Men's THIRST Conference is Sept. 23

Gentlemen, mark your calendars for the THIRST 2017 Men’s Conference sponsored by the diocese and held at the University of Mary on Saturday, Sept. 23.
 
Plan to be present for engaging presentations, Eucharistic adoration and confessions, a Vigil Mass with Bishop Kagan, and. of course, a time of fraternity and support with other men of faith from throughout the diocese and beyond.
 
Featured speakers are Tim Staples of Catholic Answers and Msgr. Tom Richter, Rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Bismarck. The event will conclude with Mass with Bishop Kagan.
 
Staples, who will offer two keynote addresses in the morning of the conference, was raised in a Southern Baptist home in Virginia and later became a Youth Minister in an Assembly of God community. He converted to the Catholic Faith in 1988 and is now Director of Apologetics and Evangelization for Catholic Answers. Tim is married with seven children.
 
Monsignor Richter, scheduled to deliver the afternoon keynote address, has been the Rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit since 2012. Prior to be assigned as the Rector of the Cathedral, Msgr. Richter served as Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Bismarck for 11 years.
 
This special event happens only once every three years. In 2014, more than 700 men attended. The Conference is free to attend, but registration is required, for meal count purposes. Find more information and register at http://www.bismarckdiocese.com/thirst2017
 
More about the speakers
 
Tim Staples was a fallen-away Southern Baptist who as a teen came back to faith in Christ through the witness of televangelists. During his four-year tour with the U.S. Marine Corps, he became friends with a Marine well-versed in his Catholic Faith who challenged Tim to study Catholicism from Catholic and historical sources. That sparked a two-year search for the truth. Immediately after his tour of duty, he was determined to prove Catholicism wrong. Instead, he studied his way to the last place he thought he would ever end up— converting to the Catholic Faith and entering seminary for the priesthood. Realizing that his calling was not to be a priest, Tim left the seminary in 1994 and has been working in Catholic apologetics and evangelization ever since. He is now Director of Apologetics and Evangelization for Catholic Answers, one of the nation's largest lay-run apostolates.

Staples will offer two keynote addresses during the morning of men’s conference. His first talk, entitled “ God Is Looking for a Few Good Men,” Tim teaches on the sacrament of marriage from the perspective of the husband and his special call to headship and service. He challenges men to lead their families in ways that will strengthen the Church and the culture through faithful service. In his second keynote, “ Catholics and the Culture War,” Tim challenges Catholics to understand our responsibility to effect change in the culture in which we live without the culture changing us.

In the afternoon, Msgr. Tom Richter will address the crowd with his keynote message “ Winning Souls for Christ: It Was Never Meant to Be Complicated.” He claims that evangelization is not an option. To be a disciple of Jesus, to be a friend of Jesus, one must evangelize. Jesus gives this mission to his friends. First and foremost, it is His mission to laymen —not to priests and nuns—to bring Him to the marketplace, beyond the parish walls, beyond the monastery, beyond the convent.