Parishioners Diamantina Gutierrez (left) and Lori Lochen join Fr. Matthew Widder as guests on the Corpus Christi Podcast. They discussed how they were personally affected by the Waukesha Christmas Parade tragedy, as they had both also walked in the parade. The episode came out on Nov. 21, which was the four-year anniversary of the attack. (Photo by Corpus Christi Parish.)
Fr. Matthew Widder doesn’t expect to be confused with the late Bishop Fulton Sheen or Fr. Mike Schmitz, who expertly have used the media of their times to evangelize worldwide.
In fact, the pastor of Corpus Christi, Waukesha, had to be talked into doing a short weekly podcast.
But since Sept. 26, the 16-minute Corpus Christi Podcast allows him to spotlight parish members and staff who share their faith stories with his widely-scattered flock, whose 7,670 members attend Mass and other events at four churches throughout the city of 71,000.
“It is a conversation,” Fr. Widder said. “One of the big things in the sense of just being with people is hoping to draw out their own faith, different elements of their faith, and even struggles or challenges within the context of the faith which hopefully helps people relate to them,” said Fr. Widder.
His hope is that stories heard on the podcast resonate with listeners and their own experiences and help connect them with the parish that was officially finalized last July.
“It’s a lot about the call we’re hearing about every guest on the show. What was their call to God? What was their call to faith? Why did they choose the path that they did to get to where they are? We’ve all got our own story,” added Nick Bailey, the parish’s marketing and communications manager.
Both Fr. Widder and Bailey believe faith formation learning is crucial, but that storytelling becomes the deeper pathway to evangelizing the human heart.
“Sometimes we’ll argue about what is the right doctrine or this or that, but you can’t argue with someone’s story or someone’s lived experience. There is something that moves the heart,” Fr. Widder said.
“That’s what we hope to draw out, those real-life stories of how the Lord has worked in different people’s lives and how God has moved people to different spots in their life.”
Bailey has his own podcast and pitched the idea of Fr. Widder hosting a parish podcast as a way to connect people in more accessible ways in conjunction with the parish’s new website and a new parish app following the formal unification of four parishes as one and a new name that took effect last July.
Fr. Widder and Bailey discovered that guests and topics to create 52 podcasts a year will not be a challenge. They are introducing the parish staff to the full congregation and have had other guests as well.
One example of the varied faith-centered stories on the podcast came in the Oct. 10 episode with Fr. Jorge Perez Chakal, one of the parish’s two associate pastors, and his unusual pathway to the priesthood.
“I didn’t know his whole story on how he was almost married at one point. He’s very open and honest about what his past was and what led him to the priesthood,” Bailey said.
“I think when you go from seeing somebody in church every week to actually hearing their story, you see them in a different way,” Bailey said. “It also is one of those moments where you see somebody you don’t expect in the grocery store. We’re showing them that priests have lives, too.”
Fr. Widder said he appreciates that his very large parish can support a full-time communications and marketing person who has the recording, editing and organizational skills to manage the professional-sounding podcast and guests.
“If you don’t have the support staff to bring things like this to life, they just don’t happen,” he said.
