Episode 061 – Helping Loved Ones Return to the Faith with Molly Schorr

  • 58 min

Episode 061 – Helping Loved Ones Return to the Faith with Molly Schorr

The Church Podcast

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In this episode of The Church Podcast, Christopher sits down with Molly Schorr, Membership Coordinator for NFCYM and Founder of Return Faith Ministries, through the NFCYM Podcast Network.

Molly shares her 25-year journey in parish ministry — from a pre-med student in Minnesota who felt a clear call to theology, to building a nonprofit apostolate born out of adoration and a prayer intention book overflowing with one request: help my loved one come back to the faith.

Together, Christopher and Molly explore what it actually takes to accompany someone back to the Church — why the issue is rarely the issue people think it is, what gets in the way of honest faith conversations, and how Return Faith equips ordinary parishioners to do this work without burning out or forcing it.

In This Episode

• How a side hustle born in adoration became a nationally running parish program — and what Molly saw in a prayer intention book that changed her direction
• Why the most common prayer request among Catholics is "bring my loved one back" — and why the Church has been slow to build dedicated programming around it
• The seven-session Return Faith program: what each session covers, how small groups are structured, and why participants are sent out between sessions to actually try something
• The woman and the chocolate bars: a story about how our attachment to specific church teachings can sometimes become a barrier to reaching the people we love
• What Molly has learned about the nones and dones after 10 years of this work — including why the issue people name is rarely the real reason they left
• Why hospitality matters more than apologetics — and how parishes may be inadvertently creating cliques that push people further away
• Lessons from Molly's own family, including a sixth-grade son who thinks Mass is boring and the moment she turned a complaint into a counting experiment
• What is different about the young people returning to the Church right now — and why COVID's impact on community and belonging still hasn't been fully reckoned with

About Molly Schorr

Molly Schorr is the Founder and Executive Director of Return Faith Ministries and serves as Membership Coordinator for the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM). With nearly 25 years of experience in parish ministry, catechesis, and evangelization, Molly created the Return Faith program after noticing that the most common prayer intention in her parish was some version of the same plea: help my loved one come back to the faith. Return Faith is now a parish-based nonprofit apostolate equipping Catholics to have better, more authentic conversations with their loved ones who have drifted or left.

Resources Mentioned

• Return Faith Ministries
• NFCYM
• The Words We Pray by Amy Wellborn
• Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell

Connect with Molly

• Email: mollyschorr@returnfaith.org
• NFCYM Membership: membership@nfcym.org
• Website: returnfaith.org

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The Church Podcast is a proud member of the NFCYM Podcast Network https://nfcym.org/podcastnetwork/. Check out some of our other shows like the Accompany Podcast and the Ydisciple Podcast.

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Recorded on Riverside - HERE

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