Meet Jim & His Dad: Father & Son Missionary Disciples
As Father’s Day approaches this weekend, I share with you a special story.
Jim Goodell is a Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) Leadership Consultant with many gifts, particularly for missionary discipleship and sharing his faith. Jim is a leader within our initiative, Parish Missionary Disciples, which trains and equips leaders to share witness, evangelize, and deepen the faith of themselves and others.
When it comes to his discipleship skills, Jim was trained by a special teacher… his dad!
Read below to see the extremely unique evangelization tool Jim’s dad used. Jim shared this story with our CLI team after his dad’s passing this past January, and it is a joy to share it with you.
On Father’s Day, know that we are praying for and celebrating fathers, godfathers, uncles, grandfathers, fathers-in-law, foster dads, and all those who fill a father figure role.
Below is Jim’s story in his own words!
“Good Egg Creations": Dad’s Equipping Me for Missionary Discipleship
In 1983, right out of college, I started my career at Merrill Lynch as an Operations Management Intern in New York City. At the end of my internship, I became a Policies & Procedures Analyst. This time was blessed because the Lord provided an opportunity to deepen my relationship with my Dad. I lived at home in New Jersey and commuted to and from New York each day with Dad. He always made my lunch and would draw a cartoon on each bag with a bible verse as a thought of the day. He called these “Good Egg Creations”. My first set of offices were cubicles. As time went by, fellow analysts caught sight of the bags. At lunch time each day voices would ring out from cubicle mates asking for the thought of the day. In looking back on those moments, I reflect on how Dad and the Lord were equipping me as a Missionary Disciple, to use these bags as an entrée to deeper faith sharing.
Each morning, at 4:30 am, I would find Dad on his knees in the living room praying in the dark. From that prayer time he would then make my lunches. Five years ago, when my mom passed and we were preparing to move Dad from the home in New Jersey down to Florida with us, my sister noticed two knee marks warn in the carpet where Dad had faithfully prayed all those years.
Through his example and equipping, Robert Goodell, was a true Disciple Maker. Here are some bags from those years. They included my first name in different iterations, a sun (son), a Good Egg character with the holy spirit (fire) symbol, a theme, and a scripture verse.
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