In my travels around the country, it has become clear that the current church is going to require great movement before it can succeed in implementing the New Evangelization.

God is calling us into a greater level of sacrifice than we have ever experienced before.

Authentic Baptism is giving the Lord every part of our lives. Since He died for us, we now choose to live for Him. For many of us in the Church, we did not really get that emphasized in our upbringing or childhood religious education. We were taught “how to add a little Jesus to our already busy lives.”

I shared in an earlier blog that the Church has really been forming volunteers instead of Disciples. We can have some really great volunteers that give up a lot of time and talent for the Church, and we are so blessed that they do. However, the service of the volunteer is totally dependent upon their availability.

Do we tell God when we will serve?

Here lies one of the greatest challenges confronting the church in the near future. If we are going to initiate the New Evangelization, then we are going to have to do the real work of relational ministry that NO ONE wants to do. This is going to take time. Where is this precious time going to come from? Who is going to do this work? We are all so spread out already.

These are the realities of our current paradigm of local parish life and ministry in the Church. Within the next ten years, we are going to experience a major crisis in the Church. Every local parish will experience the consequences. Some Dioceses have already entered the crisis.

While many continue to resistantly say, “this is the way we have always done it”, the fruit sticking with the status quo will mean the inevitable closing of their parish. Why? Because what we are doing no longer works nor is it relevant to the people.

If we do change, we will close many parish doors because there won’t be any people interested in coming in.   

“Such gloom and doom Deacon, is there any hope?” Great question! Yes there will always be hope, but we must begin now to present the vision of what must be done so others can embrace the message and change.

Some are beginning to change their perspective and realize that their Baptism means that they belong to Jesus and His Kingdom. Therefore, what they do with their time must now be reoriented to the REAL building of the kingdom and that requires making Disciples. It is the mission we have always had, but rarely, in recent history, focused on.

To do this on a grand scale, each Catholic parishioner is going to have to reclaim their Baptismal promise and Die to their selfish wants. They are going to have to give up one of the most precious things they have – TIME.

Things to pray through!

• What does it mean to make Jesus the Lord of our time?  

• If I have committed to give Jesus my time (everything), what does that look like practically?

• Am I really prepared to make this sacrifice for Jesus’ Kingdom?

• What will I need to be able to make this sacrifice for the Lord?

• How will our parishes change if we really start implementing relational ministry so as to make disciples?