Parish Level Evangelization: Part 10

Now let’s talk about all the things that need to be done around the parish that don’t have a direct impact on the central purpose of the parish.  These are the support functions.  I can think of five of them, but I’m sure there are more.

Facility Management.  Does your parish rent out the hall for non-parish functions?  Are there rules to be enforced?  What is the money collected used for?

Maintenance.  How do you keep your buildings clean and in good repair?  Do you have volunteer groundskeepers or do you hire professionals?  What about snow removal?  Who repairs the parking lot?

Food.  Who takes care of the kitchen facilities?  Do you prepare food for all the meetings and events that happen at the parish throughout the year?

Media.  If you are going to provide books and pamphlets, CDs and DVDs for folks to use to learn their faith through self-study, do you need someone to oversee acquisition, storage and distribution of it?  Is the parish going to provide materials for the various classes and study groups?  Do you have a library?

Fund Raising.  If weekly collections do not provide enough money to pay for all that needs to be done, how is the money going to be raised?

Some parishes might hire staff to do some of these functions, but most won’t be able to afford that.  I believe that with good volunteer recruitment and training that all of these functions could be handled by volunteers.  The parish has professionals in the congregation who, given a radical conversion to Christ that this plan is built around, would be eager to donate their services.  Then the money saved could be put to better use building the climate of conversion in your parish.

Now that all of the individual parts have been examined let’s follow the course of a fictitious person as she moves through the process at a fictitious parish. 

Meet Jean.  Jean is a 30 year old divorced woman with a 5 year old son, Todd.  She is first introduced to the parish through a door-to-door campaign run by the parish.  A pair of volunteers from the parish knock on her door and have a 30 second conversation with her, inviting her to their annual gathering and leave her with a packet that contains information about the parish and a CD with an inspiring talk by a Catholic speaker.

She comes to the event and meets a lot of happy, friendly parishioners and discovers all the different things the parish is involved in.  There are tables or booths for each of the 7 areas of ministry in the parish.  People who work in those areas have prepared brochures and information packets.  They have sign-up sheets to recruit new volunteers into their ministries.  The Knights of Columbus, Catholic Women’s Club, Pro Life Club, Scouting, are all represented.  Jean who was raised Catholic and left the Church in her teens accepts an invitation to explore the faith with a group that meets every week at the Church hall.

The day ends with a question and answer session in which the pastor fields questions about the faith, about the priest scandals, about the community and about why the Church doesn’t “update” her teachings to keep with the times.  At this meeting Jean learns that she is not excluded from rejoining the Church because of her divorce.  All it would take is a good confession and she would be free to receive the Eucharist.  With an annulment of an obviously invalid marriage, she will even be free to marry some day.

At the weekly class, Jean meets some great folks who are all at different stages along the faith journey.  She is welcomed and loved and her love of the faith is re-awakened.  She decides to join the RCIA program to get a sructured presentation of the faith.  She applies for an annulment and enrolls her son in the religious ed program.  She also learns about a young adult singles ministry and decides to attend one of their mixers.

Part way through the RCIA process she learns about a Rachel’s Vinyard retreat that is coming up.  She makes an appointment with Father because she is post abortive but hasn’t thought about that period of her life and wonders if this will disqualify her from rejoining the Church she is growing to love.  Father hears her tearful confession—the first since she was 14 years old—and assures her that she is forgiven and signs her up for Rachel’s Vinyard.  The parish pays for her to go.

At the retreat, Jean names her first child and is released from the shame and guilt of the bad choice she made when she was only in her teens.  She receives Communion for the first time since she was 14 at the retreat.  For the first time in her life, she believes in the Real Presence and is overwhelmed that God could possibly love her so much that he allows His poor creature to receive Him into her body.  She identifies with the Virgin Mary who at the Annunciation received her Lord in a similar manner.  Refreshed, renewed, and all cried out, she returns to her daily routine like a new person.  She dives into the faith and can’t get enough.  She wants to learn everything, do everything.  She resolves to become a saint and to raise her son to be a saint. 

At the Easter Vigil, since she’s already been Confirmed she doesn’t need to participate in the rites, but she goes along to support the friends she’s made during the course of the RCIA classes.  She is moved by the pageantry of the whole liturgy on that special night.

In June, after a springtime of joy in her fiath, she attends the parish vision meeting which is held every year and is a way of assessing the state of the parish in all the various ministries.  The pastor gives a presentation on the whole philosophy of the parish toward evangelization.  She hears about the “Climate of Conversion” that exists in the parish.  She is shown how all the different ministries and committees and groups and activities that the parish is involved in all point to the same goal.  Conversion.

Then, during a breakout session Jean takes a Spiritual Gifts Assessment questionaire that gives her some ideas where she would be most helpful to the mission of the parish.  She agrees to volunteer as a teachers aid in the CCD program and to help out on the retreat committee.  She resolves to invite her friends from work to experience God the way she did through this parish.

So that’s Jean’s story.  She met Jesus through this parish.  The wounds she’d received by attempting to get through life without God are healing and she feels a new sense of purpose, but most importantly, she is back in right relationship with her Savior.

We should all desire to belong to parishes like this and we should do everything we can to bring it about.  So let’s talk about how to set up this structure in your parish next time.