SENT to Fight: Taking Fight Club full-time
by Matt Aujero, Founder
(The following was written April 16, 2023, the morning after attending SENT Summit, a conference for Catholic entrepreneurs and founders.) 9 min read
The Calling
In 2008, when I was a junior at the Catholic University of America, our chaplain Fr. Bob said to me and our college brotherhood in an early morning Thursday Mass, “If and when you get to heaven, God will ask: who did you bring with you?” I thought about how I didn’t have real guy friends before I joined Esto Vir my freshman year, and I reflected in gratitude. It was these guys, in large part, that saved freshman Matt: he was open to drunken debauchery and all the hooking up college had to offer. When the culture tells men to treat women as pleasurable means, these guys introduced me to a virtue I had never heard before: chastity. I told God I wanted to bring my brothers with me to heaven. More profoundly as I sat at the second to front left pew in Caldwell Chapel, I told God that if He wills it, I want to be part of the solution that helps bring men to brotherhood and ultimately to Christ. If He wills it, I wanted to be part of the forming of future husbands and fathers that our broken world needs them to be. I told God, “I want men.”
Fast-forward to 2013, my then-fiancé Mimi encouraged me to quit my job. “I want to marry a happy Matt. Follow your dream.” She was referring to this passion to reach men for Christ. So I did quit and got married August 10, 2013 unemployed. Certainly, the American dream. In October that year, I got invited to speak about Christian brotherhood at the Catholic Student Center at University of Maryland and was offered a job to be the men’s campus minister that same night.
It has been an amazing nine and half years at the CSC. It was there where I created Fight Club, a movement to recover men’s sight so we can freely love Christ, our (future) brides, and our brothers in the battle for purity of heart. It has particularly help men battle the scourge of pornography. We grew from five men nine years ago to a network of 130 students and alumni at Maryland. In the past three years, it has expanded to 10 campuses, seven parishes and two seminaries. It has been some of my greatest joy to see men become alive and in love with Christ. Our Fight has contributed to an authentic masculine culture at our Catholic Student Center where we’ve seen 21 students and alumni enter seminary in the past nine years.
Last summer at the Basilica, I witnessed the first priesthood ordination of a Fight Club brother. It was then the first whisper came, “What if all dioceses and campuses had a Fight Club, helping men become free so they can see their calling?” After a year-long discernment of prayer, personal turmoil, and blessing, Mimi, me, and the six kids are responding to Our Lady’s lead to take Fight Club full-time beginning this summer.
SENT Summit
Soon after we had made this decision public is when I heard about the SENT Ventures Summit, a conference for Catholic entrepreneurs and founders that took place at my alma mater this past weekend. I cannot begin to describe the impact it has had on me and how it has confirmed my family’s plan. I got to talk to Exodus 90 founder James Baxter. (After hearing my full-time news, my friend Paul Doman said, “You got to talk to James! Let me introduce you!” “Do you know him?” “No!”). I was refreshed to hear from James that he shared my same sentiments of spirituality, work, and maintaining peace even when creating a start-up. I was convicted by Deacon Charlie Echeverry, the coolest deacon I’ve ever seen in my entire life, who said, “42% of Catholics are Latino. What are we doing about it?” On that note, SENT was the first Catholic conference I’ve ever been to that had that rich sense of diversity I’ve been looking for and seemingly had close to that same percentage of Latinos in the room of 200+.
I have been praying with a rebrand for weeks now with the desire to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fight Club’s name. She is the only reason we have had success, but I also want to remind men that they are Hijos Amados, “beloved sons” of God. It is written in Spanish to remind men that we are also beloved sons of Our Lady of Guadalupe, our Patroness of the Americas, who can purify our heart by bringing it to her Son. It was adoration yesterday morning when I asked Our Lord again if that should be the name. With my palms open, eyes closed, I could feel and imagine Our Mother, Madre Mía, take my hands, look me in the eyes and say, “I love you. Te amo, mi hijo, Mateo. Eres mi hijo amado.” This alone is why I’m renaming Fight Club Catholic to Fight Club Hijos Amados. Plus in an uncomfortable way, I want a name (and action to follow) that tells Latino men in the 42%, “Hey, te veo, I see you, and we want to intentionally bridge this gap.” As Deacon said, this is us striving to “do something about it”.
[May 2023 edit: After receiving counsel from several holy Catholic professionals I trust, Fight Club Hijos Amados will be a ministry under our retained official name Fight Club Catholic]
In anticipation of the Summit’s Pitch competition Saturday, prayer that morning told me to do my own pitch and invite a young man named Matthew to become a mission partner with his financial and prayer support. I had met him the day prior, and I laughingly apologized that I’m normally not so bold to ask someone for money literally after only one conversation. I told him it was all out of obedience from prayer which I have always trusted. He thanked me sincerely for honoring him with my invitation, that he will talk to his wife, and that he promises a financial monthly pledge because he believes in Fight Club’s mission so much.
I told this story later that evening to an older gentleman named Chris Patton, CEO of an amazing business called His Way at Work. He told me, “Replay that script and let’s say he says no. God is still pleased with your obedience.” We had a powerful conversation that there is a freedom in knowing that it actually doesn’t matter what ends up happening, success or failure, in our businesses; God is only after our obedient hearts to Him. It resonated with what James Baxter said in a talk about holy detachment and this radical notion to desire nothing at the end of our lives: not our work, not our kids, not even our wives, but solely Jesus Christ.
Of course, if, and when we arrive, God will want to ask, who did you help bring with you to heaven? And of course, my priorities are my wife, then my kids, then the work, which was said over and over again at the summit. At the end of the evening last night, I walked back to Caldwell chapel on campus and sat in that same left pew where I first told God 15 years ago that I am willing to do whatever He wants. That with my cross and the gifts He gave me, I’m willing to drop everything and follow Him. And you might just say that I was SENT.
Want to support Fight Club’s start-up efforts? Send Matt a note at fight@fightclubcatholic.com. Ready to give? Click the button below!