Recently, the Pew Research Center released an update to an ongoing study of religious identification and engagement among Americans. The results should sound familiar at this point: an increase in the number of people identifying as unaffiliated with any particular religion, increasingly infrequent church attendance, and declining religiosity among younger generations. Data like this should […]
At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus brings together the eleven remaining loyal apostles and gives them a mission. He says: “All remaining authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” This isn’t a friendly invitation to maintain the status quo. It’s […]
When Tom and I started writing our recently released book ChurchMoney, we thought it had the potential to really strike a chord in the American Catholic Church. In our travels across the country, we have observed that money is one of the biggest – if not the biggest – causes of stress and worry among […]
This weekend, we are celebrating the release of our newest book Churchmoney: Rebuilding the Way We Fund Our Mission. The book is the story of our successes and failures with raising money at our parish and the practical lessons we learned along the way. The book came to be because we believe money is an […]
One of the hardest things to do when beginning a parish rebuilding process is to imagine the vision clearly and concretely. There are so many things that just can’t be grasped through the written word or digital channels. The feel of a place when you walk in. The warmth that comes from a gracious welcome. […]
This weekend, our parish will celebrate our annual “Kick-Off” weekend. Kick-Off is meant to be just that: a celebration of a new year. We’ve found that most families, especially if kids are involved, plan their year from September to June. So, we go out of our way to make this weekend (the weekend after Labor […]
We are in the last week of a series of blog posts all about our values as a staff. This week, hospitality. We define hospitality as “wow-ing” people with extraordinary service. We want each guest who steps onto our campus to feel like every aspect of the experience was designed with them in mind. Here […]
Some social commentators have derided the downfall of commitment in our society, especially among young people. They point to lower rates of marriage (and higher rates of divorce) along with other social tendencies. In our fast-paced, ever-changing culture, remembering the value of commitment is increasingly important. We’re in the fifth week of a series of […]
Over the past few weeks we have been using this space to reflect on the values we rely on in serving our mission as a parish. This week “Excellence.” Excellence in the church can be hard to define. Some parishioners measure the excellence of a homily by its length (the shorter the better). Still others […]
We are using this space these days to reflect on the values that we rely on in serving our mission as a parish. This week: “growth oriented.” Check out previous posts in this series: simple and adaptable. Automatic Growth vs Intentional Growth Growing churches come in basically two types. There are churches that are well […]
