The EquipCast

You leave work at five, but your brain stays parked at the office. You sit with your family, yet mentally you carry the entire parish on your back as if saving everyone depends on you. When evangelization becomes a task we tackle with our own strength, we burn out, our programs flop, and our homes suffer. This week, Hannah Keisling, Evangelization Coordinator at St. Vincent de Paul in Omaha, joins me to share how putting God first,...

Imagine a standing coffee date with a friend who talks at you the entire time, looks at their watch, and then says, “Gotta go! This was great!” You’d walk away feeling pretty unsatisfied. The level of intimacy we can reach is limited when conversation remains one-sided. But, too often, we treat our prayer lives the exact same way. We focus on how well we said our prayers instead of stopping to listen to what God w...

What happens when a priest in a cassock and a layman with a clipboard start walking their neighborhood boundaries? Join me, Jim Jansen, as I sit down with Father Jeff Loseke and Adam Stephenson from St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Gretna, Nebraska, to talk about how they took on neighborhood outreach. Instead of waiting for people to walk through their church doors, they exported their parish database into Google Maps and started sh...

The EquipCast is back!

After a few months away, I am excited to kick off a new chapter for The EquipCast. In this quick 3-minute teaser, I share a bit of my own story from this past spring, express my deep gratitude to the Archdiocese of Omaha, and share where we are heading next. Moving forward, The EquipCast is an independent production powered by EverydayEvangelization.org. While the platform is new, our mission remains exact...

Can you afford to say yes to God? I know that question might make you uncomfortable—because it’s made me uncomfortable. We talk a lot about trust, about saying yes to the Lord, about living on mission… but when it comes to finances, security, and taking care of our families, it can feel like the cost is just too high. In today’s episode of The Equip Cast, I sit down with Peter Levesque Xavier to talk honest...

What would you do if the person you loved most was in danger—and there was no time to think? Today on the Equip Cast, I sit down with Chris Vander Woude to tell the story of a quiet, faithful father who answered that question with his life. Tom Vander Woude wasn’t famous. He wasn’t flashy. He was a husband, a dad, a farmer, a Navy pilot—and a man who spent his life showing up in ordinary ways. Until one extr...

Can love in marriage really last?
I believe it can—and not because we’re strong enough or compatible enough, but because God meets us there. Staying in love isn’t something we just grit our teeth and manage. It’s something we learn through prayer. Prayer with the Lord shapes our hearts, and that same habit of prayer teaches us how to truly behold, listen to, forgive, and love our spouse.

In this Coaches...

Today, we begin a series where I talk to Evangelization Coordinators from across our archdiocese. You’ll hear the honest stories, hard-won wisdom and quiet ways God is moving through the people helping to lead parish renewal from the ground up. In this first episode, Renee Eames of the St. Joseph Family of Parishes, shares what the role looks like day-to-day. Her warm wisdom reminds us that evangelization isn’t about b...

Welcome to the very first episode of Inside Jim’s Inbox, a new Q&A series where I open up the real questions you send—about faith, fear, evangelization, ministry, and everything in between—and we walk through them together. In this kickoff episode, I’m sharing the questions I hear most often: What even is evangelization? Do I know enough to share my faith? How do I deal with the fear of rejection? Along ...

What if the ancient way of welcoming seekers is exactly what we’re missing? When Dr. Chris Burgwald, Chancellor for the Diocese of Sioux Falls, and I dug into the roots of OCIA, it struck me how much wisdom we’ve left sitting on the shelf. The early Church knew how to walk with people—slowly, personally, lovingly—and somewhere along the line, we traded that for efficiency. Dr. Burgwald shows why returning to...

*What do you do when the strategy, the program, or the plan just isn’t enough? *

Because I’ve been there—and in this episode, I talk about why our “silver bullets” so often fail us. We love quick fixes, big programs, and shiny solutions, but real renewal—personal or parish-wide—only happens when we stop trying to use God and finally turn to Him with honest hearts. In this conversation, I w...

What if everything changes when people finally feel seen, known, and accompanied?

In this republished conversation from the Great Catholic Parishes podcast, I join host John Poitevent to unpack why this simple shift lies at the very heart of parish renewal. People don’t grow because we tell them to—they grow because someone offers friendship, listens without judgment, and walks with them patiently. I unpack how accompa...

What if your home isn’t just messy… but actually pulling you away from God’s call?
I know—that question stopped me in my tracks too. In this week’s episode, I sit down with simplicity consultant Katie Sciba, and she helped me see something I honestly never connected before: the state of our space deeply affects the state of our soul.

Here’s another one:
Are your possessions shaping you ...

What does it mean to face death well?

When I sat down with Dr. Stephen Doran—a neurosurgeon, deacon, and man who’s walked intimately with suffering—I felt my own fears and assumptions around death get exposed. There’s something powerful about hearing someone who has been at the bedside of so many people say, with deep conviction, that death isn’t just an end… it’s a moment meant to be liv...

What if the biggest thing parents want from us is to know they belong?

When I listen to parents—really listen—I hear something deeper than frustration about busy schedules or kids who can’t sit still at Mass. I hear an ache. Parents want to engage. They want their kids to love the faith. They want to grow spiritually themselves. But so many of them carry this quiet fear that they or their kids don’t quite f...

How can we expect couples to live a sacramental marriage when they’ve never seen one lived?

So many of the couples who walk into our parishes today aren’t rooted in the life of the Church. Nine out of ten aren’t attending Mass, many have simply “slid” into the relationship, and most have never witnessed a joyful, vibrant Christian marriage up close. And yet—we hand them content, classes, and che...

What happens when we start trusting programs more than we trust people?
Discipleship slows down—because programs don’t accompany anyone. People do. Programs support the mission, but people are the mission.

In part two of this conversation on what really breaks a clear path to discipleship, we talk honestly about why great programming isn’t enough, how over commitment burns out your best leaders, and why accom...

Why do discipleship efforts that start with so much hope sometimes stall—or fall apart?

In this episode, I sit down with coaches from our Parish Support Team to talk honestly about how Clear Paths to discipleship can break down—often before we even realize it’s happening. We walk through five common ways parishes unintentionally derail discipleship—and what faithful leaders can do differently. We talk about...

How do you keep the Gospel alive and at the center of your work?

Start with the quiet, world-changing truth that Jesus loves you. He gave His life to save you. And He is with you today—right now—to enlighten, strengthen, and free you. When we put that message at the heart of everything—our conversations, our ministries, our families—it changes everything. In this episode, I’ll share why this matters a...