The leading voices in Catholic leadership circles tell us the things we need to do in order to start parish renewal (I do this as well, as this blog so clearly demonstrates). But, what parishes STOP doing is sometimes MORE important, because it can mean breaking bad habits, calling out the harmful parts of our parish culture, gaining time to do more important things, and providing opportunities to take on all that great renewal advice you have never implemented in the first place. If we really want to make a deep impact, then we need to take an honest look at what we do, why we do it, and where we can improve. So, let’s start by stopping.
 

Dear Catholic Parishes - STOP Doing These Four Things!

1 - Inviting visitors to raise their hands, stand up, or be recognized when they visit your parish. Asking visitors who come to your parish to raise their hands and/or stand in order to recognize them doesn't accomplish the intended goal. Rather, it puts the burden of welcome on those that are visiting and is thus the opposite of true hospitality, which recognizes the stranger, seeks them out, and takes the initiative naturally. The forced and awkward "raise your hands" may be well intentioned but should stop.

I once took an informal poll of others asking if they liked the practice when they are visiting other parishes and the overwhelming majority not only didn’t like it, but didn’t participate at all and many were less likely to go back to parishes that asked visitors to be recognized. They felt out of place and burdened.

Of course good hospitality is a necessary practice and the desire to recognize visitors is as well. Yet this practice doesn’t accomplish what we want it to. If your parish really desires to grow as a parish, here are 16 tips on what radical hospitality looks like. 

2 - Stop inviting everyone to everything. Yes, there are some things that everybody who comes to church should be invited to. These include Confession, evangelization retreats, large social activities, and more. But, many things your parish does are meant only for certain people. Thus, the discipleship small groups shouldn’t be announced as “everyone is welcome”.

Locally, a priest friend and I are starting to grow a grassroots small group program. You won’t find this on any website, hear about it in an announcement, or see it in the bulletin of any local parish. Why? Because it isn’t meant for everyone. Each man running a group needs to pray and discern who he asks to join. Then he needs to talk in person to each one and make the invite. If someone is not yet a disciple, they shouldn’t be invited to a discipleship group. 

This is where a parish needs to operate based on a clear plan, which knows and uses a pathway of discipleship in order to build out a plan for parish renewal.

While we are talking about not inviting everyone to everything...

3 - Stop having ministry fairs. The parish is not a market and we shouldn’t go “shopping” for a ministry, activity, or apostolate to “get involved” in. Ministry fairs are a sign we aren’t clear about the stages of helping people mature, but that we just want a bunch of people to do a bunch of things - and that would be success for us.

True success is found in conversions. From death to life. From hell to heaven. From sinner to saint. This takes planning. Jesus came with a plan, followed the plan, revealed the plan to others, showed them how to implement the plan, then delegated the plan. We need to follow that plan.

Learn where others are at spiritually, accompany them, give them what they need presently, and plan for them to grow closer to God.

Ministry fairs don’t do all of that. A clear pathway of discipleship does (see the link above).
The last thing…

4 - Stop neglecting your website. The statistics alone should wake up those that don’t spend resources and time on making sure their website is user-friendly and attractive.

• The first place impressions are made about your parish are online. There is no second chance and the first chance happens in mere seconds. But, 96.2% of church websites fail the first impression test!
• Many people decide whether or not they will try out your parish based on your website alone. So, we need to stop avoiding it.
• If your website doesn’t look good on a phone, then it isn’t worth having. 90% of the world’s internet users use a phone to go online.
• 80% of new visitors go to a church’s website before stepping inside!

So, a few other things we need to do include:

1. Stop using insider Catholic language. A non-Catholic doesn’t know what RCIA is and now that things have change, even fewer know what OCIA is. 
2. Keep it up to date. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But, I have seen really pretty websites that have no useful info.
3. Make Mass times (or “Sunday Service Information”) VERY easy to find. This is the thing most visitors want from your website.
4. Primarily use pictures of your people, not your buildings. Smiling faces will have a bigger impact on a potential visitor than your pretty bell tower.

"If the parish proves capable of self-renewal and constant adaptivity, it continues to be “the Church living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters”. This presumes that it really is in contact with the homes and the lives of its people, and does not become a useless structure out of touch with people or a self-absorbed group made up of a chosen few. The parish is the presence of the Church in a given territory, an environment for hearing God’s word, for growth in the Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration. In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers. It is a community of communities, a sanctuary where the thirsty come to drink in the midst of their journey, and a centre of constant missionary outreach. We must admit, though, that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented.”
-Pope Francis, EG 28​​​​