Building Trust, Asking Better Questions & Creating Belonging | Magnified Ministries Podcast

Wow, that's great.

Wow.

You know, something that Mark and I talk about quite a lot is I remember, you know, I started a seminar in 2000 as well and then moved here in three and was already in 2008.

And I vividly remember sitting then once I was in business school at Kellogg thinking in our growth strategy class, thinking I'm the only probably person in this class who will spend the rest of my life managing decline versus growing organization because all of you, my classmates, you are in companies that send you here to continue the growth.

But my experience of the church through my priesthood was always the decline.

It was always less, less, less, less of everything.

and then all of a sudden the last few years post covet we've started seeing that in the states and pre-covered in in western europe is this new awakening among gen z's and i think that's that's a radically different experience that we had before covet and it calls for different response like even the mindset that we can be a growing church versus declining church Where is that at Notre Dame? How do you see it both in your ministry at Notre Dame and then just in the last 10 years as you look at campus ministry?

First of all, I love that insight that you had at Kellogg, because I was never able to articulate it, but I certainly felt it, that I'm going to preside over this period of time in which we've got to beg and plead and cajole people.

But now we find ourselves in this space in which there's a reawakening.

And to me, and I mentioned the clergy abuse crisis a moment ago, and I want to come back to it.

One, because I think it's important for the Church to look at that wound from time to time, but also because I think it actually can be quite instructive.

We do find ourselves now in a moment in which people are coming back to the Church in a meaningful way, and they're asking deep questions, and they're entrusting the Church with the questions that they possess.

But if we look back on the mistakes that occurred there, I think the Church in many respects got focused on building churches, and Father knows best, and the institution reigns supreme.

So we have a moment here in which we're beginning to see this resurgence.

And so what can we learn? We can't lead with churches we can't lead with institutions we have to lead with the humility that only jesus embodies and so the work that we do from this point forward has to be as disciples of the lord we have to remain focused on that we have to continue to come back to that and continue to ask ourselves as we enter into this next space this new environment lord where are you leading us where are you inviting us what are you what are you calling of us in this precise moment And so to me, that's the opportunity here.

Um, certainly we could talk about programs and initiatives and all that type of thing, but I actually think the invitation is how can we be more focused on Christ? How can we continue to speak about our reason for why we do it and point other people in the same way that John the Baptist did so that, um, The Lord may increase and we may decrease.