‘The Harvest Is Abundant’: How One Parish Took 74 to SEEK
- Guest Contributor
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When St. Joan of Arc Parish in Arvada, Colorado, brought more than 70 parishioners to the SEEK conference in Denver this January, it wasn’t a last-minute decision — it was the fruit of years of discernment, prayer and a renewed understanding of what it means to be a parish on mission in the Archdiocese of Denver.
St. Joan of Arc Parish: Discerning, Empowering and Equipping
When St. Joan of Arc Parish in Arvada began a pastoral planning process in 2020, they had no idea it would involve years of discernment and would one day lead to a deepened faith in the parish and to the empowering and equipping of 74 parishioners at SEEK in Denver this January 2026.
With the support of the Archdiocese of Denver, including Scott Elmer, now chief mission officer and superintendent, and Kevin Greaney, now chief communications officer, St. Joan of Arc formed a leadership team to discern God’s will for the community's future.
Together with the Holy Spirit and St. Joan of Arc, their patroness, they developed a multi-year pastoral plan for the parish, built around distinct themes designed to help parishioners grow spiritually and live more intentionally.
Father Nathan Goebel, the parish’s pastor and a FOCUS alumnus, said the plan required trust in God and in the leadership team.
“I just had no idea that we were going to start a leadership team. That was all the Holy Spirit. … I thought I had really good ideas. But there were times I thought I had the perfect idea, and we didn’t go with it — and that was a huge blessing,” he explained. “And it turns out, if we just listen to what God wants for the parish, all of us are validated in different ways.”
Deacon Tim Heaton, who serves at St. Joan of Arc, agreed.
“We had a lot of ‘This is the way we’ve always done it’ thinking … and that’s common to every parish,” he said. “The key thing in this is that everything is done in prayer. We’re listening to the Spirit.”
After discerning the mission of the pastoral plan and a year focused on growing in spiritual maturity, parishioners heard that the SEEK conference would be held in Denver in 2026. The leadership team felt that the timing was providential.
Rather than attending the conference individually, the team discerned that it could expand their current spiritual plan and move the parish to the next step — empowering and equipping parishioners to live out their faith at the conference and beyond.
‘The Harvest is Abundant’
Mallory Hintz, a parishioner of St. Joan of Arc, said the decision to attend SEEK came after months of prayer and discernment.
“Our pastor and leadership team intentionally prayed over the parish and asked the Holy Spirit to choose who would be invited — not just to attend SEEK, but to be on mission,” she said.
The parish initially set a goal of bringing 72 parishioners to the conference, a number drawn from Scripture. In Luke 10:1-23, Jesus sends 72 disciples ahead of him to prepare the way, telling them, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.”
That passage, Father Goebel said, became central to the parish’s discernment.
“When Jesus called the 72, he said, ‘Ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest,’” Father Goebel explained. “He commissions them and sends them to all the towns he intends to visit — and then he steps back. That’s the part that’s crazy.”
That passage kept coming back to them, he said.
In the end, the leadership team received confirmation that 74 parishioners would be able to attend the conference in total — spanning a wide range of ages, ministries and vocations within the parish.
Jenny Pergola, a parishioner of St. Joan of Arc who participated in the process and attended SEEK, said the discernment experience was transformative.
“To learn the importance and value of slowing down and being part of the process, as well as letting the process be influenced by the Holy Spirit, just to see where it takes you, has helped me so much,” she said.
“It took almost two years to discern why we exist — and that felt long — but it mattered that we weren’t guided by our own ideas, but by what the Lord wanted,” Pergola added. “You're individuals coming together in a community to discern what the Lord wants, and so it makes sense that then the larger community would start to coalesce, as this core group is starting to coalesce with each other.”
From Conference to Community
Attending SEEK together as a parish on mission shaped parishioners' experience in a powerful way. Though thousands of Catholics from across the United States attended the conference, being part of a parish community enhanced the event for attendees.
Through daily Mass, opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration and Confession, and sessions with nationally recognized Catholic speakers, parishioners shared not only inspiration but a revitalization that they could bring back to their parish life.
For Hintz, it was her fourth SEEK conference but her first time attending as part of a parish community.
“It has been so beautiful and different,” she told the Denver Catholic. “The experience has been very uplifting. The last time I attended SEEK, I was so focused, inwardly, on what God was doing in my heart, and conforming my will to his.”
But at this conference, Hintz was focused on how she can expand that impact.
“Being able to see where everyone is at in their journey, and to continue to build up the Church through our mission at St. Joan of Arc has just been incredible,” she said.
“We really see St. Joan of Arc as our mission field — people were chosen across ages and ministries so the fruits of SEEK could multiply,” she added. “Jesus is the fire, but I can absorb heat. I want to continuously be a ‘hot pot’ and then gather and join and have others become ‘hot pots’ as well.”
Pergola attended the conference alongside family members and said that everyone who participated felt its impact.
“I know how the Lord is moving in my family,” she said. “And then there’s that flowdown effect of all of us touching our communities, and what that's going to take into our ministries.”
Father Goebel said that the shared experience is part of what gives SEEK its lasting impact.
“If we follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I have absolutely no idea what could happen,” he said. “I just know something will happen and we'll look back on it, and say, ‘Lord, everything we did was from You.’”
Father Goebel added, “When I left a FOCUS conference in Minneapolis in 2005, I said, ‘Lord, I’m ready to go wherever you want me to go.’ And in the end, he sent me right back to Denver as a priest.”
The Parish Isn’t Finished Yet
Although SEEK has now concluded, parish leaders emphasized that the Denver conference marked a beginning rather than an end. For St. Joan of Arc Parish, the real work begins back home in Arvada, in daily encounters with others, and in family and parish life.
Father Goebel echoed that sense of ongoing mission for his parishioners.
“We have been praying and discerning and walking towards this moment for a long time,” he told the Denver Catholic. “This is a step on the journey. This isn't the final end.”
Parish leaders are already beginning to ask how the parishioners who were formed, encouraged and renewed at SEEK can help accompany others in their faith, strengthen ministries and welcome newcomers to the Church.
Pergola encouraged other parishioners to participate and say “yes” when opportunities like SEEK arise.
“You will never regret time spent with the Lord,” she said. “You will never regret time spent with your faith community.”
She added that she can already see a transformation at St. Joan of Arc, thanks to the discernment process and move to mission.
“When we first came, the parish was much older,” she explained. “Now there’s a wide range of ages, and people aren’t just here on Sundays — they’re engaging all week long.”
For Deacon Heaton, the fruits are also already visible in the parish.
“This parish is in places it’s never been before in its 40-plus years of history,” he said. “I think the parish is on fire. I truly do.”
As St. Joan of Arc continues to look ahead, its leadership is returning to the same position that guided them to SEEK in the first place: discernment in prayer.
“We all have ideas, but we’re going to take them into prayer,” Deacon Heaton explained. “We're going to listen to the Holy Spirit and let the Holy Spirit guide us in what will be best for St. Joan of Arc.”
Ultimately, he added, the hope is that the missionary spirit cultivated at SEEK will not remain within parish walls.
“If we've succeeded, then ideally, that starts bubbling into our next-door neighbor, and we start spreading that missionary work outside,” he added. “God arrived first, and we have to build off that. And that’s what we’re doing.”
André Escaleira, Jr., contributed to this report.
