School is back, parish programs are starting, and calendars are filling fast — so John Gaffney, director of evangelization and mission for the Diocese of Des Moines, asks a question that cuts through the busyness: if you color-coded every activity on your family calendar, where would faith fall? John shares why scheduling family prayer as priority one is the single most practical September faith habit a household can adopt. He also reflects on the ordinary witnesses who shaped his own conversion, and the question that has guided his ministry for 30 years: who is Jesus sending you to?
John Gaffney, director of evangelization and mission for the Diocese of Des Moines, joins Deacon Mark Campbell for his monthly segment with a September challenge for Catholic families. As schedules reset around the school year — sports, dance, band practice, work, NFL season — John suggests a simple exercise: color-code the family calendar and see where faith actually lands. If it's out on the margins, that's the sign to move it. His answer is direct: schedule family prayer as priority one.
John and Deacon Mark talk through the most common objection — "I don't have time to pray" — and why we make time for what we love. John shares his own habit of getting up a little early to start the day with Iowa Catholic Radio or a prayer app before the busyness begins, and why getting kids "hooked on prayer" changes the direction of a whole household.
Asked who modeled that intentionality in his own life, John points to Joe and Evie Nemec, his and his wife's sponsor couple at the Basilica of Saint John — a couple in their nineties who taught him that hospitality means more than saying welcome. They kept checking in. That lesson still shapes how he looks around at Mass for the person sitting alone, the family that never comes to coffee and donuts, the neighbor who might just be waiting for an invitation.
John closes with the question a mentor once turned back on him 30 years ago, and that he has carried ever since: as you go deeper in your faith, who is Jesus sending you to? Learn more about evangelization, catechesis, and adult faith formation at the Diocese of Des Moines.
Heard on the Catholic Morning Show, weekdays at 7 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio. More at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
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