Conference offers tips on strengthening and rebuilding parishes

A parish community just outside of Baltimore held a conference to show how they rebuilt their parish. Some of their ideas will be coming to the Buffalo Diocese.  

Father Michael White and lay associate Tom Corcoran of the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, found that their parish wasn’t working as well as it could, then took steps to turn it into an inviting, welcoming eucharistic-centered place of worship.  

They founded Rebuilt Parish, a Catholic parish renewal movement that is providing pastors and staff with the process and tools they need to focus on reaching the un-churched, creating a clear discipleship path to grow their church, and revitalizing their parish culture.

The June 2-3 conference at the parish saw Father White, Corcoran, and Baltimore’s auxiliary Bishop Adam Parker lead a series of presentations on clergy and laity working together, starting small groups, teens, the internet, and working with merged parishes.

“Their main thing is radical hospitality,” explained Sister Louise Alff, OSF, evangelization consultant for the Road to Renewal, who attended the conference with 15 other parish leaders and pastors. “You are welcomed the minute you step foot on their property. They have people greeting you from the street.”

They also had teams that would meet with you to talk about your own parish and handed out full-sized candy bars. 

Patricia Dyer, pastoral associate for Blessed Trinity Parish in Buffalo, thought the conference had a lot of great ideas, including delivering a consistent message through all Masses, faith sharing, and religious education; and keeping a fresh look online.

“You can’t take it as a cut and paste, and they’re pretty good about making sure you understand that,” she said. “A lot of times people see their ideas and think, ‘I couldn’t do this or that.’ But they looked at their community and made decisions based on the people in their community. That’s what they say we have to do.”

She pointed out that the Praise and Worship style of liturgy with music being front and center would not work with an older community.

“They really made you look at your parish from the outside,” Dyer said.

Making sure websites don’t have out of date information, and all invitations are directed toward guests with clear directions on where to meet is crucial in attracting new parishioners.  

 “We’re looking at things from the outside. What do people see? What are they asking you to do? Are there things that you’d be interested in there?” she asked, adding that websites and signage should always be up to date especially Mass times. 

“Nobody wants anything to change, but if you look old and tired and like nothing is going on, people aren’t going to be interested,” Dyer said.

Father Christopher Emminger, pastor of the Enchanted Mountains Catholic Community, attended talks on parish operations, liturgical music, diocesan relations, and engaging youth. He found the operations and diocesan relations helpful as a pastor.

Joined by pillar leaders, Father Emminger hopes to strengthen the ministries in his three parishes.

“We’re going to be rolling it out in the fall,” he explained. “We hope this sort of reinvigorates some of the things that we’re already doing. We’re not reinventing the wheel, but we want to take what we already have and make it better, especially for any visitors that we might have to any of our three parishes.”

He plans to start with the Greeter Ministry, making it more engaging and welcoming. 

“I thought it was a really good idea for the diocese to offer this because I probably wouldn’t have come across it on my own. I thought it was a very beautiful experience,” he said.