A young couple from Holy Cross in northeast Minneapolis says the School of Discipleship — which Archbishop Bernard Hebda is encouraging people to participate in as the archdiocese begins to implement the pastoral letter “You Will Be My Witnesses” — was the key to starting the engine of their evangelization.

“It kicked in when I realized Jesus picked the disciples he thought could learn to be like him,” Joe Wistrcill said. His wife, Angela, seconded that, saying, “It became so real that each of us is called to be a follower versus a fan. If you’re a fan, you might attend a show at Target Center. If you’re a follower, you are accompanying (Jesus), doing what he did.”

The seven-week experience, followed by a 40-Day Discipleship Challenge and a special day of inspiration and celebration with all participants, is offered through The St. Paul Seminary’s Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute in St. Paul and led by Jeff Cavins, director emeritus of the institute, and author and creator of the Great Adventure Bible Study Series and the Bible in a Year podcast with Father Mike Schmitz.

As part of Synod implementation, each pastor in the archdiocese is expected to form a Synod Evangelization Team of about 12 people, all of whom will participate in the School of Discipleship as a first step in their ministry.

In addition, everyone in the archdiocese is invited to participate in the School of Discipleship sessions at Our Lady of Grace in Edina, which will be held 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday evenings Feb. 7 through March 21.

Wistrcill, 31, who was raised Lutheran and married Angela, 30, a cradle Catholic, in 2020, said taking the course in 2021 had such an impact it led to his conversion to the Catholic faith. He joined the Church in April 2022.

“I didn’t expect to convert,” he said. “I didn’t expect to agree with the Catholic Church. But it kicked in when I knew I had been picked to be a disciple, to be like Jesus. This isn’t earning salvation. It is Jesus’ will that we become like him.”

Michaela Schulz, 28, said she participated in the School of Discipleship, at first reluctantly, after signing up for a session that was offered in the fall of 2019. She was encouraged to attend, but she was not excited about the $125 cost and thought, “another Catholic thing; I will be the youngest person there … fine. I will do it.”

“I look back on that now and I think, OK, who can I sponsor? I would have given up anything to have that course. I would have paid any amount,” said Schulz, a member of St. Michael in St. Michael.

Why?

“It’s the grace and wisdom and understanding the Lord gave me,” Schulz said. “It was truly the moment when my heart was opened to ‘everything happens for a reason.’ It was the first point in my life that I went all in. Jesus ignited something inside of me that turned the faucet on.”

Never one to talk about her faith prior to the course, Schulz said after the course she found herself on an airplane seated next to an older couple, both of whom were visibly uncomfortable.

“It was put on my heart, ‘ask her where she’s from,’” Schulz said. And out from the woman poured the couple’s experience of traveling from their home in Florida to Minnesota to see their son after a motorcycle accident that “broke every bone in his body,” Schulz said. “I told her, ‘I can’t imagine how your heart feels as a mother.’ And she wept and wept and wept. We ended up just praying together.”

Schulz and the Wistrcills said a great strength of School of Discipleship is empowering people to gently be with people. To be open to pain and heartache, joy and celebration, as Jesus was. It’s not pushy, or man on the street corner thumping the Bible, they said. And it is understanding and accepting that many encounters will be just one step in other people’s journeys toward Christ.

“God wants his love and mercy to enter the world,” Angela Wistrcill said. “We are his hands and feet. He wants us to connect with people. It’s not who I want to connect with. It’s who Christ wants to touch.”

A week after he and his wife took the course, Wistrcill said, he was purchasing a car and somehow the conversation with the financial expert at the dealership turned from finances to faith. “We got deep,” Wistrcill said. “He told me things he’d never shared with anyone before.”

How did that happen?

“It was my mindset,” Wistrcill said. “I decided I’m going to start with genuinely investing in people and caring about them.”

Serving people as well, Angela Wistrcill said. She and her husband now carry care packages for people in need they encounter on the street: warm socks, granola bars and hand sanitizing wipes. With a personal note: “We’re thinking about you. We care about you. God loves you.”

Schulz said she wants to share the fullness of the Catholic faith.

“I desire all to know the Lord,” she said. “Through the sacraments, adoration and the Mass. That is what I pray for. But I can’t control it. I meet people wherever they are, in humility, and I trust the Lord to do the rest.

“Evangelizing,” Schulz said, “is seeing someone.”

WHAT OTHERS SAY

Jeff Cavins, 65, said the School of Discipleship, which has been experienced by more than 3,000 people, strives to explain that being a disciple of Jesus means acting on his will. It is serving others, not simply learning about and agreeing with Christ’s teaching.

“A disciple is chosen and called to become like Jesus,” Cavins said. “It’s not CDs and reading. The shape of people’s day changes.”

The course outlines daily disciplines of being a disciple, including prayer and sharing the faith with confidence, and it emphasizes the good news of Christ: God loves us, repent, be baptized, be open to the Holy Spirit, be part of the Church, go out to evangelize, Cavins said.

Father Joseph Johnson, pastor of Holy Family in St. Louis Park, said his parish hosted the School of Discipleship in 2021. More than 100 people came and more participated online. The course’s goal, he said, is to get beyond five minutes of enthusiasm to reach a “deep, meaningful relationship with Christ.”

“I think Jeff Cavins is a very talented teacher,” Johnson said. “He’s always engaging people. He’s deeply rooted in Scripture. He shares the historic context of Jesus’ coming and what it meant.”

Bishop Joseph Williams said he asked members of St. Stephen and Holy Rosary in south Minneapolis to participate in 2021, when he was serving as pastor there. About 60 Latinos and others agreed to attend the sessions. “It was beautiful,” Bishop Williams said. “I didn’t know how this presentation would work in a different culture, a different generation. And these Latino young adults, they really ate it up. And it wasn’t just inspiring, a kind of a ‘rah rah, let’s be witnesses.’ It was to be chosen, to be called, to be formed. More than that, it was a daily encounter with Jesus, or these daily disciplines that Jeff Cavins focuses on. It really gives you practice with the most important thing of the Christian life, which is walking with Jesus, listening to his voice.”