If there is a single, principal fear that pastors and church workers share in this season of COVID-19, it is the fear that people simply won’t come back to church. Declining attendance was already an established pattern pre-COVID, which has now simply accelerated. Church leaders know that with disaffiliated parishioners comes the loss of funding […]
Tag: nativity
Everyone is excited about the prospect of getting back to church. Here at Nativity, we are reintroducing live streaming this weekend and inviting our staff to join us physically for Mass. If all goes well, we can begin welcoming back parishioners after a few more weeks of testing of our safety measures. But we do […]
In a recent homily, Pope Francis offered a caution for parishes turning to digital means of communication to do ministry. He said clearly that a church which exclusively operates online, without physical presence and celebration of the sacraments, would be at risk of becoming individualistic, insular, and detached from a living faith. This caution comes […]
This post is the third in a series of resources dedicated to providing a potential road-map through the current COVID-19 crisis for your parish. We’ll be sharing with you what we’re doing, what’s working, and what isn’t. But honestly, we’re making it up as we go along, just like you. As always, our only credential […]
Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? Esther 4:14 (NIV) In a time of such unprecedented crisis and cataclysmic change, everything looks unclear. Things we were so sure of last week – our schedules, our methods, our finances – have suddenly been thrown into a […]
Sudden crises have a way of clarifying long-running debates. The essential nature of whatever is at stake tends to become obvious when we are forced to confront it without the haze of extraneous distractions or details. This moment in time is no different. As the current outbreak of the COVID-19 virus sweeps across the country, […]
A church here in our community (not pictured above) advertises “Ashes To-Go,” a drive-thru exercise in minimalism when it comes to approaching Lent. I am not criticizing our neighbors in the least, they are observing the season according to their own custom. I just won’t be emulating them. Lent is an ancient tradition observed throughout […]
As a part of our current message series on “Life with Family”, we’ve acknowledged that families come in many different shapes and sizes. They are continuously changing as seasons of life unfold. Even nuclear families change as kids get older, go off to college, and, eventually, leave the nest to start their own families. Increasingly, […]
We are fast approaching the end of January, the time of year when the new resolutions and routines we started are beginning to seem just a little bit tedious. Maybe you just started noticing a little dust on the new exercise bike you got for Christmas or your wallet is feeling a little lighter even […]
We just started a new series for this new year about something that shapes a huge portion of our behavior and identity – though we don’t always know it. Our habits operate below the surface, quietly automating our lives, sometimes unbeknownst to us. It’s an especially timely series, given the multitude of resolutions we make […]
