By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
The heavens opened at Christ’s baptism and have not closed since, according to Brad Hubbard, the campus director for the Dallas satellite campus of Encounter School of Ministry. The Dallas campus, which celebrated the graduation of its inaugural class on June 9 at St. Ann Catholic Church in Coppell, has equipped more than a hundred students to embrace this continued outpouring of grace and to go forth, evangelize, and bring God’s healing to the local community, he said.
“Through nothing we’ve earned, but just through a free gift, we have access to an open heaven,” Hubbard stated. “Jesus himself is calling us to bring heaven to earth, to help free captives and bring healing, bring redemption, bring breaking of chains; and so, as we truly step into that commission, it’s a game changer.”
The Encounter School of Ministry is a two-year program focused on equipping Catholics to live out the Great Commission of the Gospel by bringing God’s love into their unique spheres of influence. The program covers topics ranging from inner healing and intimacy with Jesus to leadership and evangelization. An international ministry, the school spans more than 40 campuses, which along with the online program have produced more than 1,600 graduates this year alone.
In 2023, with approval from Bishop Edward J. Burns, Hubbard brought the program to the Diocese of Dallas.
“There was a kingdom dream that the Lord was putting on my heart to discern a campus here in Dallas,” Hubbard said. “As I felt that tug from the Holy Spirit, I was doing my best to be obedient to it.”
Housed at St. Ann Catholic Church in Coppell, the Dallas campus boasts 120 graduates in its inaugural class, including St. Ann pastor Father Edwin Leonard and other leaders of the local Church.
Sons and daughters
Teresa Le Leux, who numbered among the Dallas campus graduates, described her two years in the program as “transformative” and “life changing.”
A cradle Catholic, Le Leux said her involvement in the Encounter School of Ministry exposed her in a totally new way to “what it means to walk in intimacy with God.” Identity as a beloved child of the Creator is the bedrock of the course, she said, and the focus of the first portion of the class curriculum.
“The foundational pieces that we all need to understand is who we are in God, as a child of God, and what our identity is as a baptized Christian, and then what it means to grow in intimacy with him,” Le Leux shared, “because everything flows from that.”
For Le Leux, who admitted to struggling with a “performance mentality” at the beginning of the course, the understanding of God as a loving Father has led to the cultivation of newfound trust and patience in prayer. She learned to rest in the Lord and allow him to work quietly and in his own time, she said.
“The Lord is always doing something; and even if we don’t feel something or notice anything, a shift or a change, he’s working,” she shared. “We begin to have the language in our mind and in our heart to look for how the Lord is moving.”
As students slowly grew in awareness of the Lord’s presence, graduates said, they also grew in gratitude — which lent itself to joyful praise.
“We worship every single time we gather, and there’s something so powerful about that,” Katie Shing, another Dallas graduate, shared. “The atmosphere is so thick with the Holy Spirit’s presence… like seeing the Church alive.”
To all the world
As students graduate from Encounter School of Ministry, their work is not done; they are tasked to use their formation to bring Christ to their communities, Hubbard said.
“We ask for them to be dreaming about what’s a kingdom dream,” a personal call from God for the glory of the kingdom, he explained, “that the Lord is uniquely putting on your heart, through the understanding that you have unique gifts, unique things that you bring into your sphere of influence.”
Following the graduation of the Dallas campus’s inaugural class, graduate Paul Skinner said he has a “kingdom dream” to begin intentionally praying with members of his community, including those he will encounter through his work.
“There are a lot of elderly people that need prayer and need Jesus,” he said. “I’m actually going to be able to reach out to people as an independent Medicare advisor and say… ‘Could we pray to start this conversation?’”
Skinner said he was also inspired to incorporate more prayer into his life at home, offering more intentional spiritual leadership to his family. When one of his daughters twisted an ankle playing volleyball, for example, he prayed with her, asking the Lord for healing. Now, his daughters do the same for him.
“I’ve been so proud to see how my kids have responded,” he said, adding of the Encounter program, “It’s really changed everybody.”
Cutline for featured image: A graduate of the Dallas satellite campus of Encounter School of Ministry celebrates during a graduation ceremony held at St. Ann Catholic Church in Coppell on June 9. (Courtesy Photo)
