So let’s say we have a church where everyone – at least most people – understand the purpose of a church and they understand in broad terms how this purpose is being defined in particular location (per my last post). Then what?
From my perspective as an administrator the question is, how do you allocate resources in the most effective way to move the organization to embody the mission. To me you need more definition beyond a mission. You need to define more specifically what you need to do but you also need to why you are going to do everything. Why do we have a school relative to what we see our mission as? Why do we have Bible study, Vacation Bible School, and Life Teen?
Once a church defines what is doing and why it’s doing it, then it must continually refine these activities. What do we need to change, improve, adjust to better realize our potential.
Very abstract isn’t it. Let’s take a look at some examples – all very hypothetical. So let’s say we understand our mission to be to form mature Catholic Christians by offering education, spiritual development, worship, and service opportunities. So we decide we want to offer faith development opportunities for all but since our parishioner base is largely families we want to put more resources into the faith development of children and youth.
We offer a day school since having seven hours a day to help the children grow in their faith increases the chances that they will grow up mature in their faith development. We should also offer classes to the children and youth not in the school. These classes should make the best of the time they meet to develop the faith of the students. There should be an identified pathway on how the collective attendance will lead the children to understand and practice their faith as they mature into adulthood.
So you could go on and on and analyze each of the activities and tie it to understanding of the mission. Unfortunately, this is an exercise that few parishes undertake. They do what they did last year which might be great but they tend to skip the part and ask themselves what does the activity do to further the mission. Moreover, the participants themselves can lose sight of why they are participating. We go to class because that’s what you are supposed to do.
There is one other notion about church activity that needs to be understood but seems to be mostly forgotten. The notion is that people are at very, very different places in their faith lives and you must conscientiously plan your activity to get them from one point to another. Some people are completely unchurched. Some show up once in awhile as a novelty. Others come to daily mass and volunteer hundreds of hours at the church and elsewhere. These different categories of people are going to need different experiences to get them to the next stage of faith development.
When a parish tries to determine what to do, it must very deliberately construct a strategy to address where different people are at with their lives. The collective activity should clearly define a pathway toward becoming a person of faith. Shouldn’t a church’s goal be to make people saints? If we do what we are trying to do perfectly, wouldn’t we want to have members who are so in touch with God that they are able to act like Christ would?
I guess it’s something to think about.
Tags: Being a saint, church vision, coversion, why churches exist
