{"id":52,"date":"2010-10-07T13:09:28","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T19:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/?p=52"},"modified":"2010-10-07T21:41:33","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T03:41:33","slug":"is-your-parish-active-or-productive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/07\/is-your-parish-active-or-productive\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Parish Active or Productive?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Image by Piotr Bizior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

I’m really passionate about parish leadership and Matthew Warner’s post at NCR<\/a> is spurring me on to add my two cents. He wrote, “One of the frequent problems with parishes is not that they don\u2019t do enough, it\u2019s 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<\/a>, parishes often lack vision. We have parish calendars full of activities but\u00a0are these contributing to the mission of the Church?<\/p>\n

What is a parish supposed to be? In his apostolic letter Novo Millennio Ineunte<\/em>, 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.”<\/em> He said, “Our Christian communities must become genuine ‘schools’ of prayer<\/em>.” 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?\u00a0Most 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.<\/p>\n

Matthew Warner said it very well:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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?<\/p>\n

“Can holiness ever be ‘planned’?” John Paul II\u00a0asked. It must be he concluded.\u00a0Parishes need to have a pastoral plan, a vision, for “training in holiness,” he said.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n

How can your parish move from having activities for activity’s sake toward planning productivity for the sake of the kingdom?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m really passionate about parish leadership and Matthew Warner’s posts at NCR are spurring me on to add my two cents. He wrote, “One of the frequent problems with parishes is not that they don\u2019t do enough, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parish-ministry","post-wrapper","thrv_wrapper"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Your Parish Active or Productive? - Marc Cardaronella<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/marccardaronella.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/07\/is-your-parish-active-or-productive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Your Parish Active or Productive? - Marc Cardaronella\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm really passionate about parish leadership and Matthew Warner's posts at NCR are spurring me on to add my two cents. 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