I’m really passionate about parish leadership and Matthew Warner’s post at NCR is spurring me on to add my two cents. He wrote, “One of the frequent problems with parishes is not that they don’t do enough, it’s that they try to do too much.” I believe that he’s absolutely right. Frequently parishes have a lot of activity but not a lot of productivity. These are two different things. It’s possible to be very busy but not actually produce anything if that activity does not contribute to any quantifiable goals. As I said in a previous post, parishes often lack vision. We have parish calendars full of activities but are these contributing to the mission of the Church?
What is a parish supposed to be? In his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, Pope John Paul II exhorted pastors to plan pastoral initiatives adapted to their specific communities. Along those lines he gave a list of priorities that should be considered. First was that everything “must be set in relation to holiness.” He said, “Our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer.” Parishes exist to make committed disciples of Christ. Growth in the interior life should be the number one priority and goal of any parish for it’s members. I think most parish leaders would agree, but are we really doing this? Have we as parish leaders intentionally planned pastoral initiatives to accomplish this goal? Most parishes schedule ministries without much thought to an overall plan. They schedule one thing here and another thing there, depending on availability of speakers or volunteers. If these programs don’t contribute to the mission of the parish, they may just be busy activity and not productive work.
Matthew Warner said it very well:
This kind of thing happens at parishes that lack a clear vision – a vision that includes tangible, quantifiable goals. Any responsible organization starts with such a vision. And any effective leader knows how to communicate it to others. Maybe pick the top 5 needs at the parish and then let the staff work to meet those needs with programs that are top-notch, successful, well-attended, well-staffed and supported by the parish.
Think of a shoe factory. Raw materials go in, shoes come out. What if there were no plans for a product line? What if the workers were occupied making a different shoe every day? There would be a lot of activity on the manufacturing floor but they wouldn’t be producing a consistent product. Parishes aren’t consistently producing disciples of Christ. Have we planned for production?
“Can holiness ever be ‘planned’?” John Paul II asked. It must be he concluded. Parishes need to have a pastoral plan, a vision, for “training in holiness,” he said.
It’s not about doing as much as you can. It’s about doing the right things with the specific talents and abilities your parish staff and volunteers bring to the mix. The parish as an organization should ask itself, “Given the resources and talents we have in our parish, what is the best and most efficient way we can make disciples of Christ?” Then create ministries that are stepping stones to accomplish that goal.
How can your parish move from having activities for activity’s sake toward planning productivity for the sake of the kingdom?
Productivity vs. Activity in the parish–how true. When I was a Campus Minister in a school I felt a need to have enough “activity” to justify my budget. A list of activities on a spreadsheet in a board meeting with bean counters looks like productivity. It takes discipline- in planning and discerning in order to go deep into those “activities” that really matter, those that are both formative and transforming. Its really about clarity and focus. What’s important? And how can we best allocate our resources to that which is important. Warner’s piece was great. Thanks for relaying it and expanding on it!
Yes, I agree. A list of activities does look very productive and very good. The issue is exactly clarity and focus. The fact that there are only limited resources in time and money is the reason this is so important. I’m far from having perfected this pastoral planning structure but I’m working on it.
I think advancing a vision means coming to trust the laity. I know parishes that do not feel it to be appropriate to do anything without having a member of the clergy present. Conversely, I know other Christian communities that move people into various leadership almost immediately. We need to have a balance of understanding the joys of mutual discernment while taking risks in faith.
That is a very good point. I see this all the time. Pastors can’t do it all but sometimes try. They won’t start a ministry unless they’re involved but they don’t have the time. Consequently, it doesn’t get done. On the other hand, far too often we rush parishioners into ministerial leadership but they’re not qualified or mature enough spiritually to handle it. They end up burning out and quitting. nnI think that to carry out this vision, we need a shift in thinking about how clergy and laity partner together. Lay apostolate will become key to parish success in the future I believe. That will require a commitment to getting the proper training for lay persons and perhaps even some mentoring of lay persons on the part of parish priests. Lay apostles need to be formed properly before they can just take something over. We definitely don’t do a good job of that.
“advancing a vision means coming to trust the laity.”rnrnYes. The days are long gone when everything can be managed by Father or Sister. Unfortunately there’s an institutional culture that retains that old mindset, and it’s only slowly changing to where the laity takes the initiative as necessary to move a parish, and the wider church, forward.
Agreed. The old mindset is slowly changing…but it is changing. I believe we are on the cusp of a great shift in how the work of the Church is done. Pope Benedict is signaling it as well. However, God’s graces will always flow through the parish priest to the parishioners. The pastor can either be a free-flowing conduit or a bottleneck. That’s the way God has set it up. But in terms of professional collaborative ministry, the laity will play an increasingly important role in the future. I’m sure of it. And, the Church will be better for it.
Great comments, Marc. The one-size-fits-all approach to parish life is killing us. We don’t need cookie-cutter parishes.nnPersonally I think we need to abandon the parochial model for some ministries. There’s a lot of waste that can be eliminated by getting rid of duplicated services. Every parish doesn’t have to be all things to all people.nnWhy does every parish in town need a youth group? Why not one large city-wide or regional youth group that can pool resources from a number of parishes? The Protestants have been doing it for years. Why does every Catholic school have 7th and 8th grade? Why not form middle schools — especially since many of the students will eventually wind up at the same high school?nnI’d love to see some parishes pilot these sorts of programs. I think there’s a lot of potential there — not just for eliminating waste, but for growing closer as the Body of Christ.
I totally agree. Trying to be all things to all people is very wasteful. The protestant churches that are more specialized and focused are doing far better these days than the “one stop shop” churches that have tried to do everything. There just aren’t enough resources. We all have different strengths. It would be better if we focused on what we could do well as a community and cater to the people that are attracted to that. It would be much more efficient. Why does every parish need to have the same stuff? Just because is the only reason. And, it ends up being starved for resources in manpower, money and attendance. nnRegarding city-wide/regional programming, we’re starting to dabble in that a bit around the diocese. There’s more and more happening. I think it makes a lot of sense to centralize schools. I tried to do that with youth group at a sister parish a few miles away but it didn’t work too well…a victim of “parochialism” just as you mentioned. There were parish and school rivalries that got in the way. And, people just expect you to have your own youth group. Parents just wanted our own. I felt a little inferior, ministerially speaking, not having one at our parish. 🙂 But, I think we need to start thinking in those terms much more.
I’m hesitant regarding a large city-wide or regional youth group. I think ministry will become less personal/relational if we try to go too regional. I do agree that there are situations that schools consolidating their resources would help the overall picture but it must be handled case by case. I would hate to see us go to the big youth ministry or young adult ministry model where in the name of “eliminating waste/resources” we risk our overall goal of drawing others into the life and mission of the Church and help them grow in their faith. I realize it can be accomplished in big larger groups, but I’m still hesitant. My brother is former youth minister and currently a protestant pastor and the churches he’s belonged to have not gone toward the city wide model. Protestant churches often have plenty of resources becuase their people tithe well. My parish has 2800 families and runs a Catholic school of 600+ students and has an overall budget of around 3.5 million. My brother’s church is the same size without a school and they have over 100 on staff and their annual budge is over $6 million.
I think the great hope of the city wide youth group is that there would increased resources of money and time. Some even hope that by pooling the resources of several parishes, there would be enough money to pay a youth minister. I think they also feel like there would be a larger pool of kids as well and a bigger youth group is better.
You’re absolutely right about the tithing thing. There’s significantly more money and more staff at many Protestant churches. They can handle and attract larger numbers. I didn’t realize the difference was that much though!
I’ve been on both sides of the fence on this one. But I agree with you that smaller is good and larger isn’t always better. The problem with a city wide youth group is idealogical in my city. It’s difficult to get all parishes to see eye to eye on how a youth group would be run. And, many of the kids don’t want to be in a group with kids from the other parishes. They were rivals in elementary school and they think they don’t like them. But I’m sure if the pastors got onboard a lot of that could be overcome.
I couldn’t agree more with what has already been said. I think many of today’s pastors are over-reacting to the Father-does-everything model of days past. They realize they can’t do everything themselves and so have begun handing more responsibility to the laity, but I have found them to be too hands-off. As you say, Marc, there is no training, and then you have a 22 year-old college graduate who has suddenly become CEO of the parish’s youth ministry program. When the pastor is too hands-off, you also get a sort of parochialism between parish ministries – Religious Ed and Youth Ministry are fighting over volunteers, for instance.nnI have only encountered two parishes where the whole staff seems to be on the same page, working under a unified vision. One of them has staff meetings _every day_! It sounds horrendous, but every staffer I’ve talked to is completely fired up and loves working there because they have a sense of sharing a common mission. Another parish has regular staff retreats – the office is closed and they go away for a day to focus on their interior lives, office and administrative staff included.
Thanks for the comments! I’m not a fan of useless meetings, but staff meetings are very important. If everyone is at a meeting where current problems are brought out into the open, then other members of the staff can help with solutions. There should be a cross departmental sharing of ideas and resources as well. I bet it is exciting to work in that parish. Probably everyone feels like they’re part of the team and working toward a common goal. That makes employees feel like they’re contributing something to the parish “winning.” Everyone is working together to accomplish a central goal and everyone is contributing to the whole. That’s how to get things done. As opposed to everyone just doing their own thing and going off in different directions. That just leads to infighting for volunteers and resources.
Great points here! I think those are all excellent benefits of social media and very valuable. I think many pastors and staffs don’t see the value of brand recognition and identity but they should. More and more, I think staffs will understand the benefit of social media.
I wonder if there are some quantifiable goals that can measure the impact a social media strategy could have. A parish would have to define the important metrics to them–say Mass attendance or registrations or perhaps inquiries for the RCIA. Then they could measure attendance or whatever and see if there’s a difference after a social media campaign. That’s the way the marketers do it, right? They measure sales before and after. Perhaps that’s more easily counted but still…
One problem is parishes don’t know what to measure because they don’t have a guiding philosophy for success or a plan for improvement. How can you measure improvement when you don’t know what you’re trying to do?
Thanks for the comments!