• Parish Health Grants -- A number of Parish Health Grant application have been being received in our office due May 30. The selection team will meet on June 9 -- so don't be late. These grants pay dollars (~ $2000) to parishes  whose good idea for a new internal or external ministry is selected. You can find the application or the Background Info document on line.

• Orthodox PR - During the last weeks of Great Lent and Holy Week we monitored Orthodox PR using Google Alerts (they aggregate all Newspaper and TV web articles on a set of keyword-in this case "Orthodox Church" and send links via email.) We found approximately 20 "Orthodox to celebrate Easter articles".  Most were Greek or Antiochian - with only one being OCA.  Next year we'll see if we can't help you to build awareness for your parish and Orthodox Christianity by providing a Pascha press release template (with instructions to "add 2 sentences about your parish here").  Probably many of us are tired of fielding calendar/Pascha date questions and being seen as a "curiosity". Nonetheless every little bit of "ink" helps in a cumulative sort of way. We also noticed that most articles were from "local small town" papers - so the "Pascha press release" is probably a highly effective tool for parishes in smaller cities.

• St Raphael Mission in our Diocese (Quincy IL.)was the one OCA community that we saw receiving media coverage. Click here to view it.
  

•  St Nicholas Parish in Kenosha WI reports placing 10 two-sided metal lawn signs, funded by a benefactor, on the front lawns of parishioners who live on heavily travelled traffic routes. The signs are viewed by drivers and pedestrians alike. 

• New Web Site - St Steven Mission in Lima OH recently revamped its website -- with lots of pictures  -- of people! Evidence mounts that many people find Orthodoxy and Orthodox parishes via the web. Showing them (your) community of people living a life in Christ encourages them to want to come and see. Mountains of information exists on Orthodox doctrine. Seekers need to see our Church as one of doctrine AND practice. Look at your parish website from the eyes of an inquirer.

Our Diocesan website featured attractive and interesting photographs of a recent Hierarchal visit to St Joseph's parish in Wheaton IL. Look at them carefully to see how the photographers (parishioners who are either professional photographers or photography teachers) captured a feeling of the parish being alive and joyful.

Holy Assumption Albion MI
The Diocesan website also recently featured some beautiful photographs of Pascha at Holy Assumption parish in Albion MI. Exploring this further we noticed the photographer, Matushka Ksenia Bruner of Eighth Day Photography in Ft Wayne IN had displayed these, to music, as a Paschal slide show.

Since excellent photos are critical in presenting your parish via a website, and knowing that most parishes are not blessed with the services of a professional photographer we contacted Ksenia to pick her brain on some tips. She graciously (and quickly!) prepared the following article, including examples a good and bad practice, that can help non-professionals effectively photograph their parish.

Taking Parish Photos
by Mat. Ksenia Bruner

Internal strife is too often a part of the decline in parishes.
 
We present part two of Fr. Steven Kostoff's articles on the Books of I & II Corinthians -focusing on factionalism as a serious issue faced by the Corinthian community and one that hinders the health of today's parishes.

...if our primary self-identification begins with "I belong to the Greeks," or "I belong to the Russians," (or even "I belong to the Americans!"), then we need to further assimilate the admonitions of the Apostle Paul toward unity in Christ. 

Read article  here

Many parishes are searching for new insights on how to share the good news with others and how to build a healthy Christ-centered environment internal to the parish. However, as we search for new insights, we often forget that many useful materials on church health and evangelization have been created and used effectively in the past. Though "old" they continue to be timely. One example is the 1986 publication "Church Growth and Evangelization -- the Basis and the Basics."  ("the Purple Book") written by Fr. John Matusiak.

One useful page from this booklet is a sidebar that describes "Attitudes that Enable the Church to Grow -- and Those That Don't". We've posted this sheet on the Diocesan website Evangelization page 

But honestly these are simply too good to trust you to click on a link! So we've reproduced them below.

Attitudes That Enable the Church to Grow	Attitudes that Don't
·        Church growth involves spiritual as well as numerical growth	·         God is not concerned with how many members the Church has. All He cares about is quality.
·         "Orthodox Christianity is the faith for all mankind."	·         "Orthodoxy is just for our people, not for everyone."
·         "As a steward I must wisely manage the gifts God has given me and use them for building up of the church."	·         "Stewardship is just another gimmick to get more money out of the parishioners."
·         "I am called to work with Christ in reaching others."	·         "God does not need me to make the Church grow."
·         "I want my parish to serve as the means by which others are brought to Christ and His Church."	·         "My parish exists to serve the needs of 'our people' and to preserve our heritage and culture."
·         "I must share God's love with others by sharing my faith with them."	·         "Religion is a private matter which I never discuss because I might offend someone else."
·         Evangelization is at the heart of the Church's life and experience.	·         Evangelization is a non-Orthodox concept
·         I am committed to Christ and His Church because I am convinced that he is truly the God and Savior of all.	·         "Sure I'm committed to the Church. After all I pay dues!"
·         "The church is an organism made up of those who base their lives on Christ."	·         "The Church is an organization made up of voting members"
·         I must help to make the Church more visible and invite others to services and activities.	·         "If outsiders are interested in the Orthodox Church they will take the initiative to find one.
·         Church growth begins with me	·         Church growth is not my concern

The above list of attitudes was written in the early 80's. Who would have thought they would remain an important constraint to vibrancy of many parishes in 2008.

Yet, earlier this week, after studying the census data received from Diocesan parishes, we could not help but wonder what role the continued presence of the above attitudes plays in our parishes today. 

The News: Good and Bad
The census information below is similar to data shared at past Diocesan Assemblies. However, since many readers are not present at those events and it is often more important to be reminded than instructed, here are some facts about parishes in the Diocese:

In the past ten years:

20 previously existing parishes have grown

• Membership gain from these growing parishes was 369 persons
• One parish grew by 86 persons.
• The remaining 19 parishes grew an average of 15 persons.
• Seven of these parishes, while showing ten year growth, show slight declines in the past five years.
• Perhaps most encouraging... 7 of the 20 parishes showing growth over the past ten years were founded before 1930.

18 new communities (parishes or missions) have been created, reopened or received into the Diocese. They are all larger than 10 years ago.

• These new communities have added 467 persons 
• One new (not a former mission) community is now 95 persons.
  
• The remaining 17 communities are an average only 21 persons.
• Adjusting for communities received into the Diocese as parishes and an approximation of Mission members transferred from existing parishes Diocesan mission plants have added about 250 persons to Diocesan membership.
  

2 parishes are exactly the same size.

Unfortunately, 34 parishes in the Diocese have declined in size

• The membership loss in declining parishes was -2036 persons
• 834 of those were from two parishes.
• The average loss in the remaining 32 declining parishes was 37 persons
• One parish, showing a ten year decline, turned around and grew over the past five years.

For those who like to see things graphically, here is a summary chart:



In Short

• More existing parishes are declining than are growing.
• Declining parishes are shrinking faster than growing parishes are expanding.
• When new parishes/missions are counted among "growers" more communities grew than declined (38 vs 34)
• The growth in many expanding parishes is slowing.
• Some parishes of all ages (founding year) have grown!

What, if anything, can parishes do about the above? For some it may be appropriate to continue what you have been doing. For most complacency and/or more of the same would not seem to be a good formula.

For those looking to explore new ideas here are some thoughts:

Gather Facts
Numbers tell a small part of the story of a parish. Handwringing over numbers rarely helps parishes to live a life in Christ. However, clearly taking stock of your parish's particular situation -- including numbers -- can be a first step toward change for the better. Try some of the following:

• Summarize parish membership (and if possible) attendance history over the last five to ten  years. If it looks like the parish in the chart at the right it would seem reasonable to say there is a problem -- or as we Americans like to call it - a "challenge".
  

• Build a (decadal) profile of the current parish by age group. What is the median age of parishioners? How many children are registered in church school today vs in the past? Using simple common sense what does this information project about the parish in five and ten years?

• Create a list of those who are no longer in the parish. Some have died or moved away. Some have fallen away for other reasons. What does this list tell us about our parish, its people, our behaviors and practices? What were these people seeking that was not found in our parish?

• Identify how many new people have come to your parish in recent past years and where they came from? Some sources of new parishioners are beyond your control (job relocations). Others --attracting inquirers from which converts result and reaching dormant Orthodox are actionable activities.
  

• Where are they now? if you get truly ambitious explore high school graduates from your parish in the last ten years. How many are Orthodox today? Has the experience of growing up in your parish helped to build a commitment Christ and His church -- or did they enjoy the parish youth group and never return to your parish or any parish? if they moved away did export well formed Orthodox Christians?
  

Build a Sense of Urgency
Facing facts is hard -- particularly when facing a reality that contains unpleasant news. Avoid the tendency to suppress bad news -- if that is what you find. More importantly avoid gloom and doom. Instead, use the information you've gathered to inform people and garner their  active support and prayers. Our observation is that most people assume their parish will be just like it was five years ago -- ten years from now. That assumption is usually false. Help them understand the challenges we face together.

Understand Root Causes
Avoid the tendency to assign blame. Instead:

• Under the guidance of the parish priest explore the facts, in conjunction with a review of the above article on "Attitudes that Help the Church Grow". Which of these positive and negative attitudes are present in our parish?
  
• Ask "why?".  One proven technique for getting to the core issues behind challenges is to "ask why " multiple times -- as often as five times consecutively. Do this for each symptom you've surfaced. How often do you find that in the end the final answer is a version of: "We do not love God." "We do not love our neighbor"?
• Ask: Can we be satisfied with this? Have we put to use all the resources that God has given us to enable this parish to fulfill what God expects of us?

Discuss a Vision
Set aside a portion of parish council meetings to refocus from "today" (budgets and leaky roofs) to discussions on where we want this parish to head and what types of ministries, personal behaviors and commitments are needed to begin the journey.

We do not know or control the future -- but we can prepare for and use our gifts and resources to enable a better future. One aspect (of many) in discussing what God desires for our parish in the future is parish numerical size. What size do we see for this parish in five and ten years?

Many parishes that have had serious declines will likely never grow to their former size. They are finding that a smaller parish can offer a greater sense of community, improved commitment and opportunities for ministry. For those parishes the vision may be to remain the same size. Others may anticipate growth while others will prepare for a smaller future. Can you achieve a consensus about what you believe God wants for your parish?

Get to Work
Rebuilding and rekindling life into a parish is often more difficult than establishing it in the first place. Anticipating "heavy lifting" there can be a tendency for leaders to to discuss and debate with little action to follow. Unfortunately most challenges do not melt away on their own.

The actions you take need to be derived from your particular situation. However having an idea ahead of time of potential actions (and their prerequisites)can be useful. Here are just a few of the  actions that may be a part of the renewal effort for some parishes:

• New member target - Making assumptions about attrition, job relocations etc. how many new persons/members do we need to add to our parish per year to remain the same size? To grow by 10%?

• Track visitors and returns - Having defined the number of new persons required for our target size, another pragmatic action would be to begin tracking the number of visitors/new faces to our parish per month --and the number who return. Does this flow of new faces seem appropriate? If not why and what can be done? What do we do to attract inquirers? Do we find that visitors rarely give serious consideration to our parish as their spiritual home? Why not? If you were exploring Orthodoxy what would/would not be attractive about your parish? If you moved to your area how would you view your parish?
  

• Learn from Other Parishes - In many parishes the members and leaders have known only one parish all of their lives. They often think 'every parish is like ours'. They may lack a model of the practices, principles and behaviors of healthy and growing parishes. Consider having "learning parties" visit other Orthodox parishes --perhaps to observe and discuss with the priest and laity. Discover for yourselves how growing parishes may differ in ministry, worship and overall atmosphere from your parish.
  

• Work on one thing - If you believe action is warranted avoid trying to do much at once. Pick one or two items. Prove your ability to "say what you will do and do what you say."

• Get help - Stuck? Don't be too proud to ask for assistance or coaching. A fresh set of eyes can often be just naive enough to generate some fresh thinking about recurrent challenges. 

Have other ideas or improvements on the above? We're happy to hear your suggestions.
 

In last month's newsletter we offered the following statement:

"If your parish is still using dues as the method by which the work, facilities and efforts of your parish are funded you need to give serious consideration to adopting a plan to replace that system with a more spiritually and administratively effective approach."

Honestly, we expected some strident feedback from parish leaders in the minority but not insignificant number of parishes that continue to use a dues system. Nothing. Not a peep. Thus emboldened -- we'll go a step further.

First we will remind you that in past studies no parish using "dues" as their stewardship administration method was growing (at least in any material manner).

Now we will go one step further with a prediction:


How can we say such a thing? How can we oversimplify the growth dynamics of parishes as being simply about money? Allow us to explain.

Parishes that continue to operate on dues systems will not generate enough funds to pay for the necessary ministries of a growing parish.

And more importantly they will have demonstrated an inability to make a fundamental basic change that can and will improve the spiritual and administrative life of their parish. While the dues transition may not be the parish's most important change it will likely signal an inability to change at all -- thus the death spiral.

In future issues of Parish Pulse we will try to offer further insight on good practices of parish stewardship administration. We will also spotlight efforts in parishes that have made a change --for the better.

As noted above:
 

Precisely what is it about dues systems and a dues mentality that helps us to teach this in our parishes?