Join the Founder of Hard as Nails Ministries, Justin Fatica, and Comedy Central Comedian, Steve Simeone, for an unforgettable night for people of all ages. The You're Amazing Experience is active, dynamic, engaging, and not your average Catholic event! This will be a BREAKTHROUGH moment in your life and the lives of all attendees, giving an opportunity to enter into family life and experience Christ in a new way! With encouragement and prayer from the Amazing Missionary Team and live music, you've never seen the Catholic Faith like this before!
This two-hour evening event will restore the identity of your parish community and bring them to the truth that they are amazing as children of God. Main speaker Justin Fatica brings the Gospel message, and a missionary team assists by providing introductions, sharing testimonies, running the event details, and reaching out one-on-one to participants to talk and pray with them. For every talk, Justin uses entertainment and storytelling to engage and excite, then transitions to the heart of the message as the event goes on—getting participants out of their seats hugging people, empathizing with them, encouraging others, and thanking them; writing down challenges they face; and standing up to declare statements such as "I'm Amazing.”
Love No Matter What Defeats Racism (Ticketed Event)
Book NowWith a world that is so divided right now, we believe that the message that defeats racism the most is to LOVE no matter what. This 1.5-2 hour event brings together every race and creed in order to demonstrate how to live love and how to defeat racism as an individual and as a whole. With tickets starting at $30 per person, this evening will provide an encounter with love Himself, with preaching by Justin Fatica, live-music, and special surprises.
This 2 hour amazing event, with tickets for $15 per person, is a night to leave you confident with your belief in having a God, who is your Father, and loves you very much. Justin Fatica speaks on what his life would be like without Christ and how God sent His Only Son to have him from sin and shame. We believe because a life with Christ is a great life, filled with mission, purpose, and goals. The event will conclude with participants reflecting on why they personally believe.
HN provides age-specific programs (such as a children’s book reading for very young children) for Catholic school students that focus on the love of God the Father, the mercy of Jesus Christ, the joy in discovering that every person is amazing because he or she is a child of God, the power to be found in uniting ourselves to the cross of Jesus Christ, and the priority of taking advantage of the gift of suffering in life in order to overcome the doubt, anxiety, and despair that so many people face. These events are occasions for students to confront some of the greatest challenges, struggles, and fears that often cripple them, and to be set free. They come away encouraged and inspired, on fire for their faith, eager to be forgiving and grateful, to serve others, and to stay close to the Church and united with those who help them live friendship with Jesus Christ. A major emphasis is on helping students form Passion Groups.
The "You're Amazing" Family Parish Mission
Book NowBuilding on the traditional parish mission model, the You’re Amazing Family Parish Mission is a special encounter with Jesus Christ designed to reach every segment of the parish community—grammar school children, middle school and high school students, parents, the senior community, and everyone else. There are two tracks for the HN Family Parish Mission. Hard as Nails missionaries conduct the sessions with the children and students (providing content and presentation styles geared to be age-appropriate). HN main speaker Justin Fatica conducts the mission sessions for the adults. On the final night of the mission, children and adults come together for a special evening of prayer, witness, and sharing. The “You’re Amazing” Family Parish Mission is best suited for parishes comprised of 1000+ families.
Justin Fatica is an in-demand speaker for Catholic Men’s Conferences. His talks address the themes of family, Christian manhood, and fatherhood.
Hard as Nails is especially well-suited for helping to repair and deepen relationships between fathers and sons in daylong retreats that get right at the issues that alienate fathers and sons. It is a day of healing and liberation, prayer, and new beginnings, all rooted in a powerful, lasting hope.
Main HN speaker Justin Fatica as well as the other HN speakers and missionaries are available to speak at youth assemblies organized by (arch)dioceses, parishes, and other organizations. Hard as Nails is also available to help organize and/or sponsor such events.
Some of HN’s greatest success has taken place in public schools (grammar school through high school) where the program offered there by Hard as Nails is based on the highly effective Virtue First program. Virtue First is the fastest growing character education and development program in America, and it is currently being embraced by sports teams, schools, religious organizations, businesses, health care providers, and public agencies around the country for the simple reason that it works. While there is no explicit “God” talk or discussion of religion, if the school is open to it, students are invited to attend a HN church event scheduled to take place locally that same evening.
HN sponsors a daylong Passion Conference: a day of recollection focusing on the power of the Passion of Christ and the need to live life with the passion that the human heart demands. The day includes beautiful liturgies, moving music, talks by Justin Fatica and the HN missionaries, personal witnesses, and a number of surprises. The central thrust of the day is to give all the attendees a chance to participate in a Passion Group, and to help them form Passion Groups that will continue to meet on a regular basis after the Passion Conference. The location of the Passion Conference is a sacred place of exceptional passion—the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York.
Hard as Nails offers a four-day mission designed specifically for college students and the needs and struggles they face. HN “takes over” the campus for the four days, offering a variety of evangelization, prayer, and liturgical events, all geared to drawing college students to Jesus Christ and a permanent, heartfelt commitment to living the Faith.
Hard as Nails will be an encouraging presence at sports events, inspiring fans with the HN “You’re Amazing” message. At halftime and after the game, Justin Fatica addresses the crowds with a message that is uplifting and liberating. Fatica has hosted events like these with high schools, colleges, and professional teams including the WNBA’s New York Liberty.
The HN Team will “embed” in a given diocese for a period of forty days to an entire year with the intention of “saturating” the area with HN events at schools, parishes, and elsewhere. It will undertake various evangelizing efforts during the course of the mission/crusade. Usually the mission/crusade will conclude with a major event called “The Invitation”—an evening of prayer, music, witnesses, the sacrament of penance, and other surprises in an arena setting that can seat thousands of people. The message of The Invitation is meant for the unchurched or those who have fallen away from the Faith so as to rekindle their love for Christ and to give them a new chance to recommit themselves to the Catholic Church, their parish, and their family.
Evangelization Formation and Training
Book NowHN conducts workshops for faith communities interested in learning new skills in the area of evangelization. Drawing on HN’s nearly twenty-years history of evangelization, the workshops treat the theory and theology of evangelization as well as very practical guidance for developing effective methods for evangelization—especially for reaching the hardest of hearts.
Each December, the Hard as Nails Team, through the help of donations, purchases hundreds of Christmas gifts—clothing, toys, household items, personal items, food, etc.—and loads the Hard as Nails You’re Amazing bus. The team then takes to the streets of the poorest neighborhoods of Syracuse, New York, knocking on doors and giving away the Christmas gifts to any needy people they meet until the bus is empty.
Hard As Nails is available to accompany pre-arranged pilgrimages to sacred sites such as the Holy Land, Rome, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, etc. The HN staff offers spiritual conferences and the ministry of a chaplain.
Sacrament of Confirmation Retreats
Book NowHard as Nails is in demand for its retreat for young people preparing to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. This day of prayer, personal witness, and small-group interaction gives young people a powerful encounter with Jesus Christ through HN’s trademark “You’re Amazing” message. The retreat is designed to cultivate courage, obedience, and authenticity in the young retreatants, especially by teaching them the redemptive value of suffering so that they are set free to suffer well. The goal of the retreat is to form the confirmandi to become joy-filled and convicted witnesses of the Gospel—young Christians eager to evangelize and to spend themselves in lives of self-sacrificial service to others.
With experience of working in the church for over twenty years, Justin Fatica leads priests on the power of Courage, Authenticity, and Obedience, and how these virtues can transform their priesthood and their parish.