Open Doors: Conversations with Heart of the Father

Meet Fr. Charlie Garza. He's a Catholic priest and the pastor at St. Albert the Great in the Austin, Texas area. 

Fr. Charlie attended one of our Unbound priest retreats recently and has become a friend.

Listen as he shares candidly about his priestly call, his parish mission, and his desire to see others get set free to serve!

Fr. Charlie on on his call: "Believe it or not,  one of the ways the enemy kind of held me back for a bit  was through that shyness and just believing that I didn't have what it took to be a priest."

Fr. Charlie on the blessing of Unbound ministry at his parish: " We tried to do a catechesis, even small face sharing groups previously, and it just seemed like we kind of run into some hurdles. And what we found is that there were different blocks, in lies of the enemy, that our parishioners had bought into, unconsciously.  So as we started to pray with people with the Unbound model, we found that people started to become more open in their relationship with Christ, but also in the ways that they started to step into true discipleship and serving. So it really helped to open up ways that people received the gospel in new ways. But I would say even more importantly, we're starting to spread and share the gospel in ways that they hadn’t (before).

Fr. Charlie on the Priest Retreat: "I think the blessing of that was that opportunity to let the guard down in a sense of...it's okay for me to receive and see my brother priests (receive) too.   It's like, wow, I can receive; I don't have to give in this moment.  I remember in my session with you, Matt, seeing the love that you have for me as a brother in Christ.  I think that too was something very,  very healing for me, because again, sometimes, the enemy has come at me like, okay, well,  when are you going to be able to receive, you've always got to give, you've always got to give...so just in that mere fact of being ministered to myself, I would say, was very healing.

Join us today for this beautiful conversation that's not JUST for Catholics or for priests.

Be inspired to get free to serve!

Learn more about the Catholic Priest Retreat

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Release: June 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

"And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. " Luke 15:20

The father saw the son coming from far off, not so close that he would recognize his face, but he saw the son's gait and his stature and he recognized him.

There are two things there, one, that he recognized his son by just the outline of his body, and, and two, that he was looking for his son.

As parents, as moms, as dads, we can be looking for things in our children, looking for their hearts, listening to their hearts and seeing them, really seeing them.

So today join Rachel, Jenn, and Jacqueline as they share a little bit about walking through the mud of parenting and how the Lord comes and rescues. Embrace with them the joy of walking with some tools, especially those of forgiveness and blessing, while looking and listening for those moments to really see our kids.

Learn to let the power of the gospel and the responses of the five keys become a part of your family culture.

Blessing becomes a part of your life in big events like birthdays and graduations, but also in an everyday part of your life where you're looking- How can I speak blessing and truth into my kids' lives? How can we speak about their identity?  That's all about what Unbound is- stripping away what our identity isn't and stepping into what our identity really is!

― David W. Augsburger, Caring Enough to Hear and Be Heard

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Listen to the Power of Forgiveness and The Father's  Blessing

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Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

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Release: May 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Today Matt has the privilege of introducing Father Mike Schmitz, Catholic priest, author, and speaker in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota. He works with Ascension Press, has been featured in many study programs, and has been the primary personality involved in Ascension Presents with weekly YouTube offerings. He's the host of several podcasts including the very popular Bible in a Year Podcast. He runs the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and he's the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese.

Does he ever sleep?

Listen as Matt and Fr. Mike uncover some of the most powerful aspects of freedom.

Fr.  Mike...

What inspired you to do a podcast,  reading the Bible in a year?

 What does freedom mean to you?

Could you share something in your life that maybe you see over time in your relationship with the Lord, like, oh, He actually brought more freedom into my life?

How do you help students break out of their stories, those small stories that kind of trap them?

How do you help folks to forgive who may be struggling to take that next step of forgiveness?

What's a good takeaway from the past year?

And, what's something that's feeding your soul these days?

Listen and listen again!

Share with a friend! You might just bring the hope they have been longing for!

Visit our website
Find out about our Unbound Catholic Priest Retreat
See more upcoming events

Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Give online or call us at 610-952-3019 to change lives today!

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Release: May 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Quite often at an Unbound conference, we’re asked if Unbound Ministry can be used with children. Neal’s first response is always that parents should receive so they really understand the Five Keys, but there's so much more to say to help parents minister to their children in this way. 

Meet Sandi Lebel, an impressive servant of God and powerful force in the church. Hear some incredible stories of how the Five Keys of Unbound have significantly impacted her, her family, and her ministry.  

Among many things, Sandi is on the National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and in the Archdiocese of Miami and served as Program Director for Respect Life Pregnancy Help Centers. Later Sandi served there as an education coordinator, and she has spoken to thousands of teens in Catholic high schools on issues of life such as chastity and abortion.

Sandy is zealous for God and always joyful and enthusiastic and ready to serve. And those early years, when we at Heart of the Father were developing our training materials, she helped us transcribe leaders' training talks and transcribed and translated the Unbound Freedom and Christ DVDs into Spanish.

In this fun and enlightening conversation with Neal, you’ll hear how it’s just the most natural thing in the world to listen to your child and help them to respond to the truth of the gospel.

“(At my first Unbound conference) I was blown away by how profound the self-awareness without the self-condemnation in such a short amount of time that the Holy Spirit was doing.”

Shortly after, she had an opportunity to help her young son through a challenge. 

“So I just told him, okay, sometimes when things like this happen,  you have feelings that are stuck inside of you, but in Jesus' Name, we can kick them out. So then we started to renounce anger and sadness and guilt. Without me prompting him in any way, he started to just exhale and say, ‘Mommy, Mommy, they're leaving.’

Truly out of the mouths of babes. He even said,  ‘I feel lighter.’ I mean, this was unbelievable to me to have been at a conference for three days and have read an entire book, and here’s an eight-year-old child instinctively knowing the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.”

What's most incredible is how even now, as a young adult, her son sees the fruit of Unbound in his life and encourages all families to learn and use it with a heart of compassion and a posture of humility. 

Come experience freedom and learn more about bringing greater freedom to your family, in a simple way, as you learn to listen to your child and help them to respond to the truth of the gospel.

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Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Give online or call us at 610-952-3019 to change lives today!

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Release: May 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Do you know your Heavenly Father? Do you know He longs to bless you? He has been waiting, looking, searching, longing for you. 

Perhaps today as you look to Him, you will see the Father running toward you. He longs to whisper in your ear!

He has a great plan for your life. You have a unique significance, there's a reason you were born, and there's a place for you in heaven!

He wants to fill our hearts with an understanding of this great, great love, and He wants us to speak blessing to others.

When we speak blessing, it means to speak the thoughts of God into the heart of another person.

Words have the power to change lives, and the Father longs for His words of blessing to change yours and enable you to share this gift with others.

Isn't that the ministry of Jesus, to restore us and bless our broken hearts?

Join us today and encounter the Father's Blessing like never before.

Check out our Freedom in Christ Conference
Find our Speaking the Father's Blessing Ministry Tips
Learn about the 5th Key
Find the Father's Blessing session of the Freedom in Christ Series

Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Give online or call us at 610-952-3019 to change lives today!

Visit our website
See more upcoming events

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Release: May 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Meet Joe and Becky Dougherty, prayer warriors and persistent missionaries, who are sold out for the Lord and for others. Join us as they share how God led them to  Unbound and now serve as a couple both near and far. You have to hear their amazing story of how the Lord brought them together, a wonderful Unbound moment. Be inspired by other stories of  God's presence changing lives and His miracles happening!

"I think we've both been blessed in the area of the prophetic and a lot of times we'll be praying with the person and through Unbound.  And there's a moment when there's a Holy Spirit 'breakdown', and that's when I find that people's hearts are really touched.

It's in those Holy Spirit 'breakdown' moments that God just enters in. He starts to do things that we're not even thinking about or contemplating that He might be doing. We had a situation just recently where we were praying Unbound with an individual, and he was asking for one thing, but when we prayed with him, something happened in his chest.

I was just thinking, well, that's the Holy Spirit coming upon him.  But later he wrote back to us and said, 'I think when you prayed with me, a miracle took place because I had this lump in my chest about the size of my thumb.  Afterward, when I went home, it just became like the tip of my finger, I could feel it was different. So I want to get it x-rayed and the x-ray showed that it had almost entirely disappeared!' "

Yes, in God's presence miracles happen!

Check out our Freedom in Christ Conference
Find our Team Quick Start Guide
Learn about our E-courses
Find more training resources

Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Give online or call us at 610-952-3019 to change lives today!

Visit our website
See more upcoming events

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Release: April 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Do you have a heart of compassion?

Have you experienced deep freedom in Christ and long to share that with others?

Do you long to give the good news of the gospel and the blessing of the Five Keys of Unbound to others?

Join Rachel and Janet today as they touch on the practical ways and powerful reasons why ministering to others is a gift.

Perhaps you've thought about getting trained in Unbound Ministry. Well, what you receive when you minister to someone else using the Five Keys is such a gift to you!  It's priceless to see someone's life changed, to hear their story, to experience the heart of the Father for somebody.

It's amazing!

Janet Lozano is the Assistant Executive Director at Heart of the Father Ministries, and she's served alongside Neal for more than 40 years in pastoral care missions and Unbound conference ministry.

Rachel Lozano is our administrator for the Heart of the Father Ministry Team and coordinates local ministry days and evenings as well as our conference ministry sessions.

Both Janet and Rachel play a significant role in training people in Unbound ministry.

Join them in giving away this gift!

" A heart of compassion is the number one requirement for Unbound Ministry!"

Support the mission of Heart of the Father!

Your donation directly supports and enables our evangelizing mission, We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Give online or call us at 610-952-3019 to change lives today!

Check out our Freedom in Christ Conference
Find our Team Quick Start Guide
Learn about our E-courses
Find more training resources

Join our enews
Visit our website
See more upcoming events
Make a donation

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Release: April 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Meet Pastor Scott McKay, who is currently serving as a military chaplain for the 147th Attack Wing of the Texas Air National Guard in Houston.

Scott encountered Unbound almost 20 years ago and has since used the Five Keys personally, with his kids, his church, and even the airmen on deployment.

" I wanted to see the power of God...the demonstration of God's power through deliverance...(I heard about Unbound) and so I went, and I got the book, and I thought, 'This is it...this is it!'

I want to tell you I have used this and used it and used it throughout my personal life and throughout my ministry."

Listen as Matt and Scott share about getting a front-row seat to some amazing God encounters.

You'll want to listen again!

Find simplehomes.life
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Release: April 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Is renunciation new? And what do you mean by authority?

Well, actually, renunciation is an ancient practice in the church,  where  since the third century at the time of baptism,  candidates before baptism would declare, "I renounce Satan, and all of his works, and all of his empty promises." This liturgical formula has been repeated through the years in many Christian traditions.

Even as current as the Catholic Catechism is, we can learn about the importance of renunciation as its related to the spiritual battle. Renunciation is an important aspect of ongoing conversion. So it's not new! (In section,  2015, it says "there is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle").

We're all in a battle to walk faithfully with the Lord and both speaking renunciation and walking in the authority given to us in Christ Jesus can be powerful weapons in the path toward holiness.

Join Neal and Jenn as they take a deep dive into these keys and grow in your understanding of your inherent dignity as a child of God!

Check out our Freedom in Christ Conference

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Release: April 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.

Join Jacqueline Harper and Allison Miller on a journey right back to the Father's Heart!  Listen as they share about overcoming parenting challenges and powerfully loving others. 

Hear some of Allison's incredible stories and be inspired to be a gift to others.

 I had worked through a lot of forgiving. I had had an inner healing prayer, I knew that I was called to forgive. I really did. And the predominant person that  I felt called to forgive in that period of my life was my relationship with my dad. My dad and I were a lot alike.

We wouldn't go toe to toe, but figuratively, we would.  He was very driven and very intense ...

 He drank a lot  (while I was) a kid growing up.  He really resolved that by the end of his life... but like  I grew up scared of him.

 I had forgiven him, but the beauty, I can't say enough about, learning how to relate to God, the Father, and Unbound and Abba's Heart, and just praying with people and hearing and praying myself, not just reading the books, but praying through the books and going to the conferences. It just enabled me to say yes to a deepening relationship with my Heavenly Father.   And so I had to forgive my earthly father because so often those two things are related, how we relate to our Heavenly Father has to do with our difficulties, with our earthly father.

Have a laugh, wipe a tear, sing a song. You will feel all the feels!

Find Abba's Heart and Unbound
Check out our Freedom in Christ Conference
Learn about the  Messy Family Project
Hear more songs by Allison Waldrop Miller

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Release: March 2022
Music by Christian Harper.
Artwork by Rosemary Strohm at Command-S.