Try Something New

One of the most common comments on surveys when asked about “Adult Education Topics” is “Basics of the Faith.” I’ve written about this recently, you might remember. Then I saw this new initiative that launched right after Labor Dat called “Real + True.” It’s an effort to take the Catechism and make it come alive, to showcase it’s relevancy.

Restful Spirituality

dozens of boxes, shelved hundreds of books, hung way too many picture frames, and put together a lot of furniture. Then I ran a virtual three-day conference followed by a week in Indiana meeting with parishes. That was all just the first three weeks of June!

4 Question Feedback

Will you take just five minutes to answer four questions about Transform Your Parish?

A Six Week Option

thought about my reply to that question and issue (not a unique one) I came up with the following idea: Six Week’s on the Eucharist (or fill in the topic of your choice).

Welcoming Language

A few years ago I wrote a piece of Stewardship Wisdom about language called “Inside Catholic Baseball” (and I even revised it once – which I’m going to do again today). Last week a co-worker sent me a video about hospitality that remarked on the words we use (or do use) for people to come to our parishes. Think about your parish, what signs point you to the office? The Church? The Restrooms? Meeting rooms? The Cry Room?

Three Thoughts on Evangelization

I had three thoughts on evangelization that I wanted to share this week. Now is the right time to share because now is the right time to evangelize!!!

Between Corn and Soybeans

I spent the last two weeks driving the back roads of Indiana and Illinois farm country. I saw a lot of corn fields and soybean fields, and I hate to admit it took me longer than I’d like to admit about how to tell the difference. (It helps that corn is a lot taller now than soybeans!) I couldn’t help but think about these small rural parishes in farm country that I’m traveling to though. Most of them feel ignored by big city parishes, wealthy suburban parishes, and even the Diocese. They’re hard to travel to when there’s not an interstate in site for miles and even finding a gas station can be rather complicated on a long trip!

Collective Effervescence

A few months ago I was struck by a guest essay in the New York Times about languishing. An emotion we were feeling collectively as a culture that we didn’t quite have a name for it. Adam Grant defined it as Languishing – not quite depression, but also not happiness or joy. This past weekend a Catholic leader shared another guest essay from Adam Grant about the other side of languishing: Collective Effervescence.

Making a Visit

“We need to get ‘Back to Basics!'” I see this often in the open-ended comments of the surveys I conduct with parishes. Many of the respondents indicate that either they or people around them need to have a better understanding of the basic building blocks of the faith. Why do we do the things we do at Mass? What do we believe about Jesus Christ as the Son of God? Where does Mary fit? Well, I’m assuming that’s what they typically mean because they don’t quite explain themselves entirely in the comment box. Honestly “Back to Basics” seems similar to saying, “We need to communicate better.” ‘When parishes tell me that I say, “Define ‘communicate’ and define ‘better.'” I’m going to define “basics” even more simply than that though, so let’s get to it.

Single People

One of the questions we ask on our parish surveys is if the parish has ministries, programs, and events for a whole list of different categories of people. Two of the categories on that list are Single People and Single Parents. I also know from my surveys that about 20 to 25% of parishioners who complete them are single, separated/divorced, or widowed. The data I glean from these two questions is that 1/4 of parishioners are unmarried and less than 50% of respondents believe there are adequate ministries for unmarried people at the parish.