Many of the articles here focus on how to turn parishes toward a mission mentality, to become apostolic parishes eager to evangelize. There are a lot of “action items.” Perhaps it is the most necessary time to stake a spiritual claim for silence. After a year and a half of planning, I went on an…
Welcome back to our “Starting Conversations” series, a set of shareable articles for parish staffs, councils, and small groups. Share this prompt with your community and have a good conversation that leads to understanding, assessment, and thoughtful action for evangelizing parishes. As I am no longer a young adult, I write as a late middle…
I have to admit that back when I was a college professor, I got heartily tired of all the academic effusion about teaching leadership, offering leadership studies, and more. Even though I had a lot of genuine admiration for the literature of servant leadership and prophetic leadership, I couldn’t help but think–is everyone actually called…
“We don’t have the money for that.” “We can barely pay the staff we have.” “We don’t have the budget for risks. We need to be good stewards here.” Money is a point of pain for so many in parishes and dioceses: asking for it, stewarding it, spending it, talking about it. And when parishes…
Welcome back to our Starting Conversations series, a short shareable article for staff, councils, small group studies, and more to discuss. This one may be controversial, which can make for a spirited time together! May God bless your conversation. Let’s begin at the beginning. What does it take to be better at what matters? I…
A Missionary Discipleship Daily Examen A daily general examen is a beloved prayer from Ignatian spirituality. It is meant to be 15-20 minutes of your day, usually at the end, where you place your day before God and look for where he was especially close, and how you responded to his presence. It is meant…
Welcome back to another “starting conversations” article. Feel free to share with your staff, volunteers, prayer group, social media friends to initiate some specific conversation on evangelization. God bless your discussion! It’s late summer and people are swimming. What better time to offer a parable for becoming an evangelizing parish? …Once there was a person…
Hint: it is supposed to be the focus this year…. As we move into the parish year of the Eucharistic Revival, we need to be clear what God is reviving: the people of God through the outpost of every parish in the United States. That is exciting and worth all of our prayer! But if we…
An honor and a sale!
In our series on how to foster a Eucharistic revival, we addressed the need to pray for and expect signs and wonders, and then the critical importance of small group spiritual multiplication. The third way to foster a Eucharistic revival is to invest in the hospitality and first proclamation model of evangelization. The first part…