Greg and Jennifer Willits are moving out of their “cloffice” and into the homes of hundreds of thousands of potential listeners.

Wednesday, Sept. 3, the Willitses, founders of the Conyers-based Rosary Army, will officially kick off “The Catholics Next Door With Greg and Jennifer Willits,” which will air from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday on The Catholic Channel (Channel 159) of Sirius XM satellite radio.

Rosary Army, a nonprofit organization, began as an apostolate dedicated to teaching others how to make, pray and give away free, all-twine knotted rosaries. Though still committed to its original purpose, the organization soon grew into a more technologically advanced form of outreach.

It all began with podcasts—online radio shows that listeners can download from the Rosary Army Web site and listen to on their MP3 players or computers. Because of space limitations in their home, Greg and Jennifer would record the podcasts in the closet of their master bedroom, which affectionately became known as the “cloffice”—a sort of hybrid closet/office.

But the popularity of those podcasts landed Greg and Jennifer in the national spotlight. And the people at Sirius were paying attention.

“Over the three plus years that we’ve been producing our podcast, we’ve had a few inquiries from different radio stations about the possibility of repackaging the Rosary Army podcast as a radio program that would be played on regular terrestrial radio,” Greg said.

Through their Rosary Army apostolate, the Willitses had come to know Lino Rulli, who hosts an afternoon drive-time show on The Catholic Channel on Sirius. Rulli mentioned that his boss, Joseph Zwilling, communications director of the Archdiocese of New York, which sponsors The Catholic Channel, was looking for new shows.

Greg e-mailed Zwilling, sending him links to the Rosary Army podcasts.

“Within a couple days, Joe sent us an invitation asking us to come to New York to record a three-hour demo show in the Sirius studios,” Greg said. “They immediately asked us to come back the next week and we recorded another three-hour demo, but this time the demo was a live national broadcast.”

The next week, Greg and Jennifer were offered their own spot. Since that time, things have been hectic in the Willitses’ household. Sirius is creating a studio in their home so that Greg and Jennifer can record there each day. This has meant a great deal of shuffling for Greg, Jennifer and their four children.

“For the past two weeks, since we accepted the show, we have been going non-stop, completely changing everything in our house,” Greg said. “In the past week alone I have put together two bunk beds, two chairs, three desks and installed a new ceiling fan. We’ve repainted three rooms and moved all of our kids around.”

But Greg insists it is all worth it, and he marvels at how far their ministry has come since it began in 2003. In addition to the Sirius news, Greg recently announced that they have decided to “bite the bullet” and rent an outside office for Rosary Army, where staff and volunteers can work.

“When we started Rosary Army, literally everything we had fit into a small wicker basket. Then we moved everything to the top shelf of a desk in our dining room. Then we moved it into our closet, and now into its own office. When we started the podcast, we had just a computer and a small microphone. Then we got a mixer and separate mics. Then we got better equipment and made the show more professional,” Greg said.

“Every step of the way, we rarely allowed ourselves to dare to look too much forward,” Greg continued.

“We’ve learned to be grateful simply to have what God has provided us, and our apostolate, every step of the way. I thought that Rosary Army might get picked up on a radio station or two, but I never dared to dream that something like this would happen. It seems that God always teaches us valuable lessons. In this case, he’s showing us that if we just follow his lead, he can do anything and take us to even the craziest places—including hosting a daily talk show on national radio.”

Greg and Jennifer will continue to produce a once-a-week Rosary Army podcast, which is a relief to their loyal listeners who are not Sirius subscribers. Greg said that the radio show would have a similar feeling to the podcasts.

“The thing we hear from people time and again from our podcast is that people feel a connection to other Catholics and a greater understanding of their faith because of our program,” he said “We want people to love their faith more, and that comes through understanding their faith more, and by involving themselves in the community of believers in this world, whether in their own parishes, neighborhoods, or even simply online. For us, we want our show to help people simply enjoy their faith more and, as a result, to grow closer to God in the process.”

As they begin their new venture in the world of Catholic new media, Greg is requesting prayers—both for the new show, and for Rosary Army, which with its new office is taking on a new adventure as well.

“We’re very excited about this new step for Rosary Army and simply ask people to be praying that we’ll continue to have all the financial resources needed to pay the rent and continue to pay for the myriad of expenses of that apostolate,” Greg said. “We estimate with the need to hire additional employees and other expenses, it will continue to cost upward of $75,000 a year to run Rosary Army, so we’ll still be very involved in that apostolate in addition to the talk show, simply because we have to keep working to find means of funding the various endeavors of the apostolate.”

Greg and Jennifer are also asking for prayers for their growing family—Jennifer is pregnant with their fifth child—and the logistics of taking on a daily show with balancing a busy family life. But Greg believes that God is firmly in control of all things.

“We asked God that if he doesn’t want us to do this, or if it would be too much of a hardship on our family, that he simply wouldn’t let them offer us a job,” he said. “Instead, he opened every door and we have no doubt that this is the path we are supposed to be following. We have every confidence that God will provide what we need for our family.”