[00:00:00] Jim: Hey everybody, welcome to the EquipCast. Alright, I had an amazing conversation with Sherry Waddell. Sherry and I sit down and talk about her book, Forming Intentional Disciples, now 10 years. Celebrating the anniversary of the publishing that book, what she's learned and very specifically about the power of openness and what it does to release grace in your life and the life of others. You're going to love it. Take a listen. 

[00:00:28] Intro Music: Hey everybody. Welcome to the EquipCast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration. To equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.
Sherry Waddell, welcome to the EquipCast. How are you doing today? 

[00:00:56] Sherry Weddell: I am doing very well. Thank you, Jim. It's great to be here. 

[00:01:00] Jim: This is really fun. I've been, you know, I have appreciated your work, um, your books, uh, the work with the Catherine of Siena Institute, Called and Gifted, personally benefited a lot from those.
So, it's a joy to be able to, to talk today. Just as we get started here, I want to give you a chance to maybe some people aren't aware, just to share a little bit about your story and your journey of faith. 

[00:01:23] Sherry Weddell: Wow. Okay. Well, this is the very short version. I come not from a Catholic background at all. I was raised as a anti Catholic fighting fundamentalist in Southern Mississippi, which is the serious kind of fundamentals, not your wussy Northern fundamentalist.

[00:01:38] Jim: Yeah. Professional. You knew, you knew your verses.

[00:01:41] Sherry Weddell: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:01:42] Jim: Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. 

[00:01:43] Sherry Weddell: The long and short of it is that, uh, I had two conversions, one that I went, uh, a childhood conversion, which is really normal in my background, about nine, um, that was real. Um, and I went forward at a, at a revival, you know, and accepted Jesus as my savior, et cetera, and was baptized immediately thereafter.
And that was real. But then when I was a teenager in my late teens, I took a vacation from the church. I wasn't that I didn't believe anymore, but I, I had a lot of struggles with issues regarding women and how seriously they took women, and it was a very narrow world I was living in. I didn't reject God, but I just told God I can't live.
For you anymore. And if I can't, that means I can't, there'll be no foxhole prayers from me because it's not a fit in my mind. Somehow that wasn't authentic and real if I wasn't living for God. So, uh, and so I went on a journey there and then in college as an undergrad, I was traveling around the country doing that thing that you do, you know, seeing the country for the first time.

[00:02:50] Jim: That's awesome. 

[00:02:51] Sherry Weddell: We've had my adult conversion in Manhattan. in New York City at basically the foot of the Empire State Building. Well, I mean, naturally. Of course, of course, with a dead cockroach sitting beside me. But basically, I had talked to God on my way to Quebec and said, you know, it's time for me to deal with this Christianity thing as a sophisticated, mature adult.
You know, I said, Lord, you know, if you're there and you can hear me, and you're interested, I'm open. And that began a 10-day wrestling match as I traveled around the country and that ended up in Manhattan, where I basically said to Jesus, okay, and I knew what that meant. I meant that was, I was now taking up again the life of a disciple.
And then I came back and I, uh, a year later or so I had returned to the University of Washington and, uh, was. you know, looking for a place to pray during the day and Protestant churches were closed, though I didn't really know why. There was this large Gothic Catholic church a few blocks from campus that was kind of cool looking and it was open, though I didn't know why it was open.
And I walked across the threshold. and literally felt a presence of God that I had never experienced before. It's really important to me because I was used to, if you will, practicing God's presence and sort of constantly being aware of that and responding to it. So, when that hit me, that really hit me.
That was God, that God knew that was the way to get my attention. So, I started praying in that particular church. I didn't know anything. It was called blessed sacrament. Did I have a clue what that meant? That's so good. But that was, that was my bridge of trust to the Catholic world. And my friends said, if you don't stop that, you know, you're going to end up being Catholic.
And I said, that's so stupid. Never. But of course, eventually that's what happened. So that was my, became my parish eventually, and that's where we actually founded my, it was my collaboration with the pastor later out of which the Institute began in that. 

[00:04:54] Jim: Wow. I love it. I mean, you just, there's so many things in that.
I kind of want to pursue the cockroach, but I think a better, better area to focus on would be, you were already practicing the presence of God. You know, some of our listeners might be familiar with Brother Lawrence, but I mean, just, it's just as simple. You had already developed a habit of being attuned to his presence.
And so, when you walked in and you felt his presence, you knew something was up. 

[00:05:22] Sherry Weddell: And when I went into Protestant churches, I remember after that experience, I kept thinking, well, this is a really pretty place. But that thing, the thing for which I didn't quite a name that I knew was the presence of God wasn't there.
So, I ended up going back. to pray in this. I thought I was picking up; you know, it was an old church and I figured I was picking up decades of prayer. That's because that changes the spiritual environment. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I didn't. Anyway, I didn't understand, but it was my bridge of trust. It went right past all the anti-Catholic stuff in my head, all my theology would go there, but this.
God knew he had to get me that way. Yeah, I was a very attentive to that. I would not ignore that. 

[00:06:06] Jim: Oh, that is that is so fantastic I mean just I love that like yeah, the Lord knew for the moment he needed to bypass your head and go straight to your heart. 

[00:06:14] Sherry Weddell: My heart and my imagination and my if you will my spiritual life, He had to touch me at that level.
Yeah, and then I did all reading and all the usual stuff, but right. Yeah, that wasn't my primary reason. 

[00:06:27] Jim: Yeah. Your head certainly followed. Because, because now, I mean, fast forwarding a little bit here, I mentioned it earlier, but your book, Forming Intentional Disciples, our Sunday visitor, your publisher, is just about to release a 10th anniversary edition of the book.
It's a little bit, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't want to exaggerate, but that book has had a tremendous impact. I mean, it really, I don't think it's overstating it at all to say that it, it was one of the primary tools that the Lord used to shape the conversation on evangelization in the United States.
I just want to like, maybe fill in the gaps in between the like, you know, Sherry Waddell walks into a, you know, Catholic church named Blessed Sacrament and now, you know, 10 years after the book, the book was formed by your experiences working in parishes. Can you take us back there a little bit and share just a little bit of what you were experiencing and encountering and how that helped create the book? 

[00:07:26] Sherry Weddell: Well, the Catherine Stanley Institute was founded, um, came out of my collaboration with my pastor, my Dominican pastor. And we, from the beginning, we're working at the parish level with a vision for, especially focused on lay people, on ordinary lay folks. But I didn't know hardly anything coming from my background.
Now, Father Michael knew a lot cause he was a cradle Catholic and a Dominican and very sophisticated and all of that. But you know, I was, I knew almost nothing. We started with the called and gifted and part of that is listening to people. We spend an hour listening to people talk about their lived relationship with God and how they've seen God use them as part of the discernment process. And that's where it started to hit me, you know, and we've had like 143, 000 people go through. So, we've listened to tens of thousands of Catholics all over the world, tell us their stories. And over time, I realized that people, some people struggled a lot in discernment. And I, and finally, one day I asked one woman who was struggling, I said, okay, it would help me if you could just briefly describe to me your, like your relationship with God to this point in your life.
The reason I was asking is because typically these gifts of the Holy Spirit emerge in our life after the time when our faith becomes personal, a personal relationship with God. And she turned to me, she says, well, I don't have a personal relationship with God. I'm like, Whoa, whoa, you're like a major leader in your diocese.
You're doing this huge initiative. You're doing this, you're doing that. And I thought, no way, no way you could not be doing that without some spiritual motivation. And I honestly thought I'd accidentally slipped back into Protestant speaking Protestant, you know, they're like two different.
languages. I did it again. I probably slipped into the old lingo. Um, but. I'm going to go back and speak Catholic to her and I'm going to find that relationship with God because I know it has to be there. And I spent the rest of the hour asking her every question I could think of and realized at the end, she was telling me the truth.
And I was the one who wasn't willing to hear it. Wow. Um, and basically, how did she get involved in ministry? Like a lot of people, she'd been raised Catholic. She happened to live a couple of blocks from the parish. She wanted to get involved in the community and do something good. And so, naturally, she said, the Catholic church is right over there.
I'll just, you know, I'm from that background. So, I'll just. get involved. But the relationship with God was not the cause. Yeah. So that was the open door. And after that, we asked every single person who went through the discernment process quickly to tell us their story. And I'm telling you the stuff that rolled out of people's mouths worth Stunning people in leadership at all levels.
And that's really everything else. What became, uh, the book forming intentional disciples, all of our work in evangelization, everything came out of listening to ordinary Catholics. And then it started to be diocesan and parish leaders and priests and all over the world and not just in the U S and that's basically what enabled me to write for intentional disciples.

[00:10:32] Jim: You know, I can't help, but think that you had this. marvelous gift to be an insider outsider. I mean, I love how you said like, Oh, I'm, I must have started speaking Protestant again. Uh, I'll, I'll try and reach re translate and speak Catholic because, because you had an awareness of, of course you were Catholic, but you also had, you could see the church and those in it from fresh eyes because you still had just a little bit of your outsider memory. 

[00:11:03] Sherry Weddell: Not just a little bit.

[00:11:05] Jim: Sure. Yeah. 

[00:11:06] Sherry Weddell: Of an outsider memory. And I knew exactly what it was like to come from zero into the church because it took me years and years and years. to get to learn what a lot of cradle Catholics take for granted and to really get it in my gut and in my heart, my head and integrate it all. So yeah, it was a very long journey.
Now, obviously I can speak like an insider. But I've never forgotten what it means to come from the outside with no, absolutely no background at all. 

[00:11:42] Jim: I mean, I don't think it's a coincidence. You know, often people talk about Scott Hahn and a whole host of others who were either converts or spent significant time away from the church and their primary cultural Christian formation was not Catholic.
That there's a seemingly a beautiful disproportional impact, and I think some of it is, yes, they come in with a freshness and an appreciation of all things, uh, Catholic, and they have to intentionally embrace all of these elements that for many of us, you know, I'm also a credo Catholic. It was just in the water for me.
But there's also this ability to see and name things because you see it with fresh eyes. 

[00:12:26] Sherry Weddell: Yeah, but if I hadn't listened, I mean, the truth is, people who had been raised, born and raised inside the church, um, at all different ages, all different situations in life, that was how I got my primary formation in what it means to grow up Catholic.

[00:12:49] Jim: Could you talk a little bit about the difference between, because I think you've articulated this very well, very helpfully, the difference between kind of an institutional faith and a cultural faith and a personal faith. 

[00:13:05] Sherry Weddell: Right. That is one of the big things is that the majority, even now. Um, as we do, you know, listen to people, uh, the majority, even if practicing Catholics in this country, or at least 50 percent of them anyway, we discovered they don't have a personal relationship with God as such.
They'll tell us these are people engaged in ministry and, or they're, you know, they attend mass regularly. They're engaged in their parishes, and they'll say, well, you know, um, Basically, God, I think of is this distant figure who doesn't love me, who doesn't like me, and they'll talk about what they understood God as a child being raised in the church.
And they were attending Mass every weekend and they got all their sacraments and the whole nine yards. Um, but that part of it was missing. So, they, it was almost like they figured if I relate to the church by being there, being good and obeying the obligations, then I'm sort of the church relates to God for me, but I don't do it directly because that's somehow that's not Catholic.
That's Protestant. That's foreign. You know, um, I'm pretending to be a saint and pretending to be someone special, but there was very much a sense. For a lot of these people, they were called strong cultural Catholics. As one woman said to me, you know, she says like, I've been to 12 years of Catholic school, four years of Catholic college, you know, born and raised higher lives.
But this idea of a personal relationship with God, a lot of people tell me you can't talk like that. That's Protestant. That's not Catholic. We don't do that. Yeah. I mean, I had years of pushback on speaking about personal relationship. Yeah, because it just it hit a lot of cradle Catholics as fundamentally wrong and foreign.

[00:14:52] Jim: Right. It was so contrary to their experience, you know, trace it all the way back with the saints, but especially you look at, you know, John Paul, the second Benedict Francis. Well, I mean, the Pope seems to think a personal relationship with Jesus is possible and something being offered to you. 

[00:15:10] Sherry Weddell: Right, and we could quote all of that.
We quote the Popes, and we quote now just teaching and people would still. Look at me with, you know, like I had seven heads because a gut level, remember their identity was formed at a gut level, not a theological level. They saw people doing at home, in their families, marriages, what they talked about, and this just, they said, listen, I was raised, I really know.

[00:15:38] Jim: Yeah. No, it is so funny. I mean, you would appreciate this. I did this once in a talk where I just, God bless the audience, because I think it was obnoxious. I mean, I probably went like 10 or 15 different quotes from the popes and saints on the necessity of a personal relationship with Jesus. And at the end, God bless us, this wonderful old guy.
Um, and he basically said, he's like, well, so here's the deal. I've been Catholic all my life and I ever heard any of this stuff, but you just read a bunch of quotes from the popes. So, I'm going to have to think about this a little bit. And it was just like, it was the most honest, humble, he kind of spoke for everybody in the room where they're like, wow, I don't know what to do.
I've just having my, look, somebody just moved the goalpost for me. I thought I knew what, what it meant to be a faithful Catholic and you just changed something. I mean, I didn't change it, but... 

[00:16:33] Sherry Weddell: No, exactly. And that's the power of breaking the silence about this. Yes. Yes. God is a personal God who does care about us, who loves us, who is seeking us with, you know, uh, wants to be close to us, wants to be united to us in this relationship of love who is present right now.
You can speak to him right now. You can, you know, open yourself to him right now and talk like that. But people usually have to hear it over and over again, and especially with, it helps to hear it from ordinary Catholics and not, they hear it from a priest or a religious, they say, well, you're supposed to say that, you know, yeah, that you're, you're one of those special people, or if you quote a saint, they say, well, he, they're a saint.
I mean, come on. You know, I'm not... 

[00:17:15] Jim: Right. Yeah. It's amazing how easy it is to dismiss a testimony, which is somewhat, you know, it's like, well, this is a beautiful invitation or like, yeah, but that's not for me. It's like, ah, yikes. Uh, so, okay, Sherry, it's been 10 years. I mean, the book has had tremendous influence.
I mean, you know, bestseller nationally, internationally, 10 years now. What have you learned? 

[00:17:40] Sherry Weddell: Lots. Oh my gosh, we have learned so much. I know. I mean, I should add all the stuff in the new version. I redid all the statistics, and I, you know, I rewrote the 1st and 12th chapter, but the gut of it about the thresholds, the sort of stages people go through in the 21st century, and they make this journey to discipleship.
All that has been absolutely, you know, we found that incredibly useful now. As we did, uh, you know, when I first stumbled into it, um, back in, what, probably 2005. 

[00:18:11] Jim: Yeah. We, we teach it all the time here, you know, in our evangelization training, in parishes, the mentorship program. It just gives people a lens to see.
Oh, it's wonderful. 

[00:18:25] Sherry Weddell: But here's what we learned. And I didn't understand until about five years ago. And again, it was because we were listening to people. I had one woman walk up to me at a conference and she goes, okay, I was raised, you know, Catholic in the church and she went to mass with her family all the time and all this stuff.
But she said, the truth is, um, I believed God didn't love us. Didn't love me. Didn't love my family. Uh, he showed up in my life to punish me when I was bad. But she said, but Jesus was my buddy. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, okay, let's back up here. Let's back up. I'm like, okay, help me understand. It was like this occurring right in front of me.
I said, so let me get it straight. So, God, and it sounds like that was, she meant the father, God, the father was nasty rule enforcer who didn't care about you and only don't sort of, you know, beat you up when you've done something bad. But Jesus was a good guy who somehow was her body, and she could talk to him.
I said, so how does this work? I mean, how can the Father and Jesus be so different, basically, is what I was saying. Yeah. She said, it's because Jesus isn't God. Oh. And I was like... 

[00:19:35] Jim: Not the resolution we're hoping for.

[00:19:42] Sherry Weddell: One of my colleagues, we went out in the road, and we just listened to people and said, tell us your story. Not just five minutes like we do in the interviews, but like a whole hour. Yeah. And we heard over and over again, similar patterns in people. And then there was a huge, this is a Protestant study that came out in about, uh, I think 2020.
They had a series of theological statements, and they asked you if you agreed or disagreed with them. Okay, one of them, this was a national study, Protestants and Catholics and everybody answered it. One of the statements was Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. The reason the study make made national news is because 51 percent of Americans agreed with that statement.
That Jesus was not God. Well, you can, when you go to look at it, you can also break it down by Catholic or Protestant, you know, and whether you're practicing, you attend mass regularly, all that stuff. And the stunning thing was even the majority of practicing Catholics who attend mass every week agreed with that statement.
Oh. Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. There is a huge gap. That's what I didn't heartbreaking. I didn't fully understand. These are practicing people. The, you know, the highest level who were saying this, that's when we began to understand that for many, many, even our engaged people are very engaged at the parish level.
They're good people who want to serve the church. I had one guy walk up to me at this big conference. He said, you know, until I read your book last month, I didn't know it was possible to have a relationship with God. And I'm like, and then told me a story. I said, help me understand. He was seriously practicing family.
You know, they went every Sunday, they were very engaged in the church himself was in full time ministry, forming clergy. And he said, but I didn't know because we never talked about it. I literally didn't know until last month, this man must've been in his fifties. So, something about the conversation, not just in our families, but even among those of us who are very involved at the leadership level, whether it's at the parish or the diocese or whatever you're doing.
And we don't, for whatever reason, don't yet have a, it's not, we're not directly speaking to a living God who cares about us. And so, one of the things we've learned to do, um, that's been so powerful. It's a tool that came out of this. We talk about the prayer of openness. And one of the things we did is help anybody, no matter where you are in your relationship with God.
And you may be one of these people who hardly believes God exists. You think Jesus isn't this God. You may think God is totally impersonal, or maybe there is no God or whatever. But the thing is the church teaches, and, um, actually the, papal theologian the Dominican who's the papal theologian actually has on this topic it's called the act of faith but he talks about the fact that at any moment you and I can tell Jesus I’m open I’m just I trust in you are I’m open to you or please help me See you help me know you are real Lord, you know, and when we do that, he always responds immediately by pouring out his graces immediately upon us.
And you can do that no matter where we are in life at any moment. No matter where we are in our journey. 

[00:23:24] Jim: Yeah, it's not just for people who are like, I'm not quite sure if he's real. It's for those of us who are quite sure that he's real. 

[00:23:31] Sherry Weddell: But we might think he really doesn't like me or all kinds of other blocks that are there.
We say, wherever you are in your journey, it's great place to be right now because that's where God is going to meet you. Yeah. But he has never known anyone not to. And usually, it's important to pray this in your own words. For Catholics, that's a big deal for a lot of people, especially if you're a cradle Catholic.
There's something very powerful about that. So, we suggest you just tell God in your own words and some variation that's real for you. Hi, I'm not sure if you can hear me and I'm not sure if you care, but if you do, hi, I'm here. I'm, I'm open. That was my turning point actually, both in terms of my adult conversion and actually my, one of my openness to the church was I told God I'm open.
Mm-hmm. Without any idea of the significance of what I was doing. I have never known God not to respond powerfully and very personally to anybody who does that. You know, who really means it. Um, I can tell you exactly how you, because it'll, it will be something that means, means something to you. It'll be aimed at you.
It's not a generic response. It's a personal response. 

[00:24:43] Jim: Sherry, I love that. I just want to highlight and underscore that you’re essentially coaching people to do when they come in contact with someone who may have a cultural or institutional experience of the church, but they do not yet have a personal relationship with Jesus is not necessarily to squawk at them or throw papal or saint quotes about, just, just like, just pray in your own words, Lord, if, if you want this, if you're there, if you care, if you hear me, I'm open to a personal relationship with you.
And what you're doing is you're saying like, all right, Jesus, I'm betting on you to show up. And he does every time. Maybe not the ways we expect or the way the person who's praying expects, but he shows up every time. 

[00:25:33] Sherry Weddell: He shows up. I remember thinking, well, now the ball's in God's court when I did it the first time.
And it's funny when I tell that story, people all over the world have said, I prayed that prayer in really unexpected circumstances. One classic story was so out of the box. In another country, a guy who was raised in a completely nontheistic, non-God, uh, in a religious, Asian religious tradition that has no personal God.
Okay. Yeah. And yet nobody practiced. Nobody talked about prayer. There were no contact with Christianity of any kind. He said, I started praying that when I was eight years old. Now, how did he figure this out? Obviously, the Holy Spirit had inspired him some to think of this and to respond to it. He said, I prayed it for 12 years before I was baptized.
Now he is one of the foremost lay leaders in the church, the Catholic church, but lots of us have prayed that we thought nobody else had done it. It was our own little secret. It was this really weird like God responded and it turns out it's a lot more common than we know. Yeah. You can do it now. You can do it any time of the day or night in any circumstance.
And I pray prayers like that now, try to do it throughout the day because I want to be open now to what God is doing and the graces I need now. And, um, the inspirations he's sending me. So, I hear and respond to them, cooperate with them. It's just part of practicing the presence of God for me. Yeah, 

[00:27:04] Jim: Sherry, that's so beautiful. What, what else have you learned? 

[00:27:07] Sherry Weddell: One of the most crucial things in terms of evangelization, if you're care about your family or your friends, or you're working in a parish setting or whatever you're doing, um, is that helping, especially people who are raised in the church and have never experienced been, been outside of it.
Like they haven't dipped into the evangelical world, or they'll come from background like I did. Helping people move when you pray that prayer of openness, it moves you through into a new sort of, um, stage of spiritual development that we call openness. And after that, everything else sort of takes off in your spiritual life, and that's the stage at which now we can talk to them about Jesus and his story and all that he is.
Came and did for them. And what are they going to do about his call to follow them? It's going to make sense because the foundation of a personal loving God of love is there. And now you can say, and Jesus said he was God and he, you know, and this was the father, et cetera. And now they have some place to put that people move much, much faster.
Most in our experience at this point. The vast majority of Catholics, even those engaged in the church, you know, involved in the parish and that kind of thing, have not yet reached that level of spiritual development. There's still, faith is primarily institutional or cultural, which is not bad, which is a good thing, but it's not a place to stay forever.

[00:28:37] Jim: Right, right. There's so much joy on the other side when you let him love you personally. 

[00:28:45] Sherry Weddell: Yeah, yeah, it opens up your whole life to his power and out of that it's after that point that these gifts, the charisms we help people discern start to manifest and all that stuff. So it has huge implications for our lives as individuals, for our lives in our families, for our parishes, because it's also true at a communal level, not just an individual level, the average spiritual climate of a typical diocesan parish in the English speaking world is Way back in the earliest thresholds of development, when an individual moves into openness or a whole parish community starts to move into openness, that's when we see thing God, God do stuff that's just stunning. And everything else we do in ministry, our preaching, our prayer, our, all of our works of ministry, our catechesis, our CIA, you name it, anything we're doing at parish or diocesan level becomes a thousand times more fruitful because people basically, we can tell them, we can, you know, lay out all the church's teaching and as clearly as we can.
And the truth is, we all take it in based on our spiritual experience to that point. And people literally filter out most of it. They can't take it in because they don't have a place to stick it in their experience yet. But that begins to change people who move out of early interest and curiosity and into that stage or that threshold of care of openness.
Now they'll be able to take in a lot more. They'll hear it. It'll start to connect for the first time for them. They get excited. They want more. Now you can articulate sort of the, the great story of Jesus and they'll be going, wow. Now it becomes real. Now it becomes. personal vow that they could become start to wrestle with, okay, what am I going to do about this?
How do I respond to Jesus? Am I going to answer his call to follow him in the midst of his church or not? And that is right now, the big pastor is most of our people are back in very early stages. That means literally they can't take in roughly 90 percent of what the church is trying to articulate to Yeah, they just Throw it out.
Not, it's not bad willed. It's not because they're, you know, saying no way. Well, some of them are, but you know, it's not just that it's, there's just no place to put it. 

[00:31:23] Jim: Right. But we presume sometimes that there's bad will and then we get grumpy when in fact, it's like, if we can just help them move to a place of openness, their ability to receive dramatically increases.

[00:31:36] Sherry Weddell: It dramatically increases. And the whole culture of the parish changes, and people are able to move spiritually much faster. Because the culture of the whole parish supports spiritual movement, instead of artificially suppressing it. This all hinges 

[00:31:53] Jim: on intentional invitations. To be open, to, to be open to let the Lord encounter you.

[00:32:03] Sherry Weddell: Exactly. Our, our personal response, free response to whatever, um, inspiration or graces God is giving us right now. There's major turning points in this process, but moving into openness is a tough thing to do in the culture. It makes you feel like you're out of control because you no longer feel like, yeah, you have only opening the door like 1%.
But who knows if God walked through that door, what would happen? Like I'm out of control here at some level. But it's a huge, crucial turning point. And we have actually restructured everything we do with this in mind now. And at every level, we're trying to help people make the journey from the very early thresholds, maybe trust, because if not a trust, you won't walk through the door, you don't have trust in place, but you might get just stuck there and never move on.
And the problem is if we can help them enter into this. Sort of very personal, live relationship with God and declare themselves open. It just opens the door to everything else. 

[00:33:09] Jim: Yeah. Sherry, you mentioned this, you know, that there are places where not just individuals, but a whole community, you know, a collection of individuals begins to take on a character of openness.
Where have you seen that happen? And what are the common ingredients? 

[00:33:29] Sherry Weddell: Uh, well, we've seen it happen in parishes. We know, um, diocese. I'm not going to name names, but who are on that journey and very dramatic ways. Um, we know we've seen it happen in small groups, small communities. Usually, two things need to happen to get us there.
One is serious intercessory prayer for the, um, sort of spiritual, uh, renewal of the parish and especially this openness so that the presence of God is recognized, welcomed intentionally by individuals, by Communities by networks of people. So, we want to pray for, you know, the breaking of any sort of spiritual, uh, norms or bondages that repress spiritual growth and conversion.
Okay. They keep people stuck in those very early stages. Yeah. And the other thing that is because we need to break the silence about relationship with God, about relationship with Jesus, about his presence, about his love, his great story, all that he's accomplished. We need to hear stories from other people like ourselves that they have living relationships with God and what that was like and what that journey was like.
Because eventually you hear enough of that and you start to think, well. He's not so special. I don't know. She's not so, you know, I don't think she's a saint, you know, with God. That means maybe I can have a relationship with God. It starts, um, looking normal and not weird and not anti-Catholic and not foreign.
And what's interesting when we start talking, breaking the silence about that in our own lives, in our families, in our parishes, in our communities, in our circle of friends. People start to go, Oh, well, I'd like that. I didn't even know that was an option. Yeah. 

[00:35:26] Jim: Well, and there's a tipping point, you know, I think about, not a theologian, uh, you know, the work of like Malcolm Gladwell and others that, that talk about, you know, sociologists have kind of identified if you get 20 percent of a culture.
You know, or of a community pointed in direction. They tend to dominate the, the culture and it's not as hard as, you know, uh, a leader might think to shift the culture. So now it is suddenly safe to be open or to talk about Jesus. 

[00:35:59] Sherry Weddell: In a typical parish, even when the leadership is very intentional about all this, it's a gradual process.
I mean, different individuals will respond at different levels and with different speed. But if we're talking cultural change, think about every time an individual moves spiritually into a whole new stage like this, they send ripples out into the larger culture. Their reactions change. The questions they ask are different.
But over time, you have a lot of people doing that. The culture itself begins to support it. But it takes usually a minimum of five or six years where a typical, I'm just talking about an ordinary diocesan parish. We've worked with at least a thousand parishes now directly, personally all over the world.
Yeah. That's a good sample size. It's a decent. Yeah. Well, it's pretty minimal compared to the number in the world, but... 

[00:36:49] Jim: But you see patterns at that level. 

[00:36:52] Sherry Weddell: If you've done enough work with enough people. We've seen patterns and we've worked with a lot of parish leaders and pastors. And so, you start to see people start moving beyond openness and that that opens up to do charismatics.
I mean, sort of where you're telling Jesus stories evangelization retreats and various processes. People go through different things retreats and all and people move much faster. And they it's much easier for them to come to a point, they begin to wrestle with. I believe Jesus is God and I, I hear him calling me and he, but he's calling me to this transformation and my open to that.
What am I going to do about that? And so, more and more people are able to move, you know, into discipleship into actual conscious discipleship. And the fruit of everything you do is multiplied many times, and it doesn't happen overnight. So even, even, uh, with people who really know what they're doing these days, when I ask people, they say they get it.
I need to focus on helping the community as a whole, break the silence, lots of intercessory prayer for, to make that, uh, for God's grace to be felt and evidence sort of breakthrough and whatever, suppressing that to be broken and those things together. done sort of consistently over time, uh, then you start to see lots of people moving, um, and then the whole culture begins to shift.

[00:38:25] Jim: Yeah. It's interesting. You're, you're saying there's a growing awareness that that level of cultural change, how moving the community to a place of openness, um, intentionally. praying for that gift, that the Lord would remove any barriers, you're saying there's a, there's a growing awareness on leaders’ part that that's, that's where they need to begin.

[00:38:48] Sherry Weddell: Well, yes, these days we tell people are very explicitly, we say, this is where this first stage, this is where, and we, everything we do is intended to help facilitate that. Okay. For individuals and for the community at large. But yeah, um, a leader has to understand that. And, uh, and so it's very exciting. I mean, to see the transitions.

[00:39:10] Jim: Yeah, because it is happening. Sharon, I want to go back, just at the personal level. I'm thinking about those who are listening who are like, Oh, I wish that would happen in my parish, but they feel kind of lonely. You know, maybe they're hiding their gifts. They took the charism assessment, um, there, you know, I mean, we haven't really talked about charisms yet, but let's say, you know, they, they've done that.
They know their gifts, they have a desire, but their family culture, their parish culture. The ministry that they're trying to serve in, it doesn't feel safe. They're still kind of hiding. What would you say to them? 

[00:39:47] Sherry Weddell: Well, I would say, A, most of us have been there, and I certainly have. You're not alone by any means, I would say, basically, one of the places to do instead of, especially if you're just a Catholics, you know, in the pew, maybe you're leading ministries of some kind, but you don't have a lot of decision making, you know, power at that point, for whatever reason, I would start.
interceding for the community myself. There's probably other people. Here's the deal. When cultures, the parish culture starts to change. What happens is we discover we have a number of disciples who were in hiding inside the community because they were too intimidated to come out. A woman told me, she said, I felt I was betraying my Catholic faith by being a disciple.
And so, they, they go silent inside the community instead of sharing their experience because people don't understand they will come out of hiding. One of my friends, it's like they come out of the shadows. And so, I would say, look for ways, um, to break the silence, even in small ways, maybe in a mid-course of a ministry.
Um, if you're involved in our CIA, if you're involved in youth ministry, if you are involved in any kind of evangelization retreat or whatever, um, if you're, I dunno, alpha or Catholic Christian outreach or discovering Christ or any number of the retreats that are out there that are intended to help people make this journey.
And there's two things you can do. One, you can earn the right to ask somebody around you, tell them, I would love to hear your live the story of your relationship with God or your experience of God to this point in your life. People have normally never been asked. Catholics have never been asked and nobody ever listened not to fix them, not to correct them.
Not to catechize them or judge them or any of that stuff, but just to understand where they've been, how they've understood God in their life, what they've experienced and where they are now. And we've seen people move spiritually just by telling their stories to somebody who really listened. 

[00:42:03] Jim: Yeah, I used to do that all the time with the hard cases, you know, I served as a focused missionary on campus and I mean I knew the talking points and the arguments for atheists But I felt like I always got way further when I just said hey, what's your story?
And those are with hostile people? No, no less just the, your average, non-hostile parishioner. Like I, I obviously care at some level. I trust at some level 'cause I'm still here, so... 

[00:42:31] Sherry Weddell: I trust you may be surprised what comes out when they start talking real and they feel safe. 

[00:42:34] Jim: Well, well, sure. You're right.
You're right. But at least there's something there. 'cause they're still a part of the community. 

[00:42:41] Sherry Weddell: Yeah. So, what, wherever they are. You have to have a bridge of trust in place or they're not going to answer that and then you just invite them if they refuse. That's fine. You know, um, you say, okay, go back to building trust again, you know, being their friend, et cetera.
Maybe I can get it. We can talk about this again at some point. But our experience is we've seen people move through whole. Thresholds or stages of spiritual development just by telling someone their story to someone. We know also that studies indicate that if they have one, if somebody, even somebody who is a nonbeliever, who just really isn't Christian is hostile, et cetera.
If they have one good experience of somebody hearing their story and listening to them, taking them seriously. Trying to understand, not judging them ever. No judgment and letting them control the conversation and come to their own conclusion. We're not controlling them. It opens them up. If they have a positive experience like that, it opens them up to more conversations down the road.
Even if you only meet them once and you only have one conversation with them. You are a link in a change. You are opening them up to have more of these conversations for this, to become more real. It lowers people's defenses. It raises their trust, et cetera. So, on so many levels, it's a huge thing. So, we've incorporated now into all of our guest’s discernment.
Everybody who goes through the called and gifted, we give them a chance to tell their story. 

[00:44:13] Jim: You know, we're professionals, we're nerds, this is our, our job. But this is so not a professional grade thing. Just like, hey, I, I've earned your trust as a friend, just, you know, simple kindness. Hey, what's your story?
What's your lived relationship with God? That's just not rocket science. 

[00:44:35] Sherry Weddell: No, or you could, you could change the wording depending on what you think they'll be comfortable with. You could say, you know, I, I was just, I kind of wonder, you know, I've heard you say a few things and I kind of wondered what your experience of God has been like, or what you think about, you know, whatever seems to be appropriate for them.
Um, and it's stunning, you know, and most people don't even know what they think cause they've never had a chance to put it into words before. So, they're as surprised as you are, many times. 

[00:45:03] Jim: Yeah, so this is so freeing. And, I mean, I mean, they're going back, they're re-experiencing the graces of these moments that they're retelling, and, oh, this is, this is great.
Sherry, I want to give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about your day job, because, so we've dropped the charism word, we talked a little bit about the, uh, the called and gifted inventory. Tell a little bit about what that is, because that's, that's one of these ingredients, I think, both for individuals and for communities, where that just sparks and releases something very powerful for us as individuals, as communities of faith.
Talk a little bit about the charisms and the called and gifted inventory. 

[00:45:49] Sherry Weddell: Well, it's not the inventory. It's a discernment process. I need to make sure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The inventory is just one small piece of it and it's not by itself. So that's really important because I know a lot of people think they just go online and answer a few questions and they know what their charisms are and no, it's not how it works.

[00:46:06] Jim: Right. It is a communal thing. Yeah. I can testify to that. 

[00:46:09] Sherry Weddell: What's to happen inside the Christian community and be supported by the, you know, all that stuff. But what it is, it's a process to help Catholics. I was asked to do this as a volunteer, as a new Catholic. You know, it's one of those places in life. I thought, well, I don't know anything about this, but it sounds like fun.
So sure, why not? I could, I'll play with it. So, I spent the summer, you know, working on it and offered it as a volunteer for 20 people, um, in a parish. And, uh, they liked it so much that anyway, they took off from there. That was the beginning. Basically, what we do is there's three parts to it. There's a, now there's a whole, there's a one-day workshop where we can do it in small groups, you know, in breakup sessions and all.
There's an initial workshop where we sort of talk, explain what the church is teaching on charisms and our experiences. And we tell stories of. You know, Catholic stories and saints’ stories and all sorts of things of people experiencing these gifts. 

[00:47:07] Jim: Can you give, yeah, like the cliff notes of that? Because I know what you're talking about, and I know there's a whole workshop on it, but like, what's a charism?

[00:47:14] Sherry Weddell: We receive these gifts at baptism when we receive the Holy Spirit. They come with it, okay? These are ways that you and I have been empowered by God to be an instrument of his love and his beauty and his mercy and his healing and his provision for other people. They're gifts we're given to give away to others through which God is going to do amazing things in those, that person's life.
So, we don't own them. They don't belong to us. It's not our power. This is the Holy Spirit passing through us with our cooperation and our yes and giving something to somebody else that is beyond our human ability. Okay, so this is not us at work, but we have been empowered by God. We got those at baptism.
They don't typically. Show up or manifest in your life until the point when your faith becomes personal. 

[00:48:06] Jim: Mmm, ding, ding, ding, ding. Wait, I heard that somewhere. 

[00:48:09] Sherry Weddell: Because these charisms come right out of your lived relationship with God. And that's why people struggle if they don't have one in the discernment process.
But after people go through spiritual awakenings or conversions, then we hear these stories that you know, I went to that retreat like two years ago and then this thing showed up in my life and what is this thing, you know, and that's very kind of classic stories of charisms emerging in their life. Most of us have more than one.
Now the really important thing about them, um, very, very quickly. There are three basic signs of a charism. One is your experience at the moment you're using a charism, you're exercising it. Um, it feels it's energizing. It's joyful. It's, you know, gives you a sense of the presence of God, all these wonderful things for you.
Now it's interesting. We can't. Give away the charisma to get that good stuff. That's indirect. That comes with us when we're obedient to the call that comes with the gift. Yeah. But when we do it, we find that we get some wonderful things too. But what happens most importantly, is it's a gift to give away, not a gift to keep.
So, this is different than you. The sanctifying graces that we had to memorize in sacramental prep that are gifts for us to keep for the sake of our relationship with God. But these are gifts for us to give away. And through them, God does astonishing things because he is at work. This, he does things through these charisms that are above our human ability, our background, our natural talents, our skills, whatever we've learned in life.
Those are great things. But the impact of a charism raises them to a whole nother level. 

[00:49:55] Jim: Yeah. It's supernatural. I mean, you can see it. I mean, like, like the word, it is beyond natural. It is supernatural. 

[00:50:03] Sherry Weddell: There are ways we are supernaturally empowered by God for the sake of others. And so, it's really important that we discern because literally there is someone out there who is waiting for what you have been given to give.
And it matters. I mean, literally their life hangs in the balance in some real way. And you and I don't know who they are necessarily. We may not have met them yet. They may not even have been born yet, but in God's plan, in God's providence, you are the one who's been gifted and prepared for that person or that family or that network of friends or that community or that job or that, you name it, that moment, that encounter.
You have been prepared and it matters that you ask. And this is part of what we help people enter into that relationship with God and then encounter Jesus and begin to follow him as his disciple in the midst of his church. These gifts manifest and they just start popping and with this charism comes a personal call.
So, you know. It really matters that you and I discern. It really matters that we say yes to this. 

[00:51:18] Jim: And when you do, there's, there's joy. I mean, you didn't say this, but I was like a non-theological word. Using your charism is fun and God starts to do stuff. It's wonderful. Yeah. 

[00:51:29] Sherry Weddell: And it makes your faith grow.
When you see God going like, Whoa, okay, this is all really real. This is real stuff. God is really here. God really loves us. God is really at work. And they're major clues as to God's call. Larger called his vocation in your life. These are gifts are, are like clues to your vocation and their supernatural tools given to you to answer God's call.
Um, so there's all kinds of ramifications. They feel all of them are evangelizing in their own right because they make the love of God present. in real powerful ways and wakes people up spiritually to see that, um, and all the charisms are healing in their own way. Yes. Yeah. And so, it's crucial to everything God wants to do in the world.
He wants to do in the church, in our own lives and the people around us. So this is a part of what is at stake in our failure to make disciples because Roughly, it is my, this is just Sherry talking, there's no studies on this, but my best guess is that only about 2 percent of all the charisms we are given are being manifested because we are not making disciples of our own.
We're not calling them to that personally with God, and we're not calling them to move, you know, to walk with Jesus and ultimately, you know, say, I will follow you, Lord. And out of that comes all this other stuff. 

[00:53:02] Jim: Right. Because the gifts don't show up unless this personal relationship is, we've let ourselves be open to the Lord's leading and guiding.

[00:53:12] Sherry Weddell: But once we do, then all this stuff starts to happen, and in ways that, you know, just blow us away. We don't. I mean, some of the, some of the gifts are very, very unexpected to the person who receives them. There's nothing obvious about it. I call it the most fun you can have legally actually is to help people, you know, help them discern charisms.

[00:53:32] Jim: Yeah. I want to ask about like the, the illegal fund you've had, but maybe that's, we'll save that for another conversation. Ah, Sherry, thank you. This has been wonderful. I want to do two things. First off, just while we're on charisms, where do people go to find out more about your work? 

[00:53:48] Sherry Weddell: Um, basically the Catherine of Siena Institute, you can go online.
Our address is really simple. It's just Siena, S I E N A dot O R G. So, Siena. org. Or Catherine of Siena. And then you'll see a big thing about called and gifted, you know, and you can actually go through the workshop online. It's streamed in English and Spanish. Yeah. I've heard that. That's fantastic. And, but we also have still had lots of live workshops that we train people all over the world to facilitate discernment.
So that's available. Everything else called and gifted and forming intentional disciples and all of our work and evangelization. You can see what we're doing and what events we've got going. We've got called and gifted events going on all over and that you can go to our calendar there, or you can just do it online yourself.
You don't want to wait. You can just, you know, begin your own process. Take the inventory online, the whole nine yards. And it's sienna. org. Sienna. org. Catherine DeSiena Institute. And the other thing you might be interested in, we have a very large, very active Facebook group called the Forming Intentional Disciples Forum.
And all we do is talk about evangelization and making disciples in the 21st century. And we have people from all over the world, we have over 12, 000 members from all over the world. And this is what we talk about 24 seven. But if you're on Facebook and you're interested, just do a search for the Forming Intentional Disciples Forum.
And click on it and say, I want to join. And one of our administrators will, um, and the two. 

[00:55:16] Jim: That's fantastic. Here in Omaha, we've partnered with the Catherine and Sienna Institute to help make this process accessible to our parishes. So, we've had a number of parishes that have trained facilitators and it's been such a blessing.

[00:55:30] Sherry Weddell: I think you've had, um, five such groups holding called and gifted just this year alone. 

[00:55:36] Jim: Yeah, it's been fantastic. Okay, last thing, just maybe kind of back full circle here. What would you say to someone who's listening? And they're like, Oh, all of this sounds great. I want to live more intentionally as a disciple.
I want to discover my charisms. I want my, my parish to be a community like this. We've talked about a lot, like where do they begin? What's the first step? 

[00:56:00] Sherry Weddell: Honestly, the first step is I would just say exactly that to God. I would say I'm open. I, I want all of this. I don't know how to, I don't know what the next step is.
I don't know how to get it right now, but I am here and I'm opening myself and just, you know, send me whatever I need. The people, the awareness, the resources, the graces, I'm open. Okay, because he will respond to that. Okay, um, the second thing I would recommend, honestly, go to our website, you know, because we've got a lot of information about this.
One of the first things I would recommend, honestly, is get a copy of Forming Intentional Disciples, the book, by yourself or read it with friends. It's great to talk about together. It, like, opens up all of this in detail that, like, we couldn't possibly cover here, the journey through those stages. 

[00:56:54] Jim: ...of the thresholds, all of it.
I mean, the first chapter alone is one of my favorites. I know, it's like, I usually have to coach people. It's like, hang in there. It's going to be hard but hang in there. It's worth it. So. Yeah, it's such a good experience. 

[00:57:07] Sherry Weddell: God has no grandchildren. Yes. That's the chapter, the title. Yes. What happens is that it will expose you in more depth to all of this.
And it's great to do in little, small groups. Um, and then, you know, and then talk about what do you see together? Maybe what your next steps might look like in light of that. Um, feel free to contact us. Just send an email to info at sienna. org. Um, just info at S I E N a dot O R G. And one of our staff can, you know, get in contact with you and talk you through some of this.
We offer, um, making disciples seminars, you know, training, formal training, all this for people who are, you know, really involved in their parishes or for leaders. You know, there's called and gifted, which would be a great next step, um, for you. In your process, um, join the forum where you can ask any question you want and will you get answers from all kinds of people with all the different experiences and everything.
And of course, I'm on there and so is some of our staff. So, we'll be responding to you as well. 

[00:58:11] Jim: Sherry, thank you for our conversation for really for all the, the work that you've done. I know. It's fun to hear the stories, I'm glad we get to talk a little bit about the genesis of some of these things, because it's just a simple, uh, obedience, and maybe even beyond that, just before that, just, just an openness.
Okay, Lord. Thank you for, for being with 

[00:58:32] Sherry Weddell: us. Well, it's great. It's great to have a chance to talk about all this. And, uh, I've worked in Omaha a number of times I've been there, and I know that God is doing great things in Omaha. And so, it's very exciting to at least have a small part, you know, in sort of encouraging and fostering all that God is doing there.

[00:58:51] Jim: Amen. All right, everybody, you know somebody who needs to hear this conversation, somebody that you're going to take to lunch and you're going to ask to hear their story, uh, someone you're going to invite to open this. So, stop the car, put the dog on, on the leash, make sure you got a moment and then share this out with a friend.
Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to the EquipCast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip. ArchOmaha. org. God bless and see you next time.