What’s more challenging (and annoying) to Christians than outright hostility? Indifference. And that’s exactly the attitude of most of the unchurched people in your community (the hostile one’s are just louder). The truth is, most unchurched people you encounter do not feel morally or even spiritually bankrupt. Actually, they’re spiritually quite “comfortable.” Reaching this group […]
Category: Making Church Matter
In our book Rebuilt, I wrote about a significant experience while attending a conference at Saddleback Church in California. After sitting through a tough and challenging talk about what it takes to become a healthy, growing church, I stormed out in self-righteous rage. Eventually, though, I came to realize I had just been personally called […]
Often the difference between a great experience at Mass, and just a good or not-so-great one, isn’t an innovative tech system or a small army of ministers (though both might be handy), but something more simple and intuitive, like flow. And probably the only thing it will cost you and your team is a little […]
I just got back from another trip visiting our publisher, Ave Maria Press, at Notre Dame. I’m always inspired and grateful after spending time with them. (By the way, allow me to make a plug for their amazing parish resources, check them out @ avemariapress.com) There was a lot on our agenda. We started exploratory […]
If you’ve been keeping up with my Twitter, you might have noticed that our staff at Nativity are filming a TV show. We have partnered up with our amazing friends at CatholicTV to put together 13 episodes of what we are calling The Rebuilt Show. It will air in the Fall and Spring, and you […]
Many will hate to hear it, but one sign of a healthy church is growth in weekend attendance. If people are actively leaving, or not a single new family has joined your parish in some time, then chances are, there are things you could be doing to better attract and serve people through your Sunday […]
Over the years we have been able to predict with some accuracy who is likely to show up in our lobby on any given Sunday. We always talk about Timonium Tim, the name we’ve given to the quintessentially unchurched guy and his family in our community. We plan every aspect of our weekend experience around […]
Next week begins Holy Week, the most sacred time of the year for the Church. It’s also the most hectic, if you work in a parish. Our first job is to make the worship experience worthy of the occasion. Anyone who has ever worked to pull off an Easter liturgy knows there are just too […]
In this week’s post, I’d like to introduce you to something we’ve started at Church of the Nativity. We’re pretty excited and we think you will be too. It’s called: the Rebuilt Parish Association, or the “RPA” for short. We officially launched the RPA during our Matter.15 conference this past November. Based on all the […]
Sometimes I like to use this blog as an opportunity to keep readers up-to-date with what’s happening here at Nativity, travels, books, etc. Despite the presidential campaign trail, I’m a little busy with a different kind of “congress” this month. These next few weeks will be Catholic “congress” season. Right now, we’re right in the […]
