Just about every Parish Staff has received this memo from their parish membership.

“We are not coming!”

Despite the numerous pulpit announcements, bulletin inserts, signs posted around the parish and the special appeals, the membership is not showing up to church events. Even if they bring in a National Speaker, most of the fringe membership will not come.

The same ten to fifteen percent of the membership who does everything, and pays for seventy five percent of the parish needs, are the only ones that come.

Why is that?

Some parishes are finally seeking honest answers to this question. The rest are hunkering down in their meetings, trying to find creative ways to manipulate the masses into attending.

 

  • “Give them food and they will come!”  – If we really have what they need, then why do we have to bribe them with food?

 

  • “How about door prizes or offer alcohol” – More bribes?

 

  • “We have not used the word Mandatory for a decade, maybe …” – Really? Grown adults with no need for the Sacraments for their kids will respond to that?

How about some honest answers?

 

  • They were never evangelized. However, they still believe they were given all they needed to get to heaven.
  • Because we did not give them Jesus (evangelize them), They lacked the life giving connection that brings meaning to the faith. Their experience of Church growing up was boring, lifeless, and full of rules and obligations that do not mean anything.
  • Satan has deceived them to believe that it does not matter what you do, in the end we all go to heaven. (Universalism)

“So Deacon, How do we reach them if they won’t come to our programs?”

Within that question lies one of the critical problems before us…

We are waiting for them to come to us!

While working in my last parish in Raleigh, NC, the Holy Spirit confronted me with a reality that struck me to the core of my ministry. “If you don’t genuinely love the people you are ministering to, how effective do you think the ministry is going to be?”  “Lord”, I replied, “love your people.” The Spirit was quick to respond – “How can you love them when you don’t know them.”

If we want to change course and begin to resolve this problem, we are going to have to go to them. To make the effort of getting to know them, inviting them to our homes, building relationships, and praying for them – by name.

We must re-engage in relational ministry where our goal is not to train them in faith, rather, to get to know and love them. Then, they will come.

The hard truth is that we are avoiding this kind of ministry because it costs us too much time, effort and security to befriend the unknown. There is a sacrifice here that we might not be ready to make.

What are  ways you can solve this problem in your parish?