The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How Two Men Discipled Me (and How it Worked)

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

Have you ever sought to disciple someone in your life? Today, Jeff shares his powerful experience of being discipled by two friends who helped him deepen his relationship with Christ. We learn the six things his friends did that truly made a big difference in Jeff's life. Snippet from the Show “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” -Matthew 4:18 Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 223, how two men disciples me, and it worked. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show.

I still remember so clear. the two years that I spent in Valley City, North Dakota, when I was about 22, 23 years old. And those years absolutely changed my life. And I want to talk to you about the two men who disciplined me and brought me into really a closer relationship with the Lord, which ended up in leaving the Church, the Catholic Church. Stay with me. I'd love to share all of that with you. Before we get into those details, I want to remind you about the Bible in a year that Father Mike Schmitz and I are doing, and I'm hearing from so many people literally around the globe who are reading the Bible with us this year using the Great Adventure Bible, Bible reading methodology from the Great Adventure Bible. And I just want to remind you that on Thursdays at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, I'm on Facebook at Ascension's Catholic Bible study Facebook page, and I'm answering your questions that you have as you

read through the Bible. And boy, there's a lot of good questions. And some of them are to be expected, but there's so many good questions that are kind of filling out the study that we are doing. And I also want to let you know coming up in June of 2022, Father Mike Schmitz and I are going to be leading a spectacular, unbelievable, life-changing pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And you can find out more information about that at my website, jeffcavens.com. We would love for you to go with us. It would be great to spend a couple weeks with you over in the Holy Land, literally walking where Jesus walked and Mary and the disciples. and experiencing mass in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth and on the Jordan River. It's just going to be an amazing trip.

And a lot of young people are going with us, and we've got really good singers, Ali Ali, Taylor Tripodi, and we have Andrew and Sarah Swofford. They're going to be joining us as well. So get your space. Lock it in. Go to my website. We look forward to seeing you next year in Jerusalem, as they say. Okay, so I was, the purpose of this show really is not to explain to you why I left the Catholic

Church in terms of theology. I'm going to do that, though, coming up. I'm going to talk about what it was that really led me away from the Catholic Church in terms of some of the doctrinal things. But by and large, I got to tell you, as a 22-year-old young man, I did not leave the Catholic Church. I was a cradle Catholic, but I did not leave the Catholic Church because of deep theological concerns that I had. To be honest with you, I never really got into anything super deep at 22 years of age. But there were two men at an Assembly of God Church in Valley City, North Dakota, who had a very, very profound impact on my life. And I want to introduce you to them, but more importantly, I want to share with you some of the things that they did that

led me into a deeper relationship with Jesus as a disciple and consequently out of the Catholic Church. And of course, that's not my goal to get you out of the Catholic Church. I believe that the Catholic Church is the fullness of faith. We have the Eucharist and we have the saints and all the sacraments. We have the great tradition of scripture and sacred tradition, the Holy Father, the saints as brothers and sisters who are who are still walking with us, even though they are in heaven, they're praying for us because you cannot divide the body of Christ. But I do think there's some things that we can learn about the way that people are leading people to Jesus in a deeper walk with Jesus that in many

cases does end up leaving the Catholic Church and going into a non-denominational church or perhaps an assembly of God or a covenant church, Baptist Church, evangelical, you name it. Let me set the stage for you real quickly here. When I was 22 years old, I had already gone through a pretty powerful conversion experience at 18 years of age. And it was my future wife, Emily, who is the one with her mother, Alice, who really showed me the importance of Scripture and walking with Jesus on a daily basis. And that really caught my attention. I had never been with someone who said they were a disciple of Jesus and they were reading the Bible and took it personally and felt that the power of the Holy Spirit was with them, not only to change their

life, but to give them power to change other people's lives via witnessing and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. After I was 18 years old, I went to Dallas, Texas, and went through a Bible college, and all this time really had no intentions at all of leaving the Catholic Church. It never even dawned on me that I would actually leave the Catholic Church, although I started going to non-denominational churches all the way from 18 to about 22 years of age. And I moved to Valley City, North Dakota, because I got a radio job. I was a disc jockey at night from 7 to midnight. And throughout the day, I would spend a lot of time studying the Bible. And one day, I wandered into a local assembly of God church. And I sat kind of in the back,

and I was listening to them as they were enthusiastically worshiping the Lord. And the pastor was giving a dynamic homily. They don't call them homilies, but a sermon. And that caught me. But one of the things that really caught me at 22 years of age was how happy they were. They smiled. They were joyful. They looked forward to meeting me and talking to me and getting to know me as a person. And I'll be honest with you, I wasn't quite used to that as a Catholic. At that point, at 22 years of age, I thought that Catholics were more like sad people who were in a perpetual funeral. and didn't really know about the joy of the Lord, and I literally didn't even have a Catholic friend who read the Bible or invited me to fellowship at all. In comes these two gentlemen

who were the pastors of this small Assembly of God Church in Valley City, North Dakota. The senior pastor was a young guy. I was about 22. I'm guessing he was probably 26 or something like that, 27, 28, somewhere in there, maybe a little older. His name was Pastor Pete Weisenberger, Pete Weisenberger, with an associate pastor by the name of Michael Rose. Now, these two guys were young, enthusiastic, always had a smile on their face, and they seemed to always have a Bible in their hand. And I remember meeting them for the first time, Emily and I went into that church and we met them. And immediately they invited us to come back. In fact, not only come back for their Sunday service, but invited us to their Wednesday Bible study. Now, I got to thinking about this because

I was reading Matthew's Gospel chapter 4. And we'll listen to this. It says in Matthew 4, as Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Now, those verses in Matthew 4, 18 through 21, which I'll put in the show notes. If you want the show notes, just type my name out, one word, Jeff Kavens.

And you can text it to the number 3377. All of the shows will be coming to you. We've got some pretty hearty notes in our podcast. I was looking over some of the previous shows and thought, wow, this is a good outline if you want to teach locally. There's so many good scriptures, and I am eager to share those with you. Well, it was this portion of Matthews Gospel that got me thinking about those days when I met Pastor Pete Weisenberger and Michael Rose and was introduced into a way of life that I was not really used to, and that is following Jesus as a disciple. Later on, of course, I would, after I left the Catholic Church formally, which I'll get to here in a minute, I would look back at those days, but I would continue. to study the life of a disciple. And I got to tell you, this concept of living as a modern

disciple, later I would call it an activated disciple. My recent book is called the activated disciple. I was attracted to this, and I would say that this is one concept out of maybe two or three that really changed my life. And I know that maybe you're listening to this right now, and maybe you are a little bit disillusioned with the Catholic Church. I know that when I met these two gentlemen, Pete and Michael, I was disillusioned with the Catholic Church. I was going to Mass, and as I always did, since the time that I grew up, but there just didn't seem to be anything for me. Now, that doesn't mean that the Eucharist wasn't powerful and life-changing. I believe that it was and is. But I I had zero teaching as far as what we believe as Catholics. I didn't know really what the Eucharist was. I

didn't know what the relationship with the saints was. I didn't know about the sacraments, really. Oh, I participated growing up, but I didn't have any understanding of them at all. And so I was a disillusioned young Catholic boy who ended up leaving the Catholic Church. I'll share a little bit of that with you in just a few minutes. But maybe you have people in your life right now that are a little bit disillusion, but they have a hunger deep inside, a searching heart. Some, you know, they have a heart that is continually looking for the truth, and they're open to it. Maybe you know some people in your family, or maybe it's someone at work or one of your neighbors. My wife and I were out on a lake just the other day, and we ran into a lady who we had heard just had a powerful transformation in her life by accepting the Lord at a non-denominational church, and I had not seen her since, well, probably a year ago.

And we met her, and she was on fire. She was so joyful and excited, and I thought, wow, her life has really changed. and I would imagine that she experienced something that I experienced at this Assembly of God Church in Valley City, North Dakota. So I want to share a few of those things with you that they did to me or with me that really did have a powerful impact on my life. And my hope is that you can take some of these, learn from them, and perhaps you can implement them in your relationship with others. So stick with me here.

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Sonia Corbett, the Bible study of Angelista, and a Baptist turned Catholic. As a Baptist, I thought that Catholic beliefs were invented, that they came out of nowhere and had no connection whatsoever to the Bible. I also happened to believe that the Old Testament was about rules, rituals, and sacrifices that the New Testament gave us permission to ignore for a personal relationship with Jesus. It's a long story, but as God began connecting the Old and New Testaments for me, I was stunned by the beautiful consistency of God in the Catholic Church.

I can't tell you how exciting it was when God opened my eyes to the incredible ways the Old Testament foreshadows God's plan for the New Testament and for his Catholic Church. In my book fulfilled uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, I explain these amazing connections, and I share how those connections helped change my life. If you read this book, I promise that you will come away with tools to help you share your Catholic faith easily, answer questions about how your Catholic faith fits with what's in the Bible, and most importantly, grow deeper in your relationship with Christ. If you're interested in learning more or ordering a copy of fulfilled, uncovering the

biblical roots of Catholicism, you can do so at ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. on. We're talking today about how two men disciples me, and it worked. It really worked. Now, I'll take you back to Valley City, North Dakota. I was 22 years old. That's a few years ago. And I met Pastor Pete Weisenberger and Michael Rose. And if they happen to be listening to this, guys, thank you for the input that you gave me, the relationship. with the Lord that you demonstrated that so ignited a passion in me at such a young age, building on my relationship with Emily and my mother-in-law, Alice. So what were the things that Pastor Pete and Michael Rose did that made a difference in my life?

I have a few of them here. Number one is that the moment that I attended their church, they invited me to follow what they were doing in their church. In other words, they followed up right after meeting me. Now, we didn't have smartphones in those days. We had telephones and letters and things like that. And wouldn't you know it, the pastor followed up immediately. In fact, he didn't have to even call me, which he did later, but he said right then, I'd love to get together with you this week. and so from the get-go, I was invited to have a relationship with someone who passionately loved the Lord. So there was the follow-up after the meeting, number one. And so if we today are going to,

if we today are going to be successful at sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with other people and walking alongside of them so that they can grow into disciples, there needs to be some kind of follow up. And so often I hear people say things like, hey, yeah, we should grab a cup of coffee sometime. Yeah, that would be great. But then nothing ever happens. They don't call me. They don't call you. You don't call them. I don't call them. It's just sort of a greeting. Hey, let's get a cup of coffee sometime. Should we? Sure. So that's what they did. They said, let's get together. And we did. So let me go through some of the other points here. and then we can do a little bit of a review. So number one, they followed up immediately after

meeting me and they didn't let me go. They said, we want to get together with you sometime this week. Pretty good. The second thing that they did continually for the next two months or so, two or three months, was they invited me to pray with them. Now, I'm not talking about just saying, hey, come on over to my house. I'm going to pray with you. They had regular prayer meetings at the church. which I think is a good thing, by the way, for every parish to have is just a set time of prayer where people can come together. Now, we have adoration chapels, which is about as good as it gets, right? You're with the Lord. But how many Catholic churches actually have a prayer time where people can come together on Friday evening or Saturday morning or Tuesday morning

every week where men can get together or women get together or everybody gets together to pray. And we do pray the rosary, but I've got to be honest with you here. The rosary is incredibly powerful. And it is John Paul II said it was his favorite prayer outside of the mass. And I think it is. It's very, very powerful. And I'm encouraging you to invite other people to pray the rosary for sure. But there is something about people getting together and just praying about the needs in the community, the needs in their parish, the needs in individuals' lives, and praying for our country and the leadership. And that's what they were doing at that little church in Valley City, North Dakota. So they invited me to pray with them.

Now, I was a little uncomfortable, to be honest, because they were pretty good. I mean, you know, you sit down in a circle, and all of a sudden they start praying. with such eloquence and a sense of zeal. And I thought, oh, I love that. I hope they don't call on me. And you know what? They were very, very kind and gentle. And they never, ever put me on the spot.

And that's something that we can learn, you know, that if we call newbies together, if we call those neophytes together, those people who are not that experienced, the last thing we want to do is put them on the spot. we want them to be comfortable in our midst and to learn from us as we as we model prayer but certainly not give them that final exam in the first month or two that they're with us so i spent an awful lot of time listening to how they prayed and the zeal that they exhibited and it was contagious and i remember

sitting there thinking, wow, we are praying together and, you know, and two or three gather in his name, there he is in the midst. And it was a powerful experience to be invited to be a part of what they were doing. Now remember, I was only 22 years old. I was just thrilled that somebody older than me took an interest in me, particularly these men who loved God. And that's something that we all have to remember is that the people around you in your life, they have two things, they have two things that they're really looking for. A better future and someone to trust. And that is what these guys invited me to take part in, a better future. And I trusted them as my older brothers in the Lord. So they invited me to pray. The third thing that they did is they

asked me to come along with them when they went out and they ministered. These two guys would go to state hospitals, they'd go to prisons, they would visit homes, and wouldn't you know it, they invited this 22-year-old kid to follow along and to learn, and I did. And later on, after I left the Catholic Church, and I got fully involved in a Protestant church, I found myself doing exactly what they taught me in going to hospitals and prisons and home calls to visit families. I learned from these guys. They asked me to come along with them. How many people, let me ask you this, how many people in your life right now do you know that you have at least said something to them about your faith, something about your relationship

with the Lord. Something about the parish that you belong to. Have you asked them to come along? Have you found out what opportunities in your church are available for Bible studies or prayer meetings and literally invited them to come along with you? I'll meet you at the church. I'll pick you up. We'll go out for coffee beforehand or after. They asked me to come along with them. And that's what Jesus did, didn't he? We read about that in Matthew chapter four earlier where Jesus said to them, follow me. And I will make you fissures of men. That's what these guys did in my life. The fourth thing that they did was that they continually encouraged me. They encouraged me. Now, this isn't something that I think a lot of Catholics are used to, and that is using your

walk with the Lord and your knowledge of scripture and the teachings of the church to, to literally encourage other people. I mean, we both know that there are people who are desperately struggling these days with their job and money and relationships and just the whole pandemic, you know, that people have been going through and political upheaval. People are looking to be encouraged. And you can encourage people by letting them know about two or three of the promises of God and about how Jesus said, I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.

He's not going to disappoint you. He's a shepherd. He loves you. He is the bridegroom. And he is faithful. That's how we encourage people by telling them the truth. We don't encourage people by saying, hey, you know, go get them, tiger. You know, and some of the what I call hallmark theology, you know, tomorrow's a brighter day.

Oh, yeah, I've heard that before, but I looked on my app and it's going to be cloudy tomorrow. I looked on my emotional app and it's going to be cloudy tomorrow. No, we need to be encouraged. And that's what these guys did. So so far, I've shared with you that they followed up immediately, number one. Number two, they invited me to pray. Number two, number three, they asked me to come along with them, even if it was to go get a cup of coffee or something. The importance of being with them went into.

my relationship with the Lord. And then number four, they encouraged me, which was so very important. They encouraged me. And then the fifth thing that they, that they did, was they invited me to study scripture with them. Now, I got to tell you, this is where it got really exciting for me, because I had a Bible, and I had been underlining in it and writing things in it, and I, I cherished reading the Bible. I read the Bible so many times, and I couldn't get enough of the Bible, but I didn't have anybody to really share this with, and I was so young that I didn't even think about starting a group myself. In hindsight, I could have started a group right in the Catholic Church, St. Catharines, in Valley City, North Dakota. But I think I was still at that age where I needed to be,

I needed to be led. I needed someone to model the faith for me, even if it was a limited Protestant faith, and it didn't have the fullness of the Catholic Church. So they invited me to study scripture with them, and this was in the form of a group on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays, everybody got together, and they studied the scriptures. And there were small groups that we would discuss, you know, the questions that were asked or teaching from Pete Weisenberger or Michael Rose, and we would talk about it with one another. And I can remember even the times where I just drove up to the church, and they were there, and we'd sit on the church steps or somewhere in the church and open up our Bibles and have a 15-minute study just together. Those are the things that really,

really contributed to me being a disciple, which eventually led to me leaving the Catholic Church. But one of the things that we don't think about a lot, but I do believe in looking backwards that it had a positive effect on me, and that was this. They knew I was Catholic. They knew I was raised Catholic. They knew I was going to St. Catherine's Catholic Church in Valley City, North Dakota. But you know what? These two Assembly of God leaders never criticized where I was coming from.

They never put down the Catholic Church. They never criticized me or my parents or my roots. They just focused on the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, earlier, about a year earlier, someone did. Someone who really loved God did get together with me and lambasted the Catholic Church. And that bothered me. In fact, that got me a little angry. And I told me, look, you don't have to do that. And I found myself defending my mom and my dad and my whole background, even though I didn't understand it or was not, it wasn't a ditch that I would have died in, the Catholic faith. but I rose up and I pushed back on that for some reason. Well, Pete and Michael never did that.

They never criticized me or where I was from, but they continually encouraged me to go deeper with the Lord. Those things made a huge impact on my life. Now, what if you, in your life today, what if you followed up immediately with someone you met at church or at work or standing there in the Walmart parking lot or standing in line at the Dairy Queen or whatever you strike up a conversation with someone and rather than saying, hey, if you're back here sometime, we'll have to share a dip cone with you. Instead, you'd say, hey, I'd love to get together with you. Are you available for coffee in the mornings? Well, yeah. what does Wednesday look like? Well, I'm, I'm good. How about 7 a.m.? Sure. Well, how about 8? Yeah, yeah, I could do 8. Let's meet. Let's meet over at Starbucks or wherever the coffee house in town. It's an immediate follow-up. And then as you get to know them and you know the pain in their life and their background and you genuinely get to know them as a person, you invite them to get together again, perhaps for Bible study, a small group, or just the two of you getting together to share some good things that you have found in the gospel. And then you can invite them to prayer. And you prepare them for what

they are about to get into and invite them to pray. Maybe you have a men's group that you could invite them to or a women's group that you could invite them to. And literally follow with them along with them, like you're responsible for them to share the good things. And be an encourager, someone who encourages them. But before you encourage them, you've got to get to know them a little bit. If they say, well, yeah, we're really having problems with one of our teenagers. Well, you can go home and you can look up some scriptures that would be encouraging to them. And next time you get together with them, you can share with them. You can say, you know, I heard you when you were talking about your son, Mark, your daughter, Sarah, your son. Your son.

Greg or your daughter, Melissa, and you can encourage them. Do you know that encouragement goes a long way into people making decisions to stay with you? And invite them to your study, but don't criticize where they came from. Just focus on the good news of Jesus Christ. My friend, I hope that this is of some benefit to you. I was just sitting here the other day and thinking about those two guys and the impact they had on my life. And for some reason, I felt like the Lord wanted me to share this today with you, how two men disciples me at 22 years of age, and it worked. Those aren't Protestant points. They're not Catholic points. They are points that are necessary to make disciples. Let's pray. Father, son, and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my

friend to you today, and I ask you, oh God, I ask you to move in their heart. regarding other people to put these principles into action. And Lord, I pray that they would be fruitful in all that they do in the name of Jesus, Father's Son, and the Holy Spirit.