If you have ever seen the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, then you are familiar with the famous quote, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” If we polled Pastors and parish employees asking them if they felt “busy” most of the year the answer would be Yes 99% of the time. The real question is as parishes, are we busy living or are we busy dying?

The answer lies in understanding the difference between a parish in Maintenance and a parish in Mission, because a parish in Maintenance is busy dying and a parish in Mission is busy living.

So what does a parish in Maintenance look like? Here are few symptoms…

  • The parish youth ministry cannot have a room to themselves because an outside group who uses the parish for fundraising and meeting space has to use it.
  • The exhausted parish priests are afraid to cancel a poorly attended mass that does not need to occur because of the complaints they would receive.
  • Parishioners threaten parish staff and pastors with the line “I’ll stop giving.”
  • When discussing trying something new, we hear the same response: “We don’t do that.?” Why “Because this is the way we have always done it”
  • Frustrated Faith Formation staffs lower the rigor of sacramental preparation because of the myriad of sporting, social, and school engagements that their students use as excuses to not attend. Besides, “At least they are getting the sacrament.” (I am guilty of this one).

The list of symptoms could go on and on and they all stem from one problem. If a ministry does not have a clear and simple mission, one will be assigned to it. Fr. James Mallon in the book Divine Renovation puts his finger right into the heart of the issue, “We have forgotten who we are and what we are called to do as a Church. When this happens, we soon forget not only what our buildings are for, but why we exist as a Church (cf Parish) to begin with.”

When is the last time you looked at your parish mission statement? Is it 10-15 sentences long and not easily remembered? When is the last time your mission statement determined what programs you would implement or how your buildings would be utilized. If you asked 10 of your parishioners what the mission of your particular parish is, how would they answer?

The good news is that there is great hope! No one wants our parishes to become Mission parishes MORE than our Heavenly Father who longs for them to be in his Son’s earthly Mission. Our Blessed Lord says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

In your prayer, begin asking the Holy Spirit to reveal some of the symptoms of maintenance in your parish and invite others in your parish to do the same. Dust off your mission statement and identify the areas that the parish isn’t fulfilling. Take those things to the Lord and ask Him to lead you to the truth of what must be done.

It won’t be easy, but it’s the difference between living and dying.

  1. Does your parish or ministry have symptoms of Maintenance over Mission? If so what are they?
  2. Where in your parish would you likely be met with resistance to a change like this? Where in your own heart?