Mingo Palacios:

Welcome to the Purpose Driven Church Podcast where we sit down with leaders in and around the church to discuss current trends and challenges and how the five purposes of the local church matter today, more than ever.

Mingo Palacios:

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Purpose Driven Podcast. Mingo here, your host, and today as we wrap up a phenomenal 24 hour blitz on several leaders, getting a chance to connect with one another and share some best practice and get a vision for future ministry. In studio today I’ve got some awesome guests. This is the first time I will have ever interviewed the leadership of a Catholic Church, which I am just so stoked. I’m on like I’m elated to think that we can partner up in a way that can deliver even wider applied principles in more circles. Father Tim, you’ve done such an amazing job entering our space. You were at the pastor’s prayer breakfast for Easter and I just love how you shared so convicting-ly from the heart. It was something that stood out to me. I’m sure a bunch of people were like, “Whoa, that guy. I want to hear more from that guy.” And so we’re lucky today we get both you and Stacey in studio to talk about what it means to lead inside of the local church today with what the Lord has given you guys, leadership, directorship in pastoral shepherding responsibilities over, and what tools you guys are bringing to the table. Would you guys do me a favor? Welcome yourselves to the listening audience on my end. Introduce yourself. How long have you been in ministry for and what you serve or how you serve in your local area.

Stacey:

Go ahead.

Father Tim:

Father Tim Raemakers. I’m the pastor of Corpus Christi in Aliso Viejo. Corpus Christi means body of Christ. And think of St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the first letter, chapter 12, where he explains the body of Christ. And when I think of Purpose Driven Church, I think of body of Christ. And it’s a real blessing to be a priest and a pastor. I’ve been a priest for 36 years, a pastor for 21 years. Corpus Christi is my second assignment as a pastor. And I have been there for six years.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s awesome. And Stacey, introduce yourself to our wonderful community.

Stacey:

My name is Stacey Settlemayer and I am the director of stewardship at Corpus Christi Catholic Church. And I have been in ministry for about 20 years. Excuse me, about 20 years. And I’ve been serving Father Tim for approximately five and a half years at Corpus Christi.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s so great. First of all, let me say thank you for your willingness and commitment to lead inside the local church. It’s a model for kids my age to see people who not just commit to serve, but to serve for a season is so impressionable and I’m sure over time there have been some wild lessons learned that we were just talking about. Like the book of failures, right?

Stacey:

The how not to chapters.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. The how not to chapters. Would you guys do me a favor? How have we somehow ended up together? Pastor, Father Tim, how did you kind of get thrown in with all the PD guys? How did that journey begin?

Father Tim:

Well, I think that journey goes all the way back to my great grandfather who was a Methodist minister. Unfortunately, well on one hand, he entered into the Kingdom of God in 1921. Died of the Spanish influenza, but be that as it may, he planted three churches in Arizona. And so ministry is in our blood. So when I grew up mom obviously was Methodist, my father a Roman Catholic. And when I came around about five years into the marriage, mom became a Catholic. But growing up we went both to the Catholic Church and the Methodist Church. So from the get go there was that kind of an ecumenical spirit in our household and a respect for all Christian denomination. So I just grew up with an openness. And then in 1971, I made a commitment to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And that was basically through Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, which used to be right by Disneyland. And then it was shortly after that that I made a personal commitment to live out my faith in the Roman Catholic tradition. But I, from the get go, have always been open to a various expressions and traditions and so on and so forth. And so, I think in many ways God was just preparing my heart for this season of life.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Stacey, how did you come into a position in ministry?

Stacey:

In my for-profit life, I was working at Disney Theme Park Operations. Yeah. And was not Catholic at the time. There was something missing in my life and things were just not going really well. And my husband is a Catholic, a cradle Catholic. All of my children were going through Catholic school and yet I, myself was not Catholic. So after many years of self exploration and just really praying and thinking about it, I finally did become Catholic. And I realized at that point that I needed to go into ministry. I was being called into ministry.

Mingo Palacios:

That you’d been built for it.

Stacey:

I was wired. I was looking for something more and although I loved my job at Disney, it wasn’t it.

Mingo Palacios:

It didn’t fill the void.

Stacey:

It didn’t fill that void and I thought it would.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah that’s good.

Stacey:

And I was very confused all of those years because I kept thinking that my goal was to get to Disney and I got there and all that, but it just wasn’t working. So I became Catholic and realized, “I need to go into ministry.” I was a baby Catholic. I had no idea what I was doing. I was hired on as a volunteer youth ministry coordinator and started in youth ministry, stayed there and then realized that there was just so much more that needed to be happening at our church and found the Purpose Driven Church book and I read it. I had no idea who Rick Warren was.

Mingo Palacios:

[laughing]

Stacey:

I had no idea that he was literally down the road from us.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes. Yes.

Stacey:

And so I read the book, caught on fire, wrapped on Father Tim’s door and said to him, “You need to read this book.” And he took the book and he put it on his bookshelf.

Mingo Palacios:

As all good leaders would do.

Stacey:

As all good leaders do. [laughing]

Mingo Palacios:

I see you’re just squirming under the accounts of how we arrived here, which is so funny. For any leader who’s in charge of ministry, books come by the dozen.

Stacey:

Yes.

Father Tim:

Absolutely.

Stacey:

Yes.

Mingo Palacios:

Hoping to make their way to your eyeballs in a way that would get you to maybe engage with what it has to say. So, by God’s providence and grace, you eventually pop the book open? Or does Stacey just bug you so much that you’re now accountable to it?

Father Tim:

Well, I think she gave up. That’s what I think what happened. But to make a long story short, I was transferred out of St Joseph and given Corpus Christi. And so when I was clearing my bookshelf, I had boxes of books to go to the local library.

Mingo Palacios:

Donations.

Stacey:

Yes.

Father Tim:

In fact, Purpose Driven Church was one of those books.

Stacey:

That’s right.

Mingo Palacios:

The deepest level of confessions happening right now. I love it.

New Speaker:

[laughing]

Father Tim:

That was that, you know. So then what happened was, there’s a parish from the Baltimore area.

Mingo Palacios:

Okay.

Father Tim:

They wrote a book titled Rebuilt.

Mingo Palacios:

I’ve seen this book.

Stacey:

Yes.

Father Tim:

What they did is they took like the best business practices of Purpose Driven Church that they themselves had come out to Saddleback Church.

Mingo Palacios:

And they contextualized for the local Catholic church.

Father Tim:

Right. So I’m reading this and I’m going, “Wow.”

Mingo Palacios:

Somebody said it.

Father Tim:

There’s some clarity. I have some direction here. And it was really supported by key players in our church.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s huge.

Father Tim:

Yeah, that was really huge. And then in our diocese, a diocese is a geographical boundary governed by a-

Mingo Palacios:

Thank you. For the dummies in the room. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Father Tim:

I try to dumb things down.

Mingo Palacios:

You hit me right where I am. I’m like, “Ok. Ok.”

Stacey:

[laughing]

Father Tim:

But I always say to people, “Dumb things down for me.”

Mingo Palacios:

Good. We’re in good company.

Stacey:

Exactly.

Father Tim:

So, the Diocese of Orange, which is in Orange County, there’s 62 churches, 62 parishes. So our bishop had the Rebuilt people come out and give a workshop for the priests in the Diocese of Orange. So now I’m beginning to think Purpose Driven. Here’s a Catholic Church that has adapted the Purpose Driven Church model to their parish community. So, there was no book to pull off the shelf because it had already found its way to the library.

Mingo Palacios:

Get that back!

Father Tim:

Exactly. So I went and purchased Purpose Driven and started to read it. And then the following year, I’ll tell you the exact date. It was January 28, 2015 Pastor Rick spoke to the Priest of the Diocese of Orange. And I was on fire from that moment on, I think of the two disciples post resurrection on the way to Emmaus talking about the recent events, trying to put it together. And then Jesus joins them on the walk. Then He’s later recognized in the breaking of the bread. And then they said, “Were not our hearts on fire when He spoke to us?” And it was like when Pastor Rick was speaking about the Purpose Driven model. I mean my heart just burned and I thought, “Yes, I’m moving forward.”

Mingo Palacios:

Love that. We had talked a little bit about the fact that often there’s a mission that’s given unless you’re the senior pastor of a planted church. We had Rick Long and his, some of his friends on this and he plants that church so he can help guide its direction. But for a lot of us were given in a way, an assignment. We’re given a geographic location. We’re given a grouping of people in a trajectory and the mandate is manage it, but usually there’s not really a playbook. There’s not really a manual that helps you figure out ways to do that and that’s where Purpose Driven Church comes in as a tool. But there are so many applicable tools, right? There are so many books, so many paradigms of so many things like that. I love that you said that it was Rick in person. Because I think that that’s the heart of this ministry. It’s relational capital. It’s the reason why you guys are here today with 50 other pastors. It’s not so that you can get a box of books and go sell them. I’ve never sold a book in my life. It’s about the connectedness that you find in the mutual wins and the mutual failures and the mutual struggles along the way that I think is the strongest offering that Purpose Driven Church has. But you’ve applied it in a really unique context because Rick being an evangelical pastor and then you guys operating inside of a Catholic paradigm, was there pushback in your efforts or did you feel like because it was just oil essentially going from like one oil to a synthetic or I don’t even know the analogy I would use, my question would be for people wondering if it can apply in their own parish.

Stacey:

Absolutely.

Father Tim:

If it could apply in their own space.

Stacey:

Absolutely.

Mingo Palacios:

Were there any roadblocks in consuming and then applying it in your guys’s own context?

Stacey:

Yes, yes, actually there were but nothing that was insurmountable because it’s always keeping the end game in mind and that’s bringing people closer to Christ. And so yes, initially there was some pushback. I started going to Purpose Driven conferences and I was literally, because I was a good Catholic, I was in the back row in the back door right by the door ready.

Mingo Palacios:

Just in case you go recognized. [laughing]

Stacey:

Exactly! “I’m out! I’m out!” So, um, and I fully expected, because people will come up and say, “What church are you from?” And in the beginning I was really self conscious and kind of concerned about I don’t want them to know I’m Catholic, but the moment I said that I was embraced. It was celebrated. “Thank you for being-” They were thanking me. And so I realized in that moment how the people of Saddleback are waiting, wanting all of us joined together. Again, because it’s about bringing people closer to Christ. And so, Father Tim came the next time to the next conference. We really started to strategize and really started to talk about how we could bring that in into our Catholic identity because it’s not about becoming Saddleback light. It is not. It is about celebrating who we are, standing firm in who and celebrating our Catholicism, yet in a very purposeful and intentional way because you’re right, Domingo, many people who begin to work for the church come because they’re called because their lives have been changed by an encounter with Christ and they want other people to feel that, but they don’t know how to do it. They get lost and then they get disillusioned and then they get jaded.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah that was the next thing that was coming out of my mouth.

Stacey:

So one of the things Purpose Driven does, and one of the things that coming to these sorts of conferences does is it’s kind of in a way misery loves company because you hear these other stories and you realize that people are in exactly the same other place that you were in and they found a way and they want to help you find a way. So one of our missions, one of our purposes is to reach out to other Catholic churches and say, “You can do this and we can show you and you can be authentically a 100 percent proudly Catholic. Proudly.”

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah. That’s so good.

Stacey:

Yes.

Mingo Palacios:

I love that Rick is like the chief of all confessors. He’s like, “We went off the tracks a million times.”

Stacey:

Yes.

Mingo Palacios:

And that is the permission that’s given to the room to say, “Us too.”

Stacey:

Right. Exactly.

Father Tim:

The other thing that I would say is I’ve had wonderful support from the powers that be our bishop, Bishop Kevin Van, and Pastor Rick Warren have a wonderful relationship and they’ve been together on many occasions. So, I’ve had full support and the other thing is trust because our bishop trust the pastors to discern what might be best for their parish community. And for us, Purpose Driven model is the best in terms of outreach, bringing people to Christ, evangelization, going after the unchurched. Our particular mission is we want to go after unchurched Catholics. Those who have left us

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, we call them church burnt.

Stacey:

Yes, exactly. That is our target.

Father Tim:

We want them to come home. Come home. Come check us out.

Stacey:

Personally, I think Bishop Van just wanted to see a church that was crazy enough to do Purpose Driven, just to try it and see what happens.

Mingo Palacios:

There is a challenge that is inside the Evangelical Church about engaging the next generation. And what I love about Purpose Driven is, it’s got built into it a disciple making method. It’s more than just attend a class, you know, people always go, “Oh, PD, we have class. It’s 101, 102, whatever.” But it really is a mentorship inside of a method is the way I see it. And how have you guys experienced, when it comes to the challenges, I’m guessing you’re not exempt from those same woes, right? Of wanting to see-

Stacey:

Not at all.

Mingo Palacios:

You’ve got legacy attendees and members, but it’s hard to catch their kids.

Stacey:

Correct.

Mingo Palacios:

And you’ve been in youth ministry. So what are some of the ways that you’re watching your local parish champion that next generation?

Stacey:

I would say that with outreach, one of the first things we did was partner with the Catholic Coalition and Habitat for Humanity. And we’re actually helping, we’re one of 15 parishes in the Diocese of Orange that are helping to build two homes in Tustin. And the wonderful thing about Habitat for Humanity and what we’re seeing our parishioners come alive about is that they’re able to not only give money to the cause, but actually go down-

Mingo Palacios:

Time.

Stacey:

Time. Go down and build a wall.

Mingo Palacios:

Swing a hammer.

Stacey:

Swing a hammer and they can bring their kids and then they drive by and there’ll be able to do that for years and tell their kids, “I helped put that together.” And that seems in our experience to engage the younger generations because they don’t want to just sit, they want to go out and they want to make a difference. And so we need to find those sorts of opportunities to help them make that difference within our own church, locally and then also globally.

Father Tim:

And then the other thing that I would add is Corpus Christi has a wonderful director of children’s ministry. And over the last few years we’ve done what we called “Intergenerational events.”

Mingo Palacios:

Hey, there we go.

Stacey:

Ok, hold on. A shout out, a shout out to Maria. She’s our director of children’s.

Father Tim:

So, you know, so we’ve got just wonderful Sunday programs and outreach to our children and families and that whole thing is building up and we just hired a director of youth ministry so we have been a new youth minister with us for six and at this point we’re doing surveys just trying to hear from the young people and their parents. So just as we’re rolling out Purpose Driven Church, we’re also rolling out a new youth ministry, bringing our teens to Christ and building engagement and then we’ll move from there to young adults.

New Speaker:

[Crosstalk]

Stacey:

So shout out to George. George Vasquez, our new youth minister.

Mingo Palacios:

George is the man.

Stacey:

He is the man. He’s amazing.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s awesome.

Father Tim:

And doing a great job.

Mingo Palacios:

So cool. What advice would you give to other priests and other teams who might be kind of waffling, they’re experiencing a plateau, they are hungry for a breakthrough. This is the topic of the conference coming in June. What advice would you give them? Having just the short proximity with some of our best leaders, that’s the cream of the crop, in my opinion. Those pastors are some of the best across the country. What would you tell somebody who’s hunting maybe for what could work next in their own church?

Father Tim:

Well, I would say come out to Purpose Driven Church Conference. It’s worth that investment. It’s more of a come and see. Bring a member of your staff, maybe two members of your staff.

Stacey:

Yeah and look for us in the back. We’ll be the Catholics in the back.

Father Tim:

You know, all of a sudden there were a couple of Catholic priests and we’re all in the back. I would say a read Purpose Driven Church, read Rebuilt just to start.

Stacey:

Call us.

Father Tim:

Call us.

Stacey:

But this is what I would say, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be stuck. Don’t be paralyzed. Don’t have that deer in the headlights. Just move forward and know that you have partners in Christ with you and we feel your pain and we know what you’re going through and we can help you and we want to help you.”

Father Tim:

We’re just getting started. We haven’t even rolled out class 201.

Stacey:

We have two 101’s. Yeah.

Mingo Palacios:

A 101 and a 101 makes a 202.

Father Tim:

So we’re really excited. The other thing is I think because my personality is not a risk type of personality. I pretty much play it safe, but I think what gave me some confidence was the fact that Saddleback offered a coach. You could bring on a coach for like nine sessions. So we had a Dean Hanson, he was our coach and we had nine sessions over a nine month period with Dean and Dean just dumbed it down for us. And that’s also a step too.

Stacey:

Yeah, that’s a really important. I agree with you Father that Saddleback has resources for you and they’re not going to look at you, “Well, you’re not a particular denomination. So we’re not going to help you.” In fact, it’s quite the opposite. And they just stick with you. They just stick with you. And I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I called Dean and with just of all kinds of crazy questions while you’re trying to figure out this new paradigm.

Mingo Palacios:

Trying to contextualize it too. It’s hardly a plug and play model.

Stacey:

Not at all.

Mingo Palacios:

Understand what its heartbeat is-

Stacey:

Correct.

Mingo Palacios:

And figure out how to infuse that into your existing ministry.

Stacey:

Exactly, into your existing culture and who we are as Catholics. That took time. And then I would also say to anybody out there who’s thinking about this, start looking around in your parish, look for those leaders that you think would have a heart for this because again, don’t be a lone wolf. You can’t do it by yourself.

Father Tim:

I agree.

Stacey:

Pull those people together. And then come to the Purpose Driven Conference. Listen to what they have to say. Read the book. Call Saddleback. They’ll give you a coach. They’ll walk you through the process and if anytime you decide that it’s not for you, you can step off, no harm, no foul. No harm, no foul, but at least you’ve tried to, at least you’ve moved forward. But I guarantee you, it’s an amazing process and it will not only change, it’s changed me personally. It’s changed the relationship with the people that I have in my parish, my team members, my family. But it just, it also, it makes you proud, it makes you proud of your faith and it makes you want to go out because you want other people to find this joy in Christ that you have.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah to experience the same kind of momentum that you’re personally experiencing.

Stacey:

Yes.

Mingo Palacios:

Father Tim, what I love is in Stacey, you have like this fiery believer, right? You have somebody who’s sold and she probably is in your most risk managing days, right? Where you’re trying to mitigate whether or not this is going to like sink us or help us move to the next level. Stacey can be a breath of really some great confidence for the priests out there who may not have a Stacey in their corner, priest to priest, how would you help navigate somebody wondering how to make their way out of like maybe the chaos or just the wilderness of leadership?

Father Tim:

Well, I would say I’m here. I’m here to help. I’m here to, to listen. What can I do to help? What is it that you need from me? I would say this that most pastors have at least a member or two members of staff that they’re very confident in.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, that they can confide in and that they can bring alongside.

Father Tim:

Exactly. It would be rare that a pastor wouldn’t have one or two members of staff. I mean the Rebuilt. You have Michael White with Tom Corcoran, they’re a team. I always go back to what Rick said, “Jesus loved everyone fed the crowds, discipled the 72. No, equipped the 72 discipled the 12, mentored the three. So I would say that most pastors have two or three. I take a look at our Purpose Driven team and you know, Maria and George Vasquez are members of the staff and so it would be rare that a pastor wouldn’t have one or two.

Stacey:

But to reach out and look because you have Stacey’s. Everybody has a Stacey in their parish. Everybody does. You gotta look, you gotta look and you gotta trust.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, trust is a big-

Stacey:

Trust the Holy Spirit that those people are coming to you. But you need to risk as the leader, you need to risk. And sometimes that’s really hard to do when you’re just so, you know, you had that siege mentality and “I have so much to do and no I cannot do one more thing” because that’s the reason my Father Tim put the book on the shelf. I didn’t realize that this was just one more thing.

Mingo Palacios:

The schedule.

Stacey:

Right and so don’t expect your leader to do it. Don’t expect them to do it. Help him.

Mingo Palacios:

That’s great. Don’t wait.

Stacey:

Don’t wait.

Mingo Palacios:

Help push. In the most respectful way, help push.

Father Tim:

We have a team of, well including me, eight, so those other seven are right on.

Stacey:

Right on board.

Father Tim:

Stay the course slow and steady.

Mingo Palacios:

So good. Just a great model for leadership in general is to not, you know, they said it earlier, like if you’re going alone, you’re going to end up in a ditch so fast and you can’t pull an entire community by one person, right? You can’t. You can move them maybe an inch, maybe two, but you get an entire team working in the same trajectory and you have some pretty incredible results.

Stacey:

Absolutely.

Father Tim:

And we’re finding even the eight, you know, in terms of a core team, I don’t think we would want to be bigger than that, but we definitely need to expand in the implementation of the Purpose Driven model.

Stacey:

I think one of the things that Purpose Driven has really, I can speak for me, is that Purpose Driven has taught me trust that the Lord blesses what he wants you to do. And so then if you have the faith and you listen and you follow, He gives you those breadcrumbs so those people begin to come to you. As you’re looking around doing the class 101, “How are we going do all of this?” Well then people start coming and offering and helping and it’s the Lord blessing us and empowering us and you just take that next step and then you just take that next step.

Mingo Palacios:

Yes. That’s so good.

Father Tim:

It’s kind of like you’ve got to take the step and then the Lord supplies.

Stacey:

It’s the difference between faith and gratitude. Faith is taking that step and knowing that the Lord is going to bless you because you are doing his work and believing that. So you know, either you believe it or you don’t.

Father Tim:

And I would say at this point, I’m not afraid to take that step because over the last couple of years, every time I’ve taken the step-

Mingo Palacios:

It’s kind of proven itself.

Father Tim:

You know what? There was always a little bit of fear.

Mingo Palacios:

Yeah, I don’t think anybody is exempt from that. But the confidence is that Lord has provided every time you have taken a step with a little bit of fear inside of you.

Stacey:

Right. He knows that. He knows that. And I think it brings Him great joy to see you taking that step regardless of the fact-

Father Tim:

How is this all going come together?

Speaker:

[Crosstalk]

Father Tim:

How are we ever going to find time to coach, a parent? But you just go-

Mingo Palacios:

Okay, Lord.

Stacey:

Okay. Here we are.

Mingo Palacios:

You know what? That’s how so many people end up in the places they’re because they’re willing, right? The Lord has equipped them. They have no idea that it’s even in them until they’re willing to see it exercised.

Father Tim:

You know, what I would say is, and as I interrupt you here, but any Catholic priest that’s listening, it’s not about Rick Warren. Not at all.

Mingo Palacios:

I love it. Dispel it all.

Father Tim:

Purpose Driven model.

Mingo Palacios:

The Purpose Driven model is the title wrapped all over the Great Commission, the Great Commandment. Five verbs sitting inside of those. Right? So I love Rick is always like, “It’s not my model, I just pulled it out of scripture.”

Father Tim:

Absolutely.

Mingo Palacios:

So unless you want to like with the bible, then you’re kind of wasting your breath.

Stacey:

Exactly.

Father Tim:

And for Catholic priests that are out there, if you go back to the old catechism, it said, “Why did God make us? God made us to love Him, to know Him and to serve Him in this life and be with them in the next.” Well, love God love others, that’s two. That’s two purposes. To know God, discipleship and to serve and proclaim.

Mingo Palacios:

And they would say to love God would also be inside of worship. That’s your worship expression.

Stacey:

Exactly.

Mingo Palacios:

Man, you guys do such a great job at just making it tangible because I think that a lot of people will look at something and go, “There’s no way we can implement this. We’ve got so much” or, “We don’t have enough.” or “There’s no way we can pivot this monster.”

Stacey:

“It’s too much of a paradigm shift. We’ve tried so many other programs and none of them have worked and I don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy to do this again.”

Mingo Palacios:

Like I said in a previous episode, it’s not easy and it’s not quick, but man does it really light up inside of the people that you bring into it, something that you wish everybody would be lit up with. I think too often self disclosure here also as I’m trying to find something fast to give me something like punchy and impactful, but I don’t want it to be long, right? Don’t make it long and there’s those two are oxymoronic.

Stacey:

Yeah. It doesn’t work.

Mingo Palacios:

You’ve got to take time to make big shifts and you have to really sit in it and you have to bring people to the table and that’s going to be time consuming, but the payout is that as a unified body, you start to see major healthy results and I know this isn’t a result driven thing, but man, you’re giving your life to this and why would you squander another month or another week without having a plan to bring not just you and your team through, but all those that you’re asking to follow you. You know, I think of how many people I lead prior to being in the awareness of even the Great Commission and Great Commandment, having a balancing act of those five purposes and I go, man, I just, I pray that those people find that as I led just aimlessly. I was throwing leadership darts at a dartboard is what I was doing and the next best paragraph in book and whatever came through. And my prayer is that people who hear this go, “Man, there’s something that you can latch onto, not that’s just going to give you a pathway and a process and a purpose, but a community that you can wrestle alongside of.”

Father Tim:

There was a word that you used, which I take as a key word, healthy. A Purpose Driven Church is a healthy church. It’s all five purposes coming together of equal value. It’s being a balance. It’s being healthy. It’s not about being perfect.

Mingo Palacios:

Of course. Yeah, yeah.

Father Tim:

No, but it’s about just being a healthy, wholesome church. When I think of holiness, the call, Catholics understand this, the universal call to holiness, that’s about being a balanced person, a healthy person, balanced church, healthy churches.

Mingo Palacios:

Man, so good. Guys, thank you so much for coming onto the show and thanks for giving us your time. If people want to get in contact with you, let’s say that they take the bait and they go, “You know what, we do want to see what it would look like to move in this direction.” How do they find you guys?

Stacey:

Well, we have a website, www.AVCatholics.org. We’re on facebook,
AVCatholics. We’re on instagram, AVCatholics. Father Tim’s on twitter @thegoodpadre, so you type in Corpus Christi Catholic in Aliso Viejo, you will find us.

Mingo Palacios:

I love that. Thank you guys so much for your time. For our listeners, I hope this is encouraging. If you’re teetering on where or what to bring to the table, it could be that PD might be right up your alley and maybe you have a Stacey in your world who gave you a book, but it ended up at the local library-

New Speaker:

[laughing]

Mingo Palacios:

So it take some well heeded advice and man, reach out to these guys. That’s probably the number one thing is don’t just take anyone’s word for it, but have a conversation and to come and see and taste and know that like the Lord is still so active and moving and it’s great when there are churches in stride together. I think it’s the thing worth celebrating most is that it’s happening together.

Father Tim:

Yes.

Mingo Palacios:

So I love that. Thank you guys so much for your time. For our listeners, we love you. We’ll talk to you guys soon.

Mingo Palacios:

We hope today’s insights left you feeling inspired and propelled towards your greatest potential. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the PD podcast. Until next time.