IIC 149: The Integration of Personal Formation in NET Ministries with Pete Burds

Pete Burds: [00:00:00] And then from our end, everything that we do at NET is all geared towards relational ministry. You know, like especially for our retreat teams, they are meeting 80 new people every single day. They’re staying in a different host home every single day. It’s like they’re on tour, you know.

Dr. Peter: [00:00:16] 18- and 19-year-olds launching into the deep, becoming ministers to younger teenagers, living out their faith on the road? This is NET Ministries. Many people might think, many people might say 18, 19? That’s too young. But you know what? It’s really not about age. It’s about formation. Yes, there are challenges. Yes, there are conflicts that these young folk will face as they go out on the road, as they go out in their pastoral work, in their ministry work. But there are also solutions.

Pete Burds: [00:00:57] It’s their first time away from home. You know, I mean, that comes with its own challenges. And now here’s this whole huge group of people you’ve never met before, and, you know, and just road life is hard. You know, when missionaries are out and about, it can get challenging. You’re obviously having friction within the team.

Dr. Peter: [00:01:11] Yeah. So there’s a human formation challenge for you. How does NET Ministries form these 18-year-olds, these 19-year-olds, these 20-year-olds to take on such adult responsibilities? How do they do it? Let’s find out in this episode of Interior Integration for Catholics. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, also known as Dr. Peter. I am your host and guide in this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast. I am so glad to be with you. I’m a clinical psychologist, a trauma therapist, a podcaster, writer, co-founder, and president of Souls and Hearts. But most of all, I’m a beloved little son of God. That’s my identity, a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you to taste and to see the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God your father, but also Mary, your mother, your spiritual parents. These are your primary parents. I am here to help you embrace your identity as a beloved little child of God, of Mary. And we are continuing our ongoing series on the integration of personal formation, bringing in the best, the brightest, the most creative, the most influential Catholic thought leaders in the personal formation space. And as we do this, we’re focusing on practical, real-life ways that Catholic leaders are living out the integration of the four dimensions of personal formation — human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral — how they’re sharing that, how they’re forming others in those four domains in an integrated way.

Dr. Peter: [00:02:51] Today, in episode 149 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast titled The Integration of Personal Formation in NET Ministries. This releases on September 16th, 2024. I am excited to share with you my conversation with Pete Burds of NET Ministries. We met at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024. We got together for an interview and we’re focusing on how NET integrates formation in adolescents and young adults. We’ll be talking about the demands on NET missionaries, and how the NET training staff help their young missionaries, these teenagers, to rise to the challenge. Pete Burds is a thought leader in the formation of young people through NET’s outreach and retreats, discipleship, and also the YDisciple digital toolbox. He serves as the Vice President of Mission for NET Ministries, overseeing missionary formation, training, and programming, as well as the YDisciple in leadership development. Pete encountered Jesus Christ through a high school youth ministry program, and ever since then he has used his five loaves and his two fish for the sake of building the kingdom. So through storytelling, leading retreats, and through his 15 years of experience in youth and young adult ministry, he proclaims the freedom found in Christ to thousands. He and his family live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. So without any further ado, let’s get right to that interview.

Dr. Peter: [00:04:14] So we are here on day three of the National Eucharistic Congress 2024, here in my hometown, Indianapolis, Indiana. And I am super excited to have Pete Burds with me today from NET Ministries. Yeah, just lovely to have you. Thanks for responding when I reached out to you.

Pete Burds: [00:04:36] Yeah, it’s awesome.

Dr. Peter: [00:04:37] I just want to get started with an understanding of the mission. Really the vision and then the mission of NET and then we’ll get into, what we’re doing in the series is really discussing the integration of those four dimensions of formation from Pope Saint John Paul II. High level overview. I want to see, I want to understand, because I don’t know a lot about NET. So I really want to understand, what’s your vision, what’s your mission. And then, yeah, we’ll take it from there.

Pete Burds: [00:05:05] Yeah. So NET has existed actually for about 43 years. It was founded 43 years ago in the early 80s. So older than I’ve been alive, which is kind of crazy. And I just started with NET a little over a year ago. And prior to that, I actually was in a missionary. So I’ve been involved in youth and adult work, evangelization for a long time. So coming in, it’s been an amazing thing to kind of witness and to see and to ask that exact question, what does all of this look like? But essentially, NET exists to challenge young Catholics, really to follow Jesus Christ, embrace the life of community in the church, right at the heart of everything. And so how that has looked over the last 43 years has mainly been through retreat ministry. So we send missionaries, 18 to 25 or so, all throughout the country to do retreats, going into a parish or school. So whether a confirmation retreat or a class retreat or whatever it might be. So we train missionaries to do that. And then in addition to that, we’ve had discipleship teams for the last, probably 20 years or so, that have actually been at a parish or school full time, you know, so they come alongside a campus minister, come alongside a youth minister, and really work with the middle school, high school students that are there. Yeah, so it’s kind of this beautiful layer of generations in a lot of ways. You have the staff forming the missionaries, who are 18 to 25 or so, and then they’re going out to actually form young people, again through retreats, small group ministry, one-on-one discipleship conversations. And NET, by the nature of it, we can’t be everywhere. You know, in a lot of ways it feels like, oh, man, we’re here, we’re here, we’re here in a lot of ways. But we also have a beautiful discipleship toolbox that we call YDisciple that really gives parishes access to our training, but also the ability to facilitate small groups really anchored in discipleship. So yeah, it’s amazing, amazing to walk into and be a part of.

Dr. Peter: [00:06:49] So that word discipleship immediately brings to mind pastoral formation. All right. So that’s the fourth dimension that we’ve been talking about. And according to the USCCB and the Program for Priestly Formation, sixth edition, Pastores Dabo Vobis, so the pastoral formation is like the culmination of the other three. Not that it just comes at the end and only at the end. Obviously, it comes all the way through. But I’m really curious, like what goes into the forming of a NET missionary? Which is going to be a young person, 18 to 25, right? So you age out of this. It’s not like you’re 43 years old and you’re still in that mission.

Pete Burds: [00:07:29] We don’t want you to be a missionary at that point. You can come on staff, but that’s a different thing.

Dr. Peter: [00:07:33] Okay, so these are folks that in this generation could use a lot of formation. I mean, we’re in formation for the entirety of our life, but there’s still a lot of formational work, 18, 20, 22. So, yeah. Help me understand.

Pete Burds: [00:07:47] They are hungry. So we take missionaries right out of high school. You know, a lot of college-age kind of thing with the age range. But I mean they are hungry. They want to know how to live this life. They want to live it in community and maybe even the place they find themselves there isn’t that much, right? And so a lot of them are seeking, how do I land? How do I dig roots? And what that kind of like integrated vision of discipleship really looks like, as you mentioned, like the pastoral piece is really on the other side. But at the end of the day, they’re really looking for more formation, which is kind of what I would say, especially for, we have five weeks of training. The first two and a half weeks are really focused on that. And then we get more into the, how to do the thing. You know, it’s the piece of it.

Dr. Peter: [00:08:30] So, are they coming in? I’m just curious about that age bracket that are on fire. Or maybe, I mean, maybe that’s not the right word, but they’re enthusiastic. They’re motivated, let me say that. And so many times, and maybe this is just my perspective, right, they might be motivated for all the pastoral work, right? They want to get out there. They want to save souls for Christ and so forth. Are they thinking about human formation? Are they thinking about sort of the raw material, the natural level at all, or is that something that you’re introducing to them for the first time?

Pete Burds: [00:09:05] Yeah, I would say a bit of both. It’s been actually really fascinating. A lot that I’ve noticed have come in, know that there’s something missing. Like, you know, just even thinking Covid a couple of years ago. Like, I think it’s pretty in the air that like, I don’t have all the tools in the toolbox to be able to just relate well, as a mature adult, you know, young adult in the world. And so I think they might not articulate it, but they have some kind of like inkling there. And then from our end, everything that we do at NET is all geared towards relational ministry, especially for our retreat teams. They are meeting 80 new people every single day. They’re staying in a different host home every single day. It’s like they’re on tour, you know. And then I would say our discipleship teams, it’s like they’re meeting teams, but they’re also really going deep, just the depth there because they’re not obviously bouncing around. And so a big part of our task is, well, how do we actually like bring out that human formation? Which I would say coming in, being new, over the last year or so, has really been the gift of NET, you know, like there’s such a high level of human formation in everything that we do. Looking at the training that we’ve been doing for roughly 40 years, like, I mean, it’s just baked into the very framework. It’s more of that integrated approach. But I would say really with an earmark towards, how do we just help good maturation in the Christian life and specifically through human formation?

Dr. Peter: [00:10:30] So again, just starting with human formation and we’ll go through the others as well. How do you do it? Like how do you take somebody that’s coming in, let’s say 18 years old, 19 years old, maybe just out of high school, a year out of high school, wants to do this, is making a transition from living with parents, I’m assuming, you know, and now kind of out in the world, there’s a lot going on in terms of the developmental tasks, the adulting, you know, kind of thing. So what is the model for human formation? Help me understand, like the deliberate way that you guys do this. Like what does it look like?

Pete Burds: [00:11:02] Yeah, I would say when people typically think about like formation or training, how is that typically delivered? It’s presentations, you know what I mean? Here’s like a 45 minute talk. I think really the heart of our formation is always through small group ministry. So we have what we call mission staff who are older missionaries, in a sense, that oversee the teams.

Dr. Peter: [00:11:24] So they’re still not 25 yet?

Pete Burds: [00:11:26] Yeah, they’re roughly 22 to 25, depending on, yeah, a whole host of things. But they’re on the training staff that’s actually facilitating the training. And the main thing that they do is they lead a small group of the missionaries, which what that does is that helps them many times for the first time, actually share more vulnerably. You know what I mean? Like actually have like good Christian brotherhood, good Christian sisterhood, that many of them it’s really for the first time. Because even if they encountered the Lord in high school, they grew up Catholic in a really great Catholic family, wherever they kind of come from, they haven’t had the level of depth that they get to within our missionary training and formation. And just I think that, like, kind of small group approach is a really big deal for how that develops, you know, from the human end. And then I would say there’s even just like little things. So a good example is all of our teams, they stay in host homes, host families. So they’re constantly going into different people’s homes, having dinner together. So one of the formation things that we do is we actually have the team sit around a table and do kind of a family-style meal during training. They can only have one conversation, which for this generation is just hard to do for a lot of them, and so giving them opportunities to not do it right the first time. Opportunities to fail and to grow in that. And then I think especially throughout the missionary year, it’s like they just get better and better at that because they’re constantly doing it. Like I said, they meet new people every day. I’ve seen missionaries that when they first arrived, couldn’t really look me in the eye. To like at the very end, they’re charming a crowd, you know what I mean? And just like, actually holding conversation way better than they used to. Just like little things like that, I think has been a real gift. And really, I think a big gift that NET has brought to the church over the years.

Dr. Peter: [00:13:17] So let’s move to intellectual formation. You know, so how do you guys think about intellectual formation? How do you approach it? I’m just really curious about that piece of it.

Pete Burds: [00:13:28] Yeah, I think, we don’t assume much on the front end. You know what I mean? Like, I mean we have missionaries that come in that are more fresh in their conversion, you know. Others that certainly have had a lot of formation just through family and things like that. I just moved from Wisconsin, so I’ve been in Wisconsin for the last like 15 years or so. And Vince Lombardi, there’s this great story where at the very beginning of training camp, he raises up a football and says, “Gentlemen, this is a football.” You know, one of the players is like, “Hold on, coach, you’re going too fast.” You know, it’s like a big thing. But there is that bit of like, we need to get to the fundamentals of like, who is God as Father, as Son, as Holy Spirit? You know, introducing certainly devotion to Our Lady, the Eucharist, Scripture. What does all this look like? And then I would also say, like even intellectual formation when it comes to, this is how you build community with other people, which we don’t usually think about. You know, but some real good formation from that end is like, what does it actually look like to reconcile with another brother or sister? You know, we’d say, oh, you should forgive someone. Well, what does that actually look like? You know, what does our speech look like? And how does that approach and obviously all rooted in the catechism, all rooted in Scripture. You know, at its very foundation.

Dr. Peter: [00:14:41] So kind of forming, like conceptually, helping them understand conceptually what forgiveness looks like or what even being at supper looks like, right. You know, and so there’s an intellectual or a cognitive component to it. And then the experiential component of it. And what about like the spiritual formation of your missionaries? Like, what does that look like for somebody that might be considering doing this? If there’s a young person kind of listening to this, like, what might they be exposed to or shared with them and stuff like that?

Pete Burds: [00:15:11] Yeah, there’s kind of two things I would say. One is NET was born out of the Charismatic Renewal. So the CCR, Community of Christ the Redeemer, has been a big community within the Twin Cities for decades. And so it was born out of the Charismatic Renewal in the early 80s. And so we still certainly have a charismatic charism in what we’re doing. You know, praise and worship, having different prayer meetings and things like that. Certainly a beautiful sacramental life. Like we actually just got a chaplain from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul, Minneapolis, that was named to be our chaplain, which is a great gift. So confession, obviously daily Mass and things are a part of it, and really beautiful liturgies. And then the last thing I would say, every missionary, when they come out of training, probably the most impactful thing is what we call prayer labs. So it’s every morning, it’s traditionally done by a couple of folks, just leadership and staff, will just do training exercises when it comes to prayer. What does that actually look like practically? And then giving them the space every day. Have 30 minutes of silence with Scripture, actually having that heart-to-heart conversation with Jesus. And then we’re encouraging them and holding them accountable to it all throughout the year, you know what I mean? That’s the other big piece. It’s like you can train somebody, but then it really gets into more of the habit, which is difficult to do, missionary life is busy, but then they’re really choosing it every single day. And that, I think, is probably the most transformative thing that I hear from missionaries’ experience. Like, yes, it is the mission. And yes, it’s the, you know, all the bells and whistles that come along with it. But those 30 minutes of silent prayer every day, that’s the game changer.

Dr. Peter: [00:16:44] And how does that accountability work? Do they have somebody that they’re partnered up with? Does it happen in the small group, the accountability? 

Pete Burds: [00:16:51] That’s a great question. So when we send out our teams, a huge piece of what we do is, we’re a community on mission, you know. So that team dynamic is incredibly important. They’re not a bunch of individuals that are all out doing their own thing. They are working together, ministering together as a team, regardless of what their ministry actually looks like. And so we put a lot of emphasis on the brotherhood and sisterhood components. You know, teams are usually split men and women in that way, like equal numbers, 5 and 5, or 4 and 4. And then as I mentioned before, we have mission staff, and mission staff are kind of older missionaries that have more leadership that actually supervise the team. And so they’re the ones that are really holding accountable. So, you know, when you think of, there’s typical models with Paul, Barnabas and Timothy, right. Every missionary has a Barnabas in terms of their brother or sister on their team, but they also have a Paul, you know, kind of overseeing them, a bit more at a distance because their teams are pretty mobile, but they visit the teams throughout the year and are able to have that accountability, especially with just more technology and such too.

Dr. Peter: [00:17:50] Wow. So when there’s trouble on a team, because there’s going to be. There’s going to be.

Pete Burds: [00:17:59] When you get a human being, you get a mess. You know, that’s the reality of it.

Dr. Peter: [00:18:03] Really. And I think we need to talk about this sort of stuff. So I’m really interested in what different organizations, different ministries, different outreaches do when somebody is struggling, you know, like they’re having difficulties. Like how does that work in NET? Like when you start hearing, okay, somebody is really struggling with an adjustment to this. Or, you know, has, I’m going to just call it a formation deficit. I’m not talking necessarily about mom and dad died tragically in a car accident, unexpectedly. I’m talking about like a fundamental sort of issue within.

Pete Burds: [00:18:37] I’d say a lot of missionaries, it’s their first time away from home. You know, I mean, that comes with its own challenges. And now here’s this whole huge group of people you’ve never met before, you know, and just road life is hard. You know, when missionaries are out and about, it can get challenging. You’re obviously having friction within the team. I mentioned this before, that reconciling component. We really put a lot of emphasis on that, using good speech and so forth. But yeah, if somebody’s struggling with, I would say two big kind of avenues. One is through, we work with a number of mental health professionals, that they can get kind of mental health first aid. You know, it’s a big thing to have a system in place where they can do that really easily, but also, you know, confidentially and so forth. And then also spiritual help as well. So we have kind of a similar approach but with spiritual directors around the country that, you know, did NET, have a good sense of what it is that they’re really doing and getting into.

Pete Burds: [00:19:28] And during our training on the front end, we have two pretty significant mental health, essentially, sessions for about an hour and a half each, where we bring in a mental health professional team in particular. They have a good sense, again, what the sticky situations are, typically, on a NET team and can speak into those things and give them tools for what it looks like to actually name your emotions, right, and be able to process that and talk to somebody else about that, whether it’s on your team or a professional or so forth. So we’re trying to certainly be more proactive in that, you know, especially with rising anxiety and depression and all these different things that surround us. It’s like, okay, that’s there. That’s who we’re having come in. So trying to be more proactive about it and putting some tools in place to do it well. And good friendship, you know, there’s a lot, at the end of the day, it’s good friendship that’s pointing people to Jesus. Go figure. But that carries a lot of weight with things.

Dr. Peter: [00:20:20] Absolutely. So let’s transition a bit to the ones that your missionaries serve. And these are mostly high school students?

Pete Burds: [00:20:29] Middle school, high school. 

Dr. Peter: [00:20:30] Middle school and high school, okay. And so going to be somewhat younger, right. A few years younger, maybe not that much younger. And I’m just curious about like the formation. And not that NET would be the primary formators of those folks, but like, how do you think about this in terms of formation by the NET missionaries kind of going out? How are they thinking about formation with these middle schoolers, with these high schoolers?

Pete Burds: [00:20:59] Yeah. No, it’s a great question. You can’t give what you don’t have. You know, so there is a level of like the missionaries that we have coming in, some of them have a greater sense of formation in the faith. Other ones are still pretty new, you know. And so I think there’s a bit of every missionary is able to give something different. And most of all, I think with what our missionaries can really give young people is, this is what a relationship looks like. Which seems so fundamental, but that’s the tricky part of it. It’s like I struggle having a relationship with my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, and my friends. And now you’re asking me to have a relationship with a God I can’t see? You know what I mean? Like, that’s a pretty big challenge and a lofty one. And so what our missionaries really are trained to do is, okay, this is what relationship looks like. And then in terms of next steps, I mean, it’s the fundamentals of what it looks like to be a disciple. This is what prayer looks like. This is what Scripture looks like. You know, this is what it means to live and breathe in the Catholic life. I would say fundamental, not basic. You know, it’s really, here’s the fundamental building blocks. So our missionaries are less equipped to give a more like theological presentation. It’s more nitty gritty day-to-day discipleship and really initial encounter with, God loves you. You know, I mean, just some pretty fundamental, kind of charismatic ways to approach things. And initial encounters with Jesus is really the kind of heart of it. And what does it look like to live as his disciple?

Dr. Peter: [00:22:27] And what do you hope happens? Well, let’s start with the missionaries, again. We’ll go back to the missionaries. What do you hope happens? Is this like, there’s a commitment for maybe two years?

Pete Burds: [00:22:37] It’s usually a year. They can hop on for two if they want. Some hop on for three, but that’s a challenge.

Dr. Peter: [00:22:42] Okay, so at the end of year one of being a missionary, what are you hoping is different or what are you hoping has changed for that missionary?

Pete Burds: [00:22:53] Yeah. I have a lot of hopes. I’d be curious how they would answer this question. You know, like I mentioned, I’m new to my position, you know, so I oversee all things related to training, formation, and operations of the missionaries. And in the process of applying for the job, my wife and I actually connected with a more recent NET missionary, which was providential. So I was asking her these kind of questions, you know, and poking at, what did that year mean for you? And it was fascinating hearing her response, because she took a gap year in between her sophomore and junior year of college and did NET. She came back for junior year. And that’s when we were having this conversation. And she said, “I am not afraid to talk to my professors.” And it sounds funny, like we did, I mean, knowing the NET playbook, it’s like she’s received the sacramental formation, prayer, all these different aspects of things. But that was her first thing. And I think there’s something really beautiful about that, going back to the human formation piece, is there’s so many missionaries that just respond to good Christian fellowship and community, the sacramental life, Scripture, all those pieces. And it’s like God grows them in the way that He desires.

Pete Burds: [00:24:07] And so to me, growth can be a lot of things. It’s like, okay, now I’m actually praying every day. Growth can be, I can talk to my professor for the first time. I mean, so we did this thing, I was really, really taken aback by this. Kind of fun thing that we do is we give them at the very end, like a picture of themselves on the first day. And this is at the end of the year kind of thing. And do like a, then and now sort of dynamic. And a bunch of the guys this past year were saying, “This boy used to do this, and now this man does this.” And just seeing like, oh man, there’s like a whole A to B sort of experience there. So I mean practically it’s like I hope that they’re praying every day. I hope that they feel like they’ve been generous with their life, and they’re going to continue to be generous with their life, in terms of the mission. And, you know, I mean, there’s so many vocations coming out of NET over the years. That’s just been incredible. Bishop Cousins, who’s leading the whole Eucharistic Congress, was a NET missionary. You know, like it’s just incredible. You know, there’s just so much fruit from that. And anchored in a life of discipleship and on mission for the rest of your life. That would be my hope.

Dr. Peter: [00:25:17] And let’s tie it into, since you brought up the Eucharistic Congress, and that’s where we are. Let’s bring the Eucharist into this. You know, you talked about how this is a relational ministry. And so I’m imagining, we haven’t said it explicitly. I think we should. Fostering a personal, intimate relationship with Christ in the Eucharist. Tell me about how that happens in NET.

Pete Burds: [00:25:38] Yeah. I would say primarily through just opportunities. You know, I mean we’ve got a Eucharistic chapel all throughout training, Mass every day. And certainly missionaries, when they’re on the road, for the most part, they have opportunities to go to Mass every day, just depending on schedules they might not. An actual session on the Eucharist. Actually, this year, inspired by the processions that have been happening, we’re going to do a procession around the NET center as like kind of a thing, you know. So a bit of that deeper love and deeper devotion is through just participating, you know, in Mass and adoration and things. But also it’s the culture. You know, we’ve talked about formation a lot of different ways. At NET, it’s in the air. You know, it is the culture that you breathe in every single day, which I think is true for a lot of ministries that are very founded in the New Evangelization. It’s like you walk in and culturally, the way that people speak, the way that they respond to things, it’s in the air. And certainly Eucharistic devotion is at the heart of that.

Dr. Peter: [00:26:31] So let’s say we have a NET missionary and she, he does the thing for a year, right? What happens afterward? Do you guys stay in touch with your former missionaries, or are they just sort of like, there you go, you’re done. You know, and they might be at a loss, right? Because now I’m 21, maybe I’m not in college. I’m thinking about going, but I could see where there could be a really abrupt transition out.

Pete Burds: [00:26:57] Of course. Yeah, And I think this is something that in recent years we’re getting better and better at, just asking that question. So first off, we have a whole alumni association that we just launched actually a couple of weeks ago, which is a beautiful thing. At the Eucharistic Congress, we had alumni barbecue. There was about 150 people there. Bishop Cousins showed up for 15 minutes, which I was like, you’re pretty busy, what are you doing here? You know, just having, like, that sense of fellowship is there. I mean, in the Catholic world, there’s so much ongoing formation. We want people to get plugged in their parishes and their campus ministries and stuff. So, knowing NET is never going to be the end all, be all, at the same time, we still want to support missionaries after they leave, obviously. So having some kind of connection is helpful with other alumni that are in whatever area they’re in. And then I would say throughout the year, we actually have them at the NET Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota four different times. So initial training, but they come back in December and then two weeks off for Christmas and then come back in January. And then we have what we call wrap up week at the end of the year. And in December and January, we’re talking a little bit about like, think about what you might want to do next. And then the wrap up week is a whole week really devoted to transition, processing the year, which is a big part of the transition. And then what does it look like moving forward? What do you actually like going into, you know? And I think we’re getting better and better at, one, again, helping them really process what just happened this year, right, and what are the things that you’re really wanting to take into what’s coming next, you know, whatever that might be. But a lot of missionaries, some work, you know, one guy started firefighting school, you know, that kind of thing. But certainly a lot are going to college. Some are returning missionaries or doing other things.

Dr. Peter: [00:28:37] So as we bring this to a close, I’m just curious about like what you would want to leave our viewers with, our listeners with. Like, if there’s one main point that you would want to offer those that are kind of tuning in, may not know a lot about NET yet, or this may be their first exposure. What do you want for us?

Pete Burds: [00:28:59] Yeah, two things come to mind. The first one is, there’s hope. You know, I think for a lot of people just within the church, they look at the state of things or statistics and all these different things and people in our own lives that have left the faith. It’s my experience just with the young people that are coming in, especially as missionaries; they are hungry. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. You know, there’s such a desire there. They just might not have all the tools. And some of those tools lacking might be the human piece, you know. And I think sometimes there’s a temptation to just, like, give up on the next generation. Where we’re like, no, no, no, we got to do the opposite. Like we’ve got to do the double hard work of helping them actually mature. It’s like, maybe they don’t know how, for whatever reason. Well, let’s figure out how to do it. And that’s going to be messy. And it’s not easy. But that’s something I know, at least for myself, I really believe. And there’s hope in the next generation. They’re hungry and we can’t give up on them, at the end of the day, you know. And I’m excited to be at NET because I think people on staff really believe that, and we have this beautiful history that supports it, you know, in this beautiful structure that supports it.

Pete Burds: [00:30:08] When it comes to ministering to middle schoolers and high schoolers, you know, all of our missionaries, at the end of the day, that’s what they’re doing. Maybe in a similar vein, it almost feels like, ahh, youth ministry, you know, or ahh, like, okay, been there, done that, or that kind of thing. And I think at the end of the day, obviously formation, the first catechist needs to be the parents, you know what I mean? Like 100%, like the impact that a family can have is a huge deal. Teens typically also need more mentors in their life than their parents that reinforce everything. You know, I was talking to a buddy of mine a few weeks ago and I was like, you need to be my kids’ youth minister. Like you need to reinforce that we’re not crazy, you know? Like the light, as we’re going into a more countercultural experience just within the apostolic age that we’re in. As we go more into that, it’s like there’s a bit of a, our families are living a countercultural life, and we need more reinforcement from really great coaches and really great teachers, really great youth ministers. And I would say missionaries that are stepping into the lives of these young people, whether those young people come from great Catholic families or maybe some really broken families, it’s like we need to be stepping in that gap and showing people the love of Jesus Christ in a relational way. Yeah, that’s why I’m excited to work for NET, to labor in the vineyard in the way that I do. Yeah, it’s been a great gift.

Dr. Peter: [00:31:31] So if people want to find out more, how do they do that?

Pete Burds: [00:31:34] Yeah. netusa.org. So there’s actually a couple of different NETs around the country. So netusa.org, we’re the kind of founding, you know, organization. But there’s also NET Canada, NET Ireland, NET Uganda, NET Australia, and NET Scotland as well, which is just a great, you know, that’s a whole other conversation. But yeah, netusa.org is the place to find us, on all the social media stuff too.

Dr. Peter: [00:31:58] Well, it has been a pleasure to spend some time with you, Pete.

Pete Burds: [00:32:01] A real gift. Thanks for reaching out.

Dr. Peter: [00:32:03] So, Pete Burds, and you’re the vice president for mission. Okay, great. And so, just thank you for coming.

Pete Burds: [00:32:10] Thanks for having me.

Dr. Peter: [00:32:11] I’m so glad to meet you at the National Eucharistic Congress.

Pete Burds: [00:32:14] It’s a gift. God bless you.

Dr. Peter: [00:32:17] All right, so it was such a good thing to be able to catch up with you, Pete, at the National Eucharistic Congress. And thank you again for our time together. Again, I’m just going to put this call out here. Subscriptions. Youtube subscriptions. Really want to see those happen. Please give us a like and subscribe to us on our channel, Interior Integration for Catholics on YouTube. Also, give us a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps us to get the word out. I’m going to talk about the Resilient Catholics Community. We’re reopening for new applications in just about two weeks, October 1st, 2024. And again, this is for those of you who really want to get into your own human formation. Every one of us can be working on our human formation. It’s a lifelong project. There are ways to remedy any human formation deficits. Most people, when they think about that, they’re thinking about therapy. They’re thinking about counseling. Maybe they’re thinking about coaching. We’ve got brand new ways. Actually, they’re not brand new. We’ve been doing them for years now, but we’ve got innovative ways to help you do this together in community. Actually, a lot cheaper, too, that’s a real benefit, but also in ways that allow you to do this with other people. You have your company, which is your small group in the RCC, anywhere between 6 and 8 other people. You also have your companion, somebody that you’re in touch with on a daily basis for accountability. So I’m inviting you into resiliency, flourishing, to living joyfully, with peace and radiance. Get on the interest list for the next cohort at soulsandhearts.com/rcc. Again, we’re accepting applications starting on October 1st. That will run until October 31st of 2024.

Dr. Peter: [00:33:54] And as part of the RCC application, you’ll take the PartsFinder Pro. That’s a series of 19 different measures to help you identify and connect with the different parts of you, including parts you never knew you had, parts that may have been banished from your conscious awareness forever. And these parts need you to take care of them, to love them too. The PartsFinder Pro is a great first step in understanding yourself more deeply, and you’ll get a six-page personalized report and a 15 minute personal meeting with one of our staff to go over the results and to help with the discernment process about joining the RCC. Remember, I’ve got conversation hours. Those are every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern time. You can reach me at (317) 567-9594. And I also want to remind you of Dr. Gerry’s Litanies of the Heart. These are the beautiful prayers that he wrote that are informed by attachment theory. They are excellent and they were the basis for the book he wrote, which was also called Litanies of the Heart. We have so many free resources on those, and you can check them out at soulsandhearts.com/lit. And again, an invitation to pray for us. Everything we do is fueled by prayer. We need your prayers in order to be able to continue our ministry here, our outreach here at Souls and Hearts, in our particular little corner of the vineyard, which is this integrated personal formation, especially human formation. And with that, we’ll invoke our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Special thanks to the Human Formation Coalition, who provided the support to make this transcript available.