Some thirty years ago a Catholic Priest intersected my life in a very profound manner. He introduced me to faith in God and the Catholic Church in a manner that was real, personal and engaging. I was only a teenager, but those late months of 1972 changed my life forever. God became real for me then and I have never been able to shake that sense of His presence or His work in my life since.

Like many other Catholic boys, I attended a Catholic school where my four brothers also went. I can't say that I was particularly captivated by my Catholic faith. I was too young to really be concerned about it except in those brief periods where life's deeper questions caused me to wonder.

Through my late teens and twenties I served in voluntary ways in the Church as many people do, though I felt a call on my life to work full time in the Church.  I have met so many people around the country who also feel a similar call. Marriage seemed the most obvious and natural direction for me, but this meant that fulltime Church ministry may never occur. I worked in the financial world at the time but I cannot say my heart was fully in it.

By my late twenties I was married and had four children (I now have five) and it was through a one-off meeting with another Catholic Priest that my life would once again change forever. He encouraged me to go after the call of God that I felt was on my life and that it would never be fulfilled unless, in his words, "I made it happen."  I have come to see that God often works in us and calls us but we have to be deliberate and even strategic about our response.

I remember I went to Mass everyday and after Mass prayed the rosary with the old ladies who were there that God would break through in my life and fulfil this sense of call that I had. It is a long story but in the end Archbishop William Foley employed me to work in the Catholic Youth Ministry in the Archdiocese of Perth.

Youth was not particularly something that I had felt a call to but I would have taken any job just for the chance to work in the Church.

I was only there a couple of weeks and I went along to a weekend youth camp. At the end of the Saturday night I was asked if I would give a small talk. No one was going to bed so I was put on the spot to speak. I had never given a talk before but I didn't tell anybody this. Just that week I had received a book with some stories in it and I told quite a few of them. My speaking and preaching career began that day. Even though it wasn't very good I did get asked again. I have grown and developed, and continue to do so, in the area of speaking and preaching ever since that day.

Four years later I became the Director of the Catholic Youth and Young Adult Ministry. I was there in total for eight years.

The longer I was there the more and more I saw young people leaving the Church. Sometimes they went to other Churches, but mostly they just left. I did not know what to do about this.

In 1996 I followed a group of young Catholic people across the country to a conference that was put on by another Church. It was here that I felt God impress upon my heart the imperative to reach out to people who were disconnected from the Church and build up those already committed to the Church.

When I shared this mission with others they expressed their desire to be involved.

Along with my wife Rosemary, our five children and some other people, we commenced what is now called "Impact Catholic Ministry". For information about Impact Catholic Ministry go to www.impactcatholicministry.com