do all parts of the harvest better.

[00:25:59] Jim Jansen: Man, Doug, that hits close to home because part of what I, I had a point in my life where I loved the early threshold accompaniment, but inviting someone to make a decision for Jesus was hard for me. I didn't wanna be weird. I don't know if I shared this on the podcast before.

I actually punched my suite mate when he's like, "Oh, you're not gonna be one of those weird people walking around talking about Jesus, are you?" Which is not a bad job description if you're signing up to be a missionary. But the thought of being weird was too much for me to take 'cause I was afraid of... the sickle. I was afraid of calling people to a decision. And now that I've gotten past so many of the weird things in my own head and heart, inviting someone to make a commitment to Jesus is amongst the most joyful, beautiful moments of all the spiritual journey. So like I would never miss it. But I had to work to get to a place where I was able to let the Lord use me in that way.

[00:27:01] Doug Schaupp: Yeah. Same here.

[00:27:01] Jim Jansen: So for like for the Catholics listening, which is, probably most of my audience, this is so who we are, right?

If we, when we have the eyes to see it, particularly I think when you think of like the liturgy and the Mass. In non-Catholic circles, they used to, call it like an altar call, where literally the preacher would get done sharing the gospel, inviting people, then come up to the altar, give your life to Christ.

People would pray with them, like we literally have an altar call every service, every Mass where you come up to the altar and you say yes again, and you don't just invite Jesus into your heart, you actually invite Him into your body. So this is so Catholic. We're just, I think many of us still rediscovering this part this dimension of our missionary heritage.

[00:27:46] Doug Schaupp: Yeah, we all are. We all are.

[00:27:48] Jim Jansen: Doug, what I love about the threshold is it is the fruit of observation and accompaniment. I wanna give you a chance, like if we can go deep a couple of places are there a few thresholds that seem to be the most challenging for us to accompany others when they're in that stage of their journey?

[00:28:09] Doug Schaupp: The second and third threshold are the most awkward because we want people to ask us questions about our faith, right? The misnomer is if I'm a nice guy, someone will say, "What's your secret, Doug? Why are you so joyful? What's your story?" Nobody asks that.

And so then we're stuck in the second threshold with this like, "Well, I preach the gospel at all times, and when needed, I use words." The funny thing about Jesus is He embodied all of the Kingdom of God, and He used words all the time because people constantly misinterpreted His actions.

So if Jesus needs to use words all the time to explain His actions, how much more do we need to? So I think the second threshold, there's a lot of wrong mental models about it's okay to be a good question asker. In fact, what I've noticed is that I've been interviewing my friends who are really good at the five thresholds.

They're all really good question askers. They are curious themselves about other people, and the people that are not very good at the thresholds don't ask good questions. So, the second threshold's a big deal, and then the third threshold just takes the longest.

[00:29:15] Jim Jansen: When you say the second that's curiosity. We learn to use questions to help arouse curiosity in our friends. 

[00:29:23] Doug Schaupp: Exactly. Well Said. Third threshold, moving from closed to open sometimes takes a day, sometimes takes a year, and I think this is the like, fraught with spiritual battle kind of thing, 'cause it's just like, "Lord, why are they stuck? Lord, why are they stuck?" Break down the walls of darkness, break down the fears. So these are where my prayers are more, like, aggressive. "Lord, move them. I don't know what the barriers are."

[00:29:48] Jim Jansen: Well, it's a spiritual warfare time because they have come to a place where they're curious but not necessarily open to change. And there's good biblical figures like Herod the rich young man who are curious and they never make a commitment. They're not really open.

[00:30:07] Doug Schaupp: Even Nicodemus starts out asking some things, but then he just kinda goes silent. And at the end of chapter three of John, we're at a cliffhanger. What's this guy gonna do? And then it takes him 16 chapters to decide he's gonna align fully with Jesus. That's a lot of time. But that's sometimes what we have to be ready for. So I'm, I'm a church coach, and one of the things I coach is pathway thinking. What are the pathways for someone like Nicodemus who is gonna take his sweet time becoming open and becoming a seeker?

[00:30:40] Jim Jansen: Okay. Say more about that pathway thinking, 'cause , you had me at hello. That's my love language. I love discipleship pathways as a way for a community to help people through the journey, create space as long as it takes, but also to have a next step available when they are ready. What is pathway thinking?

[00:30:57] Doug Schaupp: Let's take Christmas for example. If you and I are on the same leadership team and we're planning Christmas, we'll get five Post-it Notes each, and how are we gonna build trust before Christmas? What can we as a church do to build trust, to increase curiosity, even to foster openness?

Because by the time someone becomes open, they'll come to our Christmas Eve service. And so we're building an on-ramp before Christmas, and then at Christmas we need to offer something for seekers. So in January, are we gonna offer Alpha? Are we gonna offer a seeker Bible study? Are we gonna offer a men's group for seekers and a women's group for s- there's so many things that we could do, but it's a new headache.

And so what we have to discern together is what are the steps before Christmas to build toward openness? What are the steps afterward that we're gonna offer them so they actually become seekers with us? And then in the homily, what's the closing one minute that's gonna help them realize they have a choice to become a seeker today? And so if I'm coaching the preacher, the priest, it's that one-minute invitation to seek that is where they're building their homily.

[00:32:14] Jim Jansen: And, I'm just gonna name it. For those listening, they're like, "Oh, crap. We have a hard enough time making sure we get the church decorated, we get everything there." This is a level of missionary forethought that isn't maybe common. Although I'm thinking, in the Catholic world, this is actually a home game for us because of the liturgical cycles.

Lent is not that far away from Christmas sometimes shockingly close. And we have this natural, again, season and rhythm to say, "All right, this is your chance. This is the place, the context we've created for you to get some of these questions answered." So if we have that in our mind, Christmas can be this amazing bridge that's not just like the Christmasers, they come back, but actually maybe they'll keep coming back, and we have something that fits their journey when they show up at Christmas.

[00:33:07] Doug Schaupp: Yeah. We turn threshold the noun into threshold the verb in the second book, Breaking the Huddle, and what we train people to do is to think in pathways, thresholding, and you tell different stories in your homily if you're talking to the unconvinced. You use different jargon in your homilies if you're talking to the unconvinced.

The fact that they're in the room doesn't mean that they trust you. It doesn't mean that they're buying in. They may be there very uncomfortable. They may be arms folded, and just having a normal mass doesn't do anything for them. So you have to rethink your sermons on "I've got a great opportunity here. How can I tell a different story about when I was empty and God came through for me, when I was wandering and God taught me to seek?" And then you're using stories that get into their third threshold experience so that you're explaining what a seeker is, and you're challenging them to come and be a honest skeptic.

[00:34:14] Jim Jansen: Yeah.

[00:34:14] Doug Schaupp: That's what we want. We want a courageous skeptic to come join Alpha. So this is what a courageous skeptic looks like. I love, personally, I love Doubting Thomas because he's entrenched in his skepticism, but he doesn't do it on his own. He's in community. He's honest, and he's "I'm not gonna change my mind until I'm- I blah, blah, blah," but that's courageous in his own way.

[00:34:44] Jim Jansen: He actually throws the gauntlet down at the feet of our Lord, who unexpectedly in the room.

[00:34:50] Doug Schaupp: Indeed. And so we use Thomas as a kind of a hero for skeptics and cynics and say, "If you're like that, Alpha's for you. If you're like that, our Seeker Bible Study's for you. Have some courage and step up and sign up today."

[00:35:06] Jim Jansen: Well, just by naming it, you're making it safe, right? There's this mantra I was actually just telling a mom of a tween not too long ago, that doubt is not toxic to a young person's faith. It's unexpressed doubt.

[00:35:20] Doug Schaupp: Exactly, 'cause they hid it. 

[00:35:21] Jim Jansen: Right, and you're making it safe for people to say, "I don't know. This doesn't make sense to me. When I pray, I don't feel like I get anything back," you're giving them space to be honest, and then the answers, the Lord Himself can enter in.

[00:35:38] Doug Schaupp: Yep.

[00:35:40] Jim Jansen: Doug, the other thing that occurs to me this is so natural to a community of disciples gathered together that there would be people who are not yet disciples or who are disciples that because of a grief or something else in their life, they're at a place of doubt or confusion. It would seem like it would be easy to preach on, 'cause if you just pay attention to the people that show up in the gospel stories, they are all over the map in terms of their threshold journey.

[00:36:09] Doug Schaupp: And when you move from a holy huddle where it's just the Christian background, the Catholic background, then you become more like a witnessing community. So evangelism goes from a concept, and it's the priest's job, to like, "No, we can actually be trained in it," and "This is now part of this community, this culture." But then we become these, amazing conversion communities, and these amazing conversion communities, they see adult decisions and adult baptisms throughout the year. And it's entirely possible that there are 50 or 100 adult decisions and adult baptisms just kinda trickling in because conversion is the new normal, and that's exactly what you were just describing.

We've got disciples, we've got skeptics, we've got tax collectors and sinners, we've got recovering Pharisees. It's just we're all kind of the messy Jesus community. I like to teach people to cast vision and say "We love having skeptics and cynics here. We're a community that welcomes skeptics and cynics to walk with your faith questions at your own pace while the rest of us follow Jesus with our whole lives, and that's who we are.

We have some people over here that are wandering. We honor you for that, and we have some people over here that are fully devoted, and we honor you for that. 

That's who we are." 

[00:37:31] Jim Jansen: Whether we admit it or not they're there. 

[00:37:34] Doug Schaupp: It's called nominal Catholics or cultural Catholics, right?

[00:37:37] Jim Jansen: Yeah. And you know, the data, this cuts across all denominations. Church practice is becoming less and less consistent. I don't know if that's the right way to put it. But you'll get somebody who's like, "Oh, cool, we had 300 people at service." Yeah, but that's not the same 300 people as last week, and it's not the same as the 300 people the week before.

It's like people are coming one week on, one week off, two weeks on, three weeks off, and there's a, there's an inconsistency. And then there's just, you can't be in ministry of any sort for very long and not begin to recognize that a lot of people are carrying wounds and hurts.

[00:38:13] Doug Schaupp: Oh, yeah. 

[00:38:14] Jim Jansen: And some of those came from the Christian community.

[00:38:17] Doug Schaupp: From us.

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

[00:38:18] Doug Schaupp: Yep. Amen. 

[00:38:20] Jim Jansen: Let's pause right here for a quick break to share a resource. We'll be Right back.

Traditional classroom models in parish religious education often leave parents out of the equation, and the result is a fragmented faith formation. Faith and Family Life Catholic Ministries and their Pathways Formation Suite connect meaningful parish gatherings with simple, practical faith experiences in the home. They close the gap between the sacramental years by supporting families through every stage, F FLCM doesn't just hand over materials. They actively form and accompany leaders. I love these guys. And you know what? I'm not alone. Parishes across the country that use FFLCM report stronger family engagement, higher retention after the sacraments, and consistent faith habits at home. To learn more, visit fflcm.org. Again, that's fflcm.org. go check out the Pathways Formation Suite. Schedule a conversation with the FFLCM team to discuss bringing the mission to more of your families and tell them I sent you.

Welcome back. Let's pick up right where we left off.

[00:39:28] Jim Jansen: Doug, gosh, there's so many questions here. I wanna maybe zero in just on giving you an opportunity to talk about, how you see this kind of missionary-minded community, this whole thing. The Lord has already exceeded your expectations for what, was gonna happen with the thresholds. What if this continues, right? I love Pope Leo made it very clear, first homily, right out of the gate. He's got all the cardinals, they're back together in the Sistine Chapel.

He's been pope for like, a day or something, and he lists off his priorities. Number one, putting Jesus at the center of proclamation. Number two, the missionary conversion of the entire church.

[00:40:10] Doug Schaupp: Let the crowd. 

[00:40:11] Jim Jansen: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, Doug, you have this unique perspective. What's been your experience with the church? What do you see as you watch what's been happening? 

[00:40:24] Doug Schaupp: I love the center Jesus. It's not about our particular church, it's not about our particular brand, our particular denomination, it's about Jesus. When I talk to Sherry, she's about Jesus. When I talk to Bobby, he's about Jesus. And people that have switched from the name of my church, and Catholic, and blah, blah, blah. No, it's about Jesus. And when we can shed that, there's something beautiful that happens. In fact, I was talking to Father Brent Bowen, who teaches the Five Thresholds in his seminary class, and I said to him, "How do you know when a parish is changing?" And he said this, he said, "They start using the name of Jesus. They don't just say God. Because Jesus is the face of God incarnate, and that's how we know what God looks like is we look at Jesus." And I was like, "Bingo. Drop the mic. That's exactly right." So that's what we're looking for for every parish.

We're looking at for every Christian, every follower of Jesus, every Catholic, is we're centering on Jesus and having a living, vital relationship with Jesus. And then there's a lot of frameworks out there. I mentioned BLESS earlier. There's like pray, care, share. And the nice thing is that the Five Thresholds actually parlays beautifully Alpha USA calls me pre-Alpha 'cause we're trust and curious, so we're actually like they gave us a little nickname. I'm like, "Great, I'll be pre-Alpha. I don't care." 

[00:41:45] Jim Jansen: That's awesome.

[00:41:45] Doug Schaupp: But as what Sherry's taught me is that as she scoured the globe, the Five Thresholds actually is the best framework, and that's one of those like cocky things that I can't say, 

[00:41:55] Jim Jansen: Right, but she can say it. , I mean, I'll, I'll say it too.

[00:41:58] Doug Schaupp: Yeah, someone else can pick up the framework and say, "This is the best one out there, Doug." And I'm like, "Because it's empathetic, it starts from a place of compassion on the non-Christians." In fact, this is a funny story we've turned the the Five Thresholds into a cyclical model, and we have people fill out a cyclical model of a quiz and "Who are you today? Which one do you wanna grow in?"

And non-Christians love becoming more curious. They love becoming more open. The Five Thresholds have become aspirational of all things, and I had no idea 30 years ago that these words would cross over from christian vernacular to non-Christian aspirations.

[00:42:36] Jim Jansen: But it does fit. It's funny, it's like you think about the opposite I'm not curious, I'm closed, right? I'm distrusting, I'm not open. that doesn't feel good. I don't want to be that. I want to be trusting and curious and open. So man, this is fantastic. Doug, I wanna give you a chance for those who are listening maybe this is the first time they're coming across the Thresholds. Maybe it's somebody who's like, gosh, they just like got stuck in the best way about the Christmas thing.

They're like, "Oh, crap." You're just starting to realize all the work that they could or should do to begin to create a pathway around these major moments in their church. So for those who may be feeling a little overwhelmed that they wanna change but they're not quite sure where to begin what do you wanna say to them?

[00:43:27] Doug Schaupp: Thank you. Dial up the discontent. So like Doug in the shower, be bothered with the status quo. Bring it to God and say, "God, make me more discontent." Because the change process ahead is too difficult if you're just content with the status quo. You have to be troubled that only the holy few are even benefiting from what you're doing.

So number one, become more discontent. Pray discontent prayers, share discontent with your congregation, with your small groups. And then give yourself about a year. It's gonna be a year of hard work. So pick up a couple books, pick up I Once Was Lost, pick up part two, Breaking the Huddle, No More Holy Huddles, and then start having conversations around those things.

Start taking some experiments. Start trying some things that you've never seen before, and go try some things in evangelism, try some things in outreach and ministry, and then learn from it. Risk, learn. Risk, debrief. And this is the best process to becoming a better learner, and that's a refining fire of God's love, is you're becoming a little bit less of a people pleaser, a little bit less of loving your own comfort in your holy huddle, and you're becoming more like Jesus.

So you risk, you learn together, you debrief together, and then your discontent's growing, and then that's when God speaks. And that's how God will start shaping you, and then the path will emerge next. Don't try to nail the path the first time. Do some experiments with Christmas. Do some experiments with Easter.

Learn from it, and it's gonna take about a year to do that a little bit better. And then go to my website and think about getting a free 30-minute consultation with me. You click the button on my website. I love coaching. I'll start giving you good ideas immediately. I don't like hold back, you have to hire me first. No, like even today, I'm like, I'm giving you guys all the goods. 

[00:45:27] Jim Jansen: You've dropped a lot of gold in our conversation today. 

[00:45:29] Doug Schaupp: Like, I'm not holding anything back. I'm like, "These are my best ideas. This is what has borne good fruit already. I'm happy to coach you guys in a brainstorm where you might wanna go." The growth ahead is hard. My growth from C.S. Lewis to the five thresholds to becoming somebody who knew how to invite response, that was a rigorous path of growth, and that's how we become more like Jesus. 

[00:45:55] Jim Jansen: You're echoing a John Paul II quote, which is now maybe 30 Years old. He said, "A radical conversion in thinking is necessary for both individuals and communities to become missionary again.

[00:46:09] Doug Schaupp: Exactly. Identify your old mental models. We've all got them. Be self-aware about it, and then say, "Lord, I'm open to some new mental models. Where am I stuck in my thinking?" And then the five thresholds goes from being a tool that you refer to, to being a way of life. It just became part of what you did. That's amazing. And that's what happens once you become good at it, is it just becomes the art of what you do. It's in you.

[00:46:36] Jim Jansen: And all of it is you see Jesus doing it all the time, whether it's, we talked about Thomas, the woman at the well. I know Sherry likes to tell her story with the thresholds as a key to kinda watching the way Jesus interacts. But you see it all the time. Jesus is constantly having threshold conversations with all the characters in the gospel. And if we have the eyes to see it, he's having those conversations with us, and then through us with our friends and neighbors, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:47:07] Doug Schaupp: How'd you know I was talking to Jesus about that this morning? I went on my prayer walk, and Jesus is like, "Doug, you wanna become a little more curious today?" I do, Lord. Yes, I do.

[00:47:15] Jim Jansen: Yeah, you're like, "Right answer, yes?" Oh, Doug, thank you again. Give everybody the website. How do people find you?

[00:47:22] Doug Schaupp: dougschoup.com. Go on over there, prove that you're not a robot or AI. Click on my Ask For A Meeting, and I'll give you the first 30 minutes free joyfully. I love meeting folks who are right in the middle of this. I wanna grow. I'm not sure how." And it's a joy and a delight to be able to come alongside with some folks and help them see some wise ways to take some risks and try some new things.

[00:47:48] Jim Jansen: I love it. Yeah. This is what we do, accompanying the church leaders through that, that difficult process of pastoral conversion. So we will link to dougshallup.com. I don't think if anybody needs the instructions, it's the box that says, "I'm not a robot," and just count how many motorcycles are in the picture or whatever the thing is.

So we'll link to the website. We will link to "I Once Was Lost" and "Breaking the Huddle." Doug, thank you. Thanks for all that you have done. You are not done yet, and I'm looking forward to watching what the Lord continues to do.

[00:48:19] Doug Schaupp: Oh, I got a question for You Jim, at the end. You ready? So I meet Sherry, I meet you, I meet Bobby, I meet Father Brent, and I'm in awe. And so my prayer these days is, "Lord, I want to become better friends with the Catholics. Lord, what does it look like to envision a partnership that flows from these conversations?" 'Cause I bet there is one, but I can't see it yet. So I'm just gonna put that out there as Jim, if you could boss me around and you could say, "Doug, do this, and this," I would like to forge a better friendship and a better partnership with Catholic USA, 'cause you guys are out in the lead, and I want to keep learning what you guys are doing.

[00:49:06] Jim Jansen: That would be awesome. Let's do it. And that's a whole nother-- I think that's part two, right? Like, how do we like, how do we partner together? Because there is something I think, joyful. We talked about this again early on in the conversation, and then before we turned the mics on.

For me as a Catholic, to just to be totally frank, my experience was like my evangelical friends were like, "Oh, wow! You're Catholic, but you love Jesus, and you read the scriptures." And they were so excited. It was like it was a unicorn to them. They were so excited. But then there would sometimes be this moment of sadness where their curiosity would end, and I'm like, "Oh, there is still more about me and my story of faith, and particularly my Catholic heritage, that I would love to share." For a long time, I dismissed it and devalued it, and now that I've rediscovered the power of it, I love to share it, particularly, with my evangelical friends. 

[00:50:00] Doug Schaupp: Let's be buds, Jim. Let's be buds. 

[00:50:02] Jim Jansen: Let's, do it. All right.

[00:50:03] Doug Schaupp: All right. 

[00:50:03] Jim Jansen: And then, maybe when we have that conversation, we'll turn on the mics again.

[00:50:07] Doug Schaupp: Hey, I'm here for it. Thank you.

[00:50:09] Jim Jansen: Awesome. All right, everybody. You know somebody who needs to hear this conversation, so when you are safe, when your hands are free, and you can share this out... first let Jesus show you who you're supposed to share this with. And share it out with a friend and we'll let you know when we have part two coming your way of Doug and I's conversation.

Thanks again, Doug.

[00:50:29] Doug Schaupp: You bet. Have me back. This is fun. Bye, everybody.