Under the Fir Tree

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked whether the parish understands itself as sent, with a missionary identity that extends beyond its own campus and its own membership. This post begins the fifth and final movement of the Examen's structure. Stewardship. And it begins with the dimension of stewardship that most parish leaders find most uncomfortable to discuss and most consequential to neglect. Money. The discomfort is worth naming at the outset, because it shapes everything that follows. Most parish leaders would rather talk about almost anything else. Evangelization, formation, leadership, facilities: all of these feel more directly connected to the mission than talking about the collection. But the parish that never talks about money honestly, that treats the offertory as an obligation to be mentioned and a budget to be managed, has already made a theological mistake before the conversation begins. Stewardship isn't a fundraising strategy. It's a dimension of di...

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 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...

A Continuation # # # The previous post asked about the root. This one asks about the most visible expression of it. Spiritual life is the parish's orientation toward God. Sunday Mass is where that orientation becomes concrete, public, and observable. It's the one moment in parish life when the whole body gathers, when the parish's actual relationship with God is on display, when the newcomer forms a first impression and the longtime parishioner is either fed or quietly confirmed in their drift. Everything the previous post described, the Eucharist as center, liturgy that's prayed, confidence in the Gospel's power to transform lives, either shows up here or it doesn't. # # # It helps to start with what Sunday Mass is actually for. Not a service to be delivered. Not a box to check. Not even primarily a community gathering, though real community forms here. Sunday Mass is the parish's central act of worship, the place where heaven and earth meet in the most co...

A Continuation # # # The previous post looked at the structure of the 17 questions. Now we begin where the Examen begins: spiritual life. Spiritual life sounds like one item on a list. It isn't. It's the condition that makes everything else on the list possible or impossible. A parish can have a functioning Finance Council, a trained hospitality team, a cleaned-up facilities plan, and a broken spiritual life. What it produces then is well-organized drift. This is why the Examen placed its first questions here. Not about programs. Not about budgets. Not even about Mass attendance, though that matters. The first questions asked whether the parish reflects genuine confidence in the Gospel, whether it provides a life-giving encounter with Jesus Christ, and whether it actually believes that faithful proclamation transforms lives. Those are not administrative questions. They're the questions underneath every other question in the Examen. # # # It helps to say plainly what spiritu...

Over the coming weeks I'll be sharing a series of reflections on the Parish Examen, part of Mission Renewal in the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. The Parish Examen was a prayerful and practical look at parish life: what's healthy, what's strained, and where the Lord may be inviting us to deeper renewal. The Examen asked: What's strong? What's weak? What bears fruit? What merely fills the calendar? The process wasn't a report card. It was a mirror. A parish, like a soul, needs examination before renewal. We can't strengthen what we won't name. We can't heal what we refuse to see. And we can't follow the Holy Spirit with closed eyes. What did we actually hear? That's the question after any honest examination. Not: What do we wish we had heard? Not: What can we spin? Not: What will make everyone comfortable? Just this:  What did we hear? So this series will ask one steady question: What kind of parishes are we becoming—and what faithful step...

What’s a parish for? That’s the first question. Not: How many programs do we run? Not: How busy are our calendars? But: What are we asking people to become? A parish exists to make disciples — a learner who follows Jesus with his whole life. If that’s the end, then everything else is a means. Preaching is a means. Ministries are means. Meetings are means. Even good traditions, necessary as they are, are means. The end is conversion—real people hearing Christ’s invitation and answering it. So clarity matters because love does. If you love people, you don’t hand them a fog bank. You hand them a road. A church with ten voices saying ten different things may still be sincere, but sincerity isn’t the same thing as clarity. And people can’t walk a path they can’t see. This is why a unified message has such force. When the homily, the ministry leader, the marriage prep team, the catechist, and the pastor all point in the same direction, the parish begins to sound like one witness instead of m...

They call it “Mission Renewal,” and it smells like eucalyptus candles and a plan. The pamphlets promise health and healing, as if the Church were a spa with better choir loft acoustics. I’ve seen this perfume before: the sentimentality of people who haven’t stayed long enough in the room where the weeping doesn’t end. When the hour is clean, when the dishes are stacked, they speak of “tools,” “skills,” “growth.” Meanwhile, a mother is on the kitchen floor teaching herself how to breathe without her dead child. I don't despise health. I despise the lie that health is the Gospel’s center. The Gospel has a center; it’s a wound that speaks. A Body, broken, not diagrammed. The world is bleeding out in ten thousand stairwells and alleys, and we roll out a flip chart: goals, metrics, feedback. We greet the night like managers of a failing store, and not like watchmen who’ve tasted the cold. Talk to me of renewal that can stand in a hallway sticky with police dust and the sour reek of smok...