Jesus’ love through the Holy Spirit can inspire Catholics to heal the world, said Father Mathias Thelen at an Encounter Ministries Twin Cities Regional Conference April 11-13.

Held at Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, the conference offered instruction on the application of spiritual gifts and times of prayer for a greater outpouring and sharing of those gifts.

And Father Thelen — cofounder and instructor at Encounter Ministries, which is based in Brighton, Michigan, and seeks to teach, equip and activate Catholic disciples through the Holy Spirit — joined others to talk about the hope found in Jesus.

“Hope that he can bring restoration and wholeness in people’s lives, but (also) hope for the Church that the Church is much more dynamic than perhaps what our unbelieving culture thinks it is,” said Father Thelen, who is also pastor of St. Patrick in Brighton.

About 415 people — from teens to retirees — from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and beyond attended the three-day conference. Many were students or alumni of Encounter’s two-year School of Ministry, which is slated to open a West St. Paul satellite campus this fall.

Between sessions on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, prophecy, the Father’s love, the great commission and imparting spiritual gifts, were break-out sessions, a healing service, Mass, confession, Eucharistic adoration and praise and worship.

Prayer teams, often consisting of School of Ministry students and graduates, prayed over attendees throughout the conference.

In his opening talk, Father Thelen provided a biblical foundation for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He later emphasized that God wants this outpouring but not as a private spirituality.

“He wants people to know God as Father, he wants people to know Jesus as Lord. He wants the Holy Spirit to have his way in the life of believers, so we can witness to Jesus,” Father Thelen said.

In his closing remarks at the conference, Father Thelen talked about God’s desire to give spiritual gifts beyond those imparted at baptism, which God may mysteriously provide through other people.

“This is what we’re talking about, this mystery of sharing gifts among the body of Christ,” he said.

Besides the School of Ministry, Encounter Ministries offers healing services, videos and other ways to connect with the ministry. Its focus on evangelization through the Holy Spirit isn’t new to charismatics but just a newer expression, Father Thelen said.

Richard Wasilowski, 66, of Seattle, was involved in the Catholic charismatic renewal movement for 45 years and called Encounter a “refreshing look.”

“I think they overlap, they don’t compete, but it’s very similar vein,” said Wasilowski, a 2023 School of Ministry graduate who attended the conference to introduce his sister in St. Paul to Encounter.

The St. Paul Seminary rector, Father Joseph Taphorn, said he will finish the School of Ministry’s online program this year. He attended the conference, was part of a prayer team and heard confessions, said the deeper encounter with the Lord he’s received through the program has been a gift to his priesthood — a gift he’s tried to share at the seminary in St. Paul.

“I think for us in leadership (it’s important) to keep learning,” he said. “I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the spiritual gifts and how to apply them and use them and lead.”

Kelli Kleinschnitz, 33, who will complete her first year of the School of Ministry online, said the program and conference are helping her gain compassion and shape her ministry.

As faith formation director for Holy Saints Area Catholic Community — which consists of five parishes south of St. Cloud in the Diocese of St. Cloud  — Kleinschnitz said she has received prayer and other support from the school, which helps her minister to others.

“The Father’s heart for (parishioners) makes more of an impact than any study I’ve ever led,” she said. “Just praying with them and letting them experience God’s love just through what the Holy Spirit is putting on my own heart, I’ve just been humbled by that as well.”

LOCAL CAMPUS

With a goal of teaching and demonstrating the Holy Spirit’s gifts to Catholics, Brighton, Michigan-based Encounter Ministries will offer its two-year, hands-on School of Ministry program through a new satellite campus in West St. Paul beginning this fall.

The program will be offered at the NET Center, headquarters of NET Ministries in West St. Paul. The program will focus on helping students understand and become comfortable with Holy Spirit charisms such as healing and prophecy. It will address other topics as well, including everyone’s identity as a son or daughter of God, recognizing and responding to the Lord speaking, and developing as prayer ministers, said James Shackelford, who with his wife, Teresa, will lead the new campus.

The couple also was involved in Encounter Ministries’ Twin Cities Regional Conference April 11-13 at Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville, where the new campus was announced.

“We’re just seeing this incredible fruitfulness with the way the Holy Spirit is moving throughout the Church and (the new campus) makes sense because the more society moves away from God, just the more brokenness, the more heartbreak and the more problems we see people run into,” said James Shackelford, who is also director of ongoing formation and discipleship at St. Bartholomew in Wayzata.

“The Lord is moving very powerfully with healing ministry right now,” he said.

The Encounter Ministries’ program gives students the chance to immediately put what they learn into practice and gain experience, he said. “Because the goal of all of this is that they would actually learn how to pray with other people.”

The new campus joins more than 30 around the world and an online campus run by Encounter Ministries. The organization’s School of Ministry has 3,800 students worldwide, said Father Mathias Thelen, co-founder of Encounter Ministries.

Those interested can attend a School of Ministry introductory content overview Aug. 5-8. Weekly classes during the academic year will begin in September, James Shackelford said. According to the school’s website, program tuition is $250 per quarter and the program consists of eight quarters.

As graduates of the school, James Shackelford said he and his wife considered starting a campus in the Twin Cities after moving here several years ago. He read Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s 2022 pastoral letter — “You Will Be My Witnesses: Gathered and Sent From the Upper Room” — which affirmed his idea for the campus.

The archbishop’s pastoral letter, James Shackelford said, “encourages us to embrace the Holy Spirit, to embrace the charisms, to become familiar with those ministries. And we absolutely need a new Pentecost in this Church.”

The School of Ministry is one of the “avenues for the faithful to be empowered and to grow in knowledge and experience of the Holy Spirit and then to let that also breathe into their Eucharistic devotion and bringing the Church to the world,” said Father Michael Becker, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ vicar of charisms and pastor of Sts. Joachim and Anne in Shakopee. This spring, Father Becker led a School of Charism Discovery, a 10-week course introducing Catholics to charisms of the Holy Spirit.

The School of Charism Discovery gave participants confidence to use charisms, and the School of Ministry will help participants further activate and apply them, especially prophecy and healing, Father Becker said. It will “raise up an army,” Father Becker said, noting that graduates will be able to more confidently share their gifts and work to evangelize the culture.

As the archdiocese seeks more ways to invite the Holy Spirit and enrich its fruits, bringing Encounter Ministries’ School of Ministry to Minnesota now is “really wonderful,” said Laura Haraldson, the facilitator for implementing Archbishop Hebda’s pastoral letter.

“I believe that part of what we’re called to be — and Archbishop Hebda is asking us to be — is open to Christ,” Haraldson said, “open to the movement of the Holy Spirit, always rooted in prayer and open to seeing what the Lord might actually be doing in our lives.”