swelling. In some areas, the suburban sprawl reached what used to be a more rural community and new developments have led to a huge influx of families and not enough parishes to support them all. Some of these parishes have 5,000 families or more. The danger here is that the growth in numbers can be mistaken for health or even “success” in terms of the mission of the Church. Activity can be seen as vitality. These parishes must scratch beneath the sur face to see if they are really accomplishing the Church’s mission of forming disciples.
Just because attendance and offertory are up does not mean the parish is fulfilling its mission. Sometimes, if you look at the numbers, the parish is not growing at the same rate as the surrounding area.
If your parish is swelling, then you have been greatly blessed by your circumstances! Try to avoid the temptation to rest on your laurels. Do not let growth in numbers become a substitute for growth in discipleship, which is the reason behind your parish’s existence. Too many parishes that are dwindling now bought into the idea years ago that maintenance mode was an okay thing because people kept showing up. You do not have some of the immediate pressures other parishes might be experiencing that make them feel the drive to revitalization, but pray that the Lord sends you a sense of urgency for mission, nonetheless. At the end of the day, our job at parishes is to bring every soul in our parish boundary into a living relationship with Jesus Christ in his Church, not just to have people show up.
Growing
There is one (and only one) true diagnostic marker of a growing and healthy parish: It is forming disciples. These parishes feel different. The adoration chapel is full. Confession lines are full. The parish has dynamic outreach to the community both in terms of social justice and evangelization. Members of the parish are living out the mission of spreading the Gospel in their own lives. A growing parish sees reasonable growth in numbers and donations, and it is replicating across multiple generations. Even if the parish is in an area seeing demographic decline, the numbers of families in the parish is actually holding steady or even growing. Dozens are baptized at the Easter Vigil every year, and people are having life-changing encounters with Jesus on a regular basis. This is the parish you want to be, and it is the parish Jesus wants you to be.
Growing parishes might not yet be all the way to full renewal as a missionary outpost of the New Evangelization, but they are at least on the way there, and they have committed to the long-term journey of bringing about renewal by forming disciples.
How Do We Become A Growing, Healthy Parish?
Which of the above four types of parishes is yours?
While the dying parishes are a sad part of our Church’s story right now in the United States, the real danger is the declining and swelling parishes. The temptation for these parishes is to stay in maintenance mode, because at least no one is trying to close the doors of their parish. People are still coming for now, and we have enough to stay open.
It could be said that the key deadly sin to pray against in these churches is sloth. Sloth, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, is “sorrow for spiritual good.” Our parishes are being called to a great spiritual good right now: mission. Will we have the courage and conviction to follow through?
A parish can never be content to stand still. If a parish does not become missional, it will inevitably begin to decline. Growing and swelling parishes eventually become declining parishes if they lose their focus on their true calling. And declining parishes eventually become dying parishes if they do not seek to turn the trend around. We have already seen this happen in many communities over the last few generations.
Here are the two basic hallmarks of a healthy, growing parish:
1) Everyone in the parish understands that the mission of the parish is to form disciples both of those in the pews and outside her walls.
2) Everyone has an abundantly clear understanding of how that happens in the parish and in their own lives using their unique gifts.
Being a healthy parish is about actually making these principles a reality in your parish. Growing parishes know that their mission as a parish is to form disciples. They have a clear understanding of how that happens, and they have been faithfully carrying out that mission for a decade, leading to culture change over time. Everything else — the programs you use, different outreaches, events, groups — is just tactics. Whatever tactics you use, you are learning how to imbue those two principles in everything you do as a parish.
That is it. It is that simple. But of course, “simple” does not mean easy, and becoming a healthy parish is not going to be easy. First and foremost, it requires that you adopt Christ’s own vision for the parish as your own. You must make the mission to form disciples central to everything that happens, but the mission cannot be just a statement on a website. It must also involve a strategic plan to get there. To create such a plan for our parishes, we need first of all to have a clear understanding of the current crisis in our Church. In the next chapter, we will look at the real crisis and how we as a Church can and should be addressing it.
Self-Diagnosis
Here is a simple quiz to help you see whether or not your parish is a “growing” parish. For each question, answer either (1) Strongly Disagree, (2) Somewhat Disagree, (3) Neutral, (4) Somewhat Agree, or (5) Strongly Agree.
1) Our parish has a shared vision and/or mission statement that focuses on the importance of discipleship for our community.
1 2 3 4 5
2) The vast majority of our regular parish community knows what our vision and/or mission as a parish is.
1 2 3 4 5
3) Our pastor has a leadership team that supports him in discipleship and evangelization efforts at a strategic level.
1 2 3 4 5
4) Our homilists regularly preach on the need for a relationship with Jesus.
1 2 3 4 5
5) Our parish has staff members available specifically for the work of evangelization and discipleship.
1 2 3 4 5
6) Our parish has evangelization opportunities readily available to everyone in our community.
1 2 3 4 5
7) Our parish has discipleship opportunities readily available to everyone in our community.
1 2 3 4 5
8) The vast majority of our parish community understands what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
1 2 3 4 5
9) The vast majority of our parish community has attended an evangelization series and/or been a part of a discipleship small group.
1 2 3 4 5
10) Parishioners are encouraged to become leaders and provided with formation and training to do so multiple times a year.
1 2 3 4 5
Add up your totals. A score of 50 indicates a strong, growing parish, which is what we all want to be. A lower score shows that improvement is needed in certain areas if we want to become a strong, growing parish.
Every parish in the United States should be able to strongly agree to all 10 points in the self-diagnosis.
