For the vast majority of Catholics, almost their entire experience of the Faith will be mediated through the parish. Yet too many of our parishes are clinging to ways of functioning that could not be more out of touch with the presently demanded apostolic moment. So many of our modalities of functioning have been crafted for a cultural moment that no longer exists, one that was much more supportive of religious practice in the wider culture. Even if it does not reach the fullness of the parish’s mission, maintenance of the parish structures is all that a Christian cultural context requires to keep the doors open.
Though this shift has been happening for hundreds of years, the second half of the twentieth century saw this cultural revolution toward a post-Christian society fully mature. We now operate as a Church in what is called a “post-Christian society.” The Christian worldview and praxis are no longer the dominant forms of life in Europe and North America. Traditional morality and religious belief are seen, not just as optional, but as outdated and even repugnant.
Art and entertainment tend to reflect the underlying culture. To take one stark example, consider the Colosseum and the pagan culture of ancient Rome, which it represents. Then consider our own entertainment culture today. In 1953, a Catholic bishop standing in front of a blackboard talking about the moral issues of the day pulled in ten million viewers a week and won the Emmy for “Most Outstanding Television Personality.”9 In 2018–19, the runaway top TV show among adults 18 to 49, Game of Thrones, frequently featured graphic nudity, extreme violence, and various forms of assault. When John Lennon famously remarked in a 1966 interview that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”10 and that rock ‘n roll would outlive Christianity, maybe he was not only being arrogant, but pointing to a seismic shift in culture that was already taking place.
In our post-Christian society, there has been a rapid and significant breakdown in the family. This is an issue for parishes because we have based many of our parish realities on the strength of the domestic church. As a Church, we have relied on the family unit to support and sustain most of our initiatives. In an ideal world, the parish in all of its structures would exist to support the strong formation that is already taking place at home. In reality, the sacramental numbers alone testify to a weakening of the domestic church in our parishes. While there were 420,000 Catholic marriages in 1970, in 2018 that number dwindled to a generational low of 143,000. It should be no surprise, then, that while there were almost 1.1 million infant baptisms in 1970, in 2018 that number was 615,000.11
When the overall culture supports religious practice, churches get to do ministry as if it is “bumper bowling.” As long as we throw the ball toward the pins, it is going to get there. We may not have a strike every time, but we will at least hit a couple of pins by default! In our current day, the bumpers have been taken off completely. There are almost no cultural pressures to guide current or future generations back into the Church. On the contrary, increasing social pressures are drawing people — including many baptized Catholics — away from the Church Jesus founded.
Clearly, we live today in a very different cultural moment, but many of our parishes are still operating in a “maintenance” mode that would only make sense in a Christian cultural context. In the face of this mounting secularizing shift, many parishes in the United States and other parts of the world are simply not structured to turn things around.
It is crucial that we understand the challenge that now faces our parishes. If we consider our problems to be temporal and shallow, then we might be tempted to think that simply tweaking things will produce the desired results of a renewed Church. Yet maintenance solutions alone cannot turn things around. Only a radical recommitment to our Church’s missionary identity is a fitting response to the revolution taking place in the world. Too often in parishes, we are “playing not to lose” rather than “playing to win.” Today, more is required. What is needed to meet the challenges today’s parishes face is not just a more effective form of maintenance, but a complete transformation into continually operating on mission, like the first apostles who burst out of the Upper Room on Pentecost.
Until now, to make a broad generalization, the New Evangelization that Pope Saint John Paul II called for has been carried out largely in ecclesial movements and ministries. We have not done enough in our parishes, and thankfully, we are beginning to make this a priority. We must figure out how to transform these communities whose structures are often built only for maintenance, and repurpose them for mission. If we do not, we will miss our key advantage for re-Christifying our postmodern world. In the end, the fulfillment of the call to the New Evangelization will depend on the parish, because the parish is the place where salvation history and people’s individual lives meet.
This means that in order to renew the whole Church, we have to first renew the parish.
That is the whole point of this book. My full-time work for many years has been to accompany parishes through a process of renewal focused on discipleship. Through that work, and by encountering parishes of all sizes, I have learned a few key principles about what works and what does not.
Each parish is unique, with a rich history and pastoral context that changes the tactics that might work at ground-level. A “one-size-fits-all” approach to parish renewal simply cannot work, and there is no quick and easy process for renewing a parish, so this book will not seek to propose one. What it does propose is a map of sorts for long-term cultural change. I am convinced that, if each parish takes seriously the challenges of this moment, and proactively works to meet them head-on, the new missionary age prophesied by Saint John Paul II will come about. To me, creating this kind of momentum requires that parish leaders focus singularly on four simple keys, which we will discuss in more detail in a moment.
It is incredibly important that these keys be simple. Parish leaders today are often discouraged and overwhelmed. They have been trying to do well and to effect change for so long, with so much resistance and inertia, that they are burned out. They feel overworked and underappreciated. Many feel cynical about the possibility that their parish culture can ever really change. The to-do list is already full and the thought of trying to drive such change feels like a thousand new tasks that they just do not have the time or energy for.
If this is your situation, I come bearing good news. Parish renewal is not about running off in a thousand directions like chickens with our heads cut off. This scattershot approach to renewal leaves parishes disorganized and parish leadership burned out. My vision for parish renewal involves, not multiplying our efforts and doing more, but doing less. And who doesn’t love doing less?
Really, renewing a parish and creating a culture of missionary discipleship is about doing less because it is about prioritizing a few things and doing them really, really well.
Take a secular example. In-N-Out Burger, a fast food restaurant chain found in the western part of the United States, particularly California, has long had an almost mythical relationship with its loyal customers. In-N-Out does not have the huge menu of a McDonalds, but lines are out the door at all times of the day. Recently, one Los Angeles newspaper referred to their drive-thru lines as a “public menace” due to their length.12 Their secret? They do a few things incredibly well using fresh ingredients. They focus on a small number of food items, but everything they do is top quality. Because they have a smaller menu, they have the ability to be intentional and expert in everything they attempt.
Now consider your parish. Each parish is unique, so it is difficult to propose a top-down, one-size-fits-all model for parish renewal. However, through personal experience, through analyzing the very best missional parishes, and through pulling from the magisterial teachings of the Church, we can come to some definite principles that can be universally applied to any parish situation to begin the movement from maintenance to mission.
To effect such a change will not be the work of a moment, or even a year or two, but will be the work of the next ten years. We need to begin with this big-picture vision of a complete cultural overhaul, from focusing inward on maintenance to moving outward toward mission and forming disciples. Only a goal that