Well, we had a beautiful and inspiring celebration this year at the Maryland State Fair for Christmas Eve. Several observations noted in passing, in no particular order: – It was our 10th year there and to mark the occasion we had perhaps about 10,000 people, fairly well distributed between the two Masses. There were 4,484 […]
Year: 2014
It’s definitely Christmastime. Not liturgically of course, but certainly culturally. And at Christmastime it seems like angels are everywhere. Most nearly all religions and religious traditions profess belief in some form of angels. But those traditions and theologies can be very different: from the sacred to the secular, from the sublime to the ridiculous, angels […]
Everywhere we go we are asked by parish and diocesan leaders, how do you lead through change? Whether you’re leading an entire organization through a transformation or coaching a single staff person through a transition, leading through change is one of the most important tasks you’ll do as a pastor or pastoral leader. In leading […]
With Thanksgiving now behind us we are on a sprint to Christmas. For all of us in churchworld this means we are in what is generally valued as our high season, our very best opportunity of the whole year when it comes to evangelization. I decided to put together a to-do list for our church […]
This time of year brings our annual celebration of Stewardship Sunday when we talk about our stewardship of our local parish church, our investment in this part of Christ’s kingdom movement, here in Timonium, Maryland. Here are 8 things we do that have helped make our stewardship appeals quite successful in recent years: #1. We […]
When we first approached the reality that our book was going to really be published I found myself becoming sheepish and shy about it all. Perhaps the prospect of a lot of attention scared me, or maybe it was the idea of seeming prideful or egotistical that was painful. Whatever the reason, I didn’t want […]
So long awaited and eagerly anticipated our second ever Conference, Matter14, is now history. And it was historic too. With 150 member ministers helping to host our standing room only capacity crowd of 550 + guests from about 20 different states and 5 countries, it was an amazing two days. And we had so much […]
As we argued in Rebuilt one of the, if not the main problem in parishes today is culture. Culture is a system of beliefs that guide a community’s behaviors, shapes their priorities, and ultimately determines the allocation of resources. More than ever these days we hear culture discussed in the secular community, especially when it […]
Everybody is talking about Evangelization and Discipleship these days. There are also no dearth of people willing to tell us how to do it (sometimes carrying a hefty price tag for doing so). Then there are the people who are successfully doing it. As I travel the country speaking to parishes and diocese, I have […]
If you were to ask me to pin point the exact moment in time when we changed course as a parish community and started deliberately moving in a more successful direction, I could tell you without hesitation. One day, several frustrating years into working here, Tom Corcoran, then our Youth Minister, walked into my office […]
