Under the Fir Tree

A Continuation # # # One of the easiest mistakes in parish renewal is to confuse faith formation with discipleship. It’s an understandable mistake. Formation matters. Catechesis matters. Sacramental preparation matters. OCIA matters. Teaching the faith clearly and faithfully matters. A parish that doesn’t hand on the faith with confidence is failing at something essential. But still, the classroom isn’t the path. The Christian life isn’t simply a movement from ignorance to information. It’s a movement from death to life, from estrangement to communion, from suspicion to trust, from curiosity to surrender, from attendance to discipleship, from discipleship to mission. That journey includes teaching, but it can’t be reduced to teaching. This matters because many parish renewal efforts quietly assume that the central problem is inadequate religious instruction. If only the curriculum were better. If only sacramental preparation were more consistent. If only catechists were better trained....

A Continuation # # # One of the greatest mistakes a parish can make is believing that once it’s designed a discipleship pathway, its work is largely done. It isn’t. A pathway matters. But a culture matters too. And before either one can be built well, we have to understand something even more basic: how people actually grow. A parish that wants to make disciples needs to think at three levels: the person, the pathway, and the culture. First, there’s the person. People grow through recognizable stages of conversion and discipleship. Some have no trust in the Church. Some have a positive association with a Catholic friend, a parish, or Jesus Himself. Some are open to spiritual change. Some are actively seeking God. Some make a real decision to follow Jesus. Some are beginning disciples who need to learn the habits of Christian life. Some become missionary disciples who are ready to share the Gospel. Some become fruitful disciples who accompany others and help them grow closer to Christ. ...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked whether the parish notices the people who walk through its doors and builds a reliable pathway toward belonging. This one asks what happens after that. Belonging isn't a destination. It's an ongoing condition that requires attention, maintenance, and care. People who are genuinely connected to a parish community still get sick. They grieve. They drift. They struggle with things they don't tell anyone about. They go through seasons of doubt and distance and discouragement that don't announce themselves from the outside. And sometimes, without anyone noticing, they stop coming. The question this discipline asks is whether the parish has built the structures to notice when that happens, and to respond with something more reliable than a phone call from whoever happens to remember. The Examen surfaced this gap in a particular way. Parishes are generally experienced as caring communities. People feel that the Church loves them, th...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked whether the parish is moving outward toward the people who aren't there yet. This one asks what happens when those people arrive. Or when anyone arrives. The returning Catholic who hasn't been to Mass in years. The young family checking out a new parish after a move. The person who just finished Alpha and doesn't quite know what comes next. The grieving man who showed up at a funeral and felt something he wasn't expecting. The woman who grew up Catholic, drifted for a decade, and is quietly trying to find her way back. These people arrive. The question the Examen pressed is whether the parish is actually ready to receive them. The findings were honest about this. Parishes across the archdiocese are generally experienced as warm and welcoming. People feel received kindly. The faith is taught clearly. There's genuine goodwill at the door. But warmth at the door doesn't automatically become belonging in the community. Th...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked what the parish is for and whether its resources reflect that answer. This one asks the next question. Is the parish actually moving outward? A parish can have a clear mission statement, a unified leadership team, and a well-ordered calendar and still be entirely self-referential. Vision without outreach is aspiration without legs. The Examen pressed this question directly: to what extent is the parish proactive in bringing the Gospel beyond the parking lot? That phrase is worth sitting with. Beyond the parking lot. It names the boundary most parishes haven't crossed consistently, not because they don't care about the people outside, but because caring and going are different things, and most parishes have developed a culture that waits rather than moves. # # # The necessary outcome here is specific: disciples are regularly engaging with and witnessing to others in such a way that it results in consistent conversion growth and engage...

A Continuation # # # The first movement of this series asked about worship. The second asked about the structures that make worship sustainable: leadership, decision making, communication. This post begins the third movement. And it begins at the beginning. Before a parish can evangelize effectively, form disciples intentionally, welcome newcomers reliably, or deploy volunteers well, it has to be able to answer a prior question. What is this parish actually trying to do, and for whom? That sounds like it should have an obvious answer. In most parishes it doesn't. Not because leaders haven't thought about it, but because the question is harder than it appears, and because most parishes have found ways to stay busy without fully answering it. # # # The necessary outcome for this discipline is worth sitting with: the parish is united and moving forward to fulfill its shared, foundational mission, and the pastor and his team have a clear, long-term plan for the parish. Two words de...

Maybe we've made Eden too pretty. A garden feels manageable. Soft. The kind of thing you'd find in a children's Bible with watercolor light and a gentle lion. We know what to do with gardens. We tour them. We photograph them. We improve them. We add better lighting and pull weeds on Saturday. But what if Eden wasn't just a garden? What if it was the first temple? A place where heaven touched earth. A mountain sanctuary with trees for pillars, rivers running with blessing, stones lit with glory, and a human being placed there not as a tourist, but as a priest. That changes everything. If Eden is only a garden, then the Fall is about losing comfort. But if Eden is a temple, the Fall is about desecration. And that gets uncomfortably close to home. Because most of us don't think of our lives as desecrated. We think of them as busy. Overstimulated. Tired. A little lonely. Maybe a little numb. We reach for the phone before we reach for God. We open the calendar and feel t...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked how decisions get made. This one asks what happens after they're made. A parish can have clear authority structures, functioning councils, and a pastor who leads well, and still lose the benefits of all of it if decisions and priorities don't reach the people they're meant to reach. Communication isn't the last step in leadership. It's the step that makes leadership visible. Without it, good decisions sit in a room and good intentions stay in a bulletin that nobody reads past the Mass times. The necessary outcome here is simple enough to sound easy: disciples are increasingly supportive of parish leaders because they are informed about what is going on and what decisions are being made for the parish. Most parishes aren't clearing that bar. Not because they aren't trying. Because communication is harder than it looks, and most parishes are doing one part of it while missing the other two. # # # Parish communicatio...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked who is leading the parish and whether they're formed well enough to carry the mission. This one asks something more specific. When those leaders need to act, how do decisions actually get made? Who has authority to decide what? How are those decisions explained and owned? And what happens to a parish when none of that is clear? Decision making sounds like a governance topic. It is. But in a parish it's also a pastoral one. Unclear decision making doesn't just produce inefficiency. It produces mistrust, disengagement, and a quiet erosion of the confidence people have in their leaders. And that erosion, once it sets in, is slow to reverse. # # # The necessary outcome for this discipline is worth sitting with: the parish experiences confidence in every decision, understanding why it's made, how it's executed, and who has the authority to carry it out. The word confidence is doing real work in that sentence. Not agreement. Pe...