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Parish Development Grants Application Deadline July 15 2010
| Applications are now available for 2010 Parish Development Grants. Application deadline is July 15 2010. Download here. A quick review of ground rules:Parish Grant Funded Multi-parish Youth Liturgical Arts Workshop
 | Start a Conversation about Possibilities We've heard from a couple of communities who are now Conductor Training
 | discussing proposals for this year's grant cycle. This discussion, even more so than the funding, is the heart of the grant initiative-- to stimulate new conversations about possibilities. What could we do if...? How would that work? Why can't we do that? How can we build on a parish strength -- to offer more back to God? How could we shore up a weak area of parish life in Christ?- Is Christian formation and commitment to whole parish education a priority? Need outside speakers, and promotion for same?
- Do you need to revamp your stewardship efforts? Need training, top quality materials and a creative way to communicate this?
You can't receive funds unless you apply!
 | - Begin a ministry to the neighborhood? Require starter capital?
- Out of ideas and in need of insights from other parishes? Consider sending parish leaders to visit and benchmark other parishes who've dealt with similar issues.
- Tired of church school curriculum with a giant hole when it comes to topic XYZ? Collaborate with another parish to build some good materials.
- Need to build awareness for the Gospel, Orthodox Christianity and your parish? It takes money.
Parish Development Grant proposals can be structured to help with all of these issues. Need help? JUST ASK -- but please don't just sit back and do nothing!
More info is available here. A background document is available here.
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Parish Ministries Conference 2010 Registration Now Open; Space is Limited!
| It's time to start registering for the OCA Parish Ministry Conference 2010 to be held at Baldwin Wallace College near Cleveland OH on June 27-30.
What Is It? The Parish Ministries Conference 2010 is a
four day, three night continuing education experience for Orthodox clergy and
laity age 18 and over desiring to breathe new vibrancy into their
Orthodox life
and their parish. The conference will provide an opportunity to worship together, learn,
share experiences, and make new friends and acquaintances.
More info
Space is Limited Over 140 OCA parishes and missions -- and many more non-OCA parishes -- are located within a five hour drive of the site. To ensure a productive and enjoyable experience for everyone space is limited. Register earlyto be assured of an opportunity to participate in this exciting event.
Three Content Tracks PLUS Young Adult Rally Adopting the theme of "Equipping the Saints" the conference will be a
collaborative effort of three OCA Departments andthe Midwest Diocese. In addition the Orthodox Youth Rally, coordinated by the OCA's Youth and Young Adult Ministry, will convene at the same site and participate with the other tracks in common worship, keynotes, meals and free time. Learn, share experiences, make new friends, at the Parish Ministries Conference 2010
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Early Bird Pricing Commuters can register for this event at the early bird price of just
$50 which provides access to all sessions and keynotes and worship.
Adding a meal ticket (8 meals) will cost an additional $90 and on campus
board will be another $150 for a single room (three nights) and $100
per person for a double room.
Fees can be paid by credit card or
check.
Click here for info on speakers, tracks, venues, fees.
Register Now
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YOU Can Help Set Priorities for OCA Parish Ministries Conference 2010 Survey Seeks Your Advice for "Building Vibrant Parishes" Track
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Content plans for the Young Adult Rally, Liturgical Music and Living an Orthodox Life tracks for Parish Ministries Conference 2010 have been pretty well settled. Track content will be published soon at the event home page.
 We've got some great topics and speakers lined up for the Building Vibrant Parishes track. But before we finalize our lineup we'd like to tune the track content to include the topics of greatest importance to you as parish leaders. You can do that by participating in a very short on-line survey to let us know where you key needs are.
Click here for the survey. Don't wait until after the conference to tell us what you wanted to cover. Tell us now!
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Need $ to Attend Parish Ministry Conference? Limited Scholarships Available for Midwest Diocese Parishes
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The OCA Parish Ministries Conference promises to be a significant learning,
development, renewal, and community building opportunity for parishes
and persons in our Diocese.  T hat's why we want you to attend. Sooooo... the Parish Development Ministry is pleased to be able to offer a limited number of tuition/room & board
scholarships for the conference. Partial
cost subsidies, in the range of $200, will be made available for up to 10-15 attendees
from Midwest Diocese parishes. Funding
preference will be given to:
A scholarship request form will be available soon. In the
interim contact Joe Kormos to express interest.
Do not allow lack of travel funds keep you away without at least asking. |

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Parish Renewal Session at St. Vladimir's Seminary Registration Open -- June 14-16 |
Fr. Sergius Halvorsen and Joseph Kormos will deliver the the sessions. | Can't make it the Parish Ministries Conference? Consider the St. Vladimir's Seminary Summer program. A three day workshop on Orthodox Parish Renewal will be held at the seminary on
June
14-16 2010. Instructors and guest lecturers for the session will be: Open to priests and lay leaders interested in developing their ministry and the health of their communities, the conference will provide skills, insights and tools for meeting the challenges of twenty-first century parish
life. The conference will include brief presentations; facilitated group
discussions, case studies, cross parish problem solving of
not-so-mythical
revitalization issues.
Early bird registration (prior to May 15), including course fee, room and board, is $350. More info, fees and and online registration can be found here.
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A Frayed Connection Special Report In Philadelphia Inquirer
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A few months back we read a couple of interesting articles.Early map Northern Liberties
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One titled a Frayed Connection chronicled the significant decline of five Orthodox Churches in the trendy, resurgent Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia. Most of these parishes are hanging on for dear life despite a growing population of over 5000 people in the one third square mile patch.
One segment of the intelligent, well written article particularly attracted our attention:
Northern Liberties Street Scene
 | "Rick Schroder moved to Northern Liberties two
years ago, drawn by its "very cool bohemian" ambiance. That includes
the autumn Russian Festival at St. Michael's, in which his interest is
"more cultural than religious."Raised
Lutheran, he doesn't attend church. "It's not that I don't have a
spiritual dimension in my life," said Schroder, 49, a human-resources
manager. But "organized religion isn't doing it for me."
Still,
he said, he would "love to have a conversation with the Orthodox, but I'm
not sure how to start it." Religious leaders could "do a better job of
engaging" the neighbors, he said. "That's the missing piece, the
engaging piece . . . reaching out to the community, saying what you're about,
and the community reaching back." Note to Orthodox Parishes anywhere:
- Say what you are about!
- Find 'Rick' and have a conversation.
- Repeat above.
Read Article
Anglican Church Faces Extinction We know little about Philadelphia. And probably less about British Columbia. Yet a second article
"Anglican Church in Canada Faces
Extinction" was also interesting.
"The Anglican Church in Canada - once
as powerful in the nation's secular life as it was in its soul - may be
only a generation away from extinction, says a just-published assessment
of the church's future."
Quotes from the article:
"Half a century ago, 40 per cent of
Vancouver Island's population was Anglican; now the figure is 1.2 per cent."
"At the present rate of decline - a loss of
13,000 members per year - only one Anglican would be left in Canada by
2061."
"The status quo is not an option,"
"The unchurched are not coming to us. Lapsed Anglicans
are not coming back in sufficient numbers."
Articles about the decline of religion and religious bodies abound. And, many of the points raised in this article have only modest relevance to the situation of Orthodox in US. However, if, as
the article
implies, ethnic identity is a key factor here there may be some food for thought for other churches with ethnic
origins.
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Taking the Temperature of Parish Life Parish Development Workshops & Visits
| We've been busy with numerous parish workshops and visits in the past few months. In aggregation our stops have included:
- Workshop for mission communities in the Kansas City area
- Visit to the facilities of St. James Mission, Kansas City MO
- Worship with St. Sophia Mission Lawrence KS
- Parish council workshop -- "Future Vision", "Stewardship" - Holy Trinity Church, Overland PK KS
- Leadership retreat/Annual Priority Setting for Archangel Michael Church, Broadview Hts OH
- Worship and leadership discussion at Holy Cross Mission Chisago City MN
- Worship and informal exchange Holy Trinity Church St. Paul MN
- Worship and Parish Council Workshop - "Parish Decision Making & Leadership Structure" - St. Mary's Cathedral Minneapolis, MN
At every stop we had excellent conversations and useful exchanges. We learned a lot --and we suspect that outcome was at least occasionally reciprocal.
What did we learn? Among others things:
- There seems to be a remarkable interest in breaking out of the tyranny of "but we've always done it this way." Nonetheless we are still too often the prisoners of feeling like we can do the same things in the same way yet expect different results. (Clergy and laity seem equally culpable.)
- At a number of stops we were asked our perspective on the key issue(s)
facing parishes in our Diocese. Many answers come to mind. Stewardship. Power struggles. Effectively transitioning from old guard leadership to a new crop of parish contributors --with new perspectives a different values. Making room for new people and ideas. Balancing tendencies toward congregationalism and
clericalism. Acquiring a mission mindset -- a mindset of 'intentionality' as we heard at one stop.
- But from our perspective the top issue is: transitioning parish
councils from being parish administrators -focusing on bills budgets and
buildings -- to becoming true shared leadership bodies, led by the priest, capable of good management
AND effective planning AND inspiring, developing and coordinating
parish ministries.
- We sense growing momentum associated with using the structured approach of the Diocese' Parish Health Inventory Model to bring a sense of intentionality, change and growth. At more than one stop we heard serious, unsolicited comments like: "In my 25 years of parish leadership this the most helpful tool I've ever seen." (See next article)
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Impact of an Inventory
| What comes from using the Parish Health Inventory in a parish?
Usually good conversations. New ideas. (Ideas that are still Orthodox -- just fresh. It's possible!) A better understanding of attitudes and behaviors that may be keeping our parish "stuck in yesteryear". A conversation about kindling or rekindling a spirit of mission. The Parish Health Inventory model encourages parish leaders and groups to explore how to strengthen specific areas of parish life.
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Feedback But don't just listen to our opinion consider feedback from priests in parishes that have used it.
- New Perspective - "...the model
helped me see the parish through another set
of eyes. It
was painful in some ways to consider things that we do not do well, or
don't do
at all. Yet I did not at all feel that looking at
our much needed growth areas was a negative thing.
Lay Enthusiasm - "(Afterward) they
wanted to meet
with each other and explore ideas. If they take ownership
of the
parish, and don't limit the parish to what I am willing to involve
myself in - we can move beyond the 'small parish'/family model into a
bigger church
model which
will enable further growth to take place."
- Progress markers - "Helped us focus on something other than members and money as our parameters for progress as a parish".
- Personal & Corporate - "Its a great opportunity to demonstrate the
importance of both the personal and the corporate aspects of the
Orthodox
Faith. We discussed stewardship, spirituality, and
evangelism and how each of our personal
lives
in Christ constitute the corporate culture of the parish and our
values."
- Dialogue - "It
allowed different "groups" in the church to share their perspectives
with one another." "The
review afforded us the opportunity to talk about some things in such a
way
as to interact with each other on a level we have not done in the past."
Is your parish capable of a solid open dialogue how to grow in Christ? Perhaps the Inventory Model can provide a useful framework.
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- "Permission granting/ New Blood" - "Our discussions afforded an opportunity for new faces to step forward and offer
themselves in leadership roles - not just filling old roles but wanting
to
create some new ones as well."
- Encourage Marginal Views - "The model provides an opportunity for those less likely
to share opinions, views, ideas, etc. to have a (usually) safe
opportunity to
share."
- Creativity - "The model gave all of us a structure to
brainstorm together and come up with outstanding ideas to help strengthen our parish community."
- Examine Change - "It doesn't allow the status quo to reign. Its hard to just put it away without feeling like we should take some personal and collective action."
- FUN - "It was really a lot of fun.
As you use the model remember:
- Its one model not the model. Working to prove it imperfect is not hard --yet not that valuable.
- Its a tool-- not the next big thing.
- Its not a catechism.
- its about discussion. A novel concept in some parishes?
- It has value in growing, declining, stagnant, and plateau parishes.
- its nice to use with a coach or facilitator -- but not necessary.
Getting Everybody on the Same Page Some parishes are capable of
discerning their needs on their own and to follow that up with effective
action. Some priests have a gift for moving things forward. In our experience those situations are the exception rather than the rule.
Often in situations when a parish is in decline or becoming lethargic everything gets questionedand opinions are polarized.But you can't work on everything. It becomes hard to agree on what the
most important challenge or opportunity is. Dialogue stops and often the loudest
voice wins. This in turn burns resources and energy on deciding what to work on
that would be better spent on taking action, establishing new ministries,
pruning dormant ones and building a hopeful vision.
In our opinion the key benefit of an
assessment framework is to accelerate a parish's ability to achieve
consensus on where they should focus revitalization action and to get busy with
building or rebuilding vitality into parish life.
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Souls in Transition Religious Characteristics of US Emerging Adults
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Summarizing the National Study of Youth & Religion--useful insights for all
 | We recently offered an article, based on the experiences of Diocesan parishes, about principles and practices for effective youth ministries in parishes. (See the article "Establishing a Solid Parish Youth Effort" here)
In follow up we read "Souls in Transition", a book that summarizes the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). A serious sociological study of the religious practices and beliefs of
"Emerging Adults", the study tracks changes in beliefs and religious practices of study
participants from their early teen years (ages 13-15) to the present (18 -23).
In our opinion the study findings are important to youth leaders, church school teachers, parents, clergy, and parishioners-- anyone who has the slightest role in forming children into active, serious Orthodox Christians.
Impact of Religion on "Life Outcomes" and Behaviors The study defines "religiousness" as:
attendance at religious services; frequency of prayer, and stated
importance of
religious beliefs of study participants. It then uses this definition to explore the
statistical relationship between those factors and other "life outcomes".
The
study found a statistically significant correlation between the
religious
strength/devotion of emerging adults and various behaviors and qualities. Religiously devoted youth were found to be:
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More likely to volunteer & perform community service, and help
homeless and
needy than those religiously "disengaged". This, the study found, is in
part because they are
more
likely to have friends who volunteer.
Emerging adults meet at coffee hour at a Diocesan parish
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- Healthier and happier
with their bodies, less likely to be sad or
depressed,
more likely to feel loved and accepted and to feel grateful more often.
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Better educated - more likely to have completed some college.
- Less likely to break moral rules 'if you can
get away with it'.
- More active in general. The more religiously
devoted average 2.4 "life/social/group activities" while
"disengaged" study participants averaged 1.2. This held true even when
religious
activities were removed from the data.
After cautioning readers
about deducing too much with respect to this
statistical correlation (what is the cause and what is the effect) the
authors
clearly state that in their professional opinion the study provides
"very good
reasons to believe that religion is itself one significant cause helping
to
produce these life outcomes.
Most Emerging Adults Stay the Same as Early Teen Years What then causes emerging adults to be religiously devoted?
A commercial on television recently informed us that "90% of bone strength is developed before adulthood". So to with religious behavior of young adults. A key finding of the NSYR study is that the degree
of "religiousness" of an early teenager (13-15) is a
significant
predictor of their religious behaviors as an emerging adult.(18-23).
In
other words they generally don't change much.
- Over half of those studied remained statistically similar in religious behavior from age 13-15 to age 18-23.
- Of those indicating a change in
religiousness more declined in religious behavior from early teens to emerging adulthood than increased.
In the words of the study authors:
"Religious commitments and
orientations appear to be set early in life and follow a consistent
trajectory from early formation through adolescence and emerging
adulthood. For most (emerging adults), what happens religiously before
the teenage years powerfully conditions what happens thereafter."
Parental/ Adult Influence is Critical While multiple factors combine in various ways to predict religiousness the study identified a number of key factors driving religious behavior:
- Having
highly religious parents
- Importance of faith as an early teen
- Frequency
of
personal prayer as an early teen
- Frequent religious service
attendance as an early
teen
- Not having friends and school mates who look down on religious beliefs
- Supportive religious adults (other than parents)
- Current congregation 'a good place to discuss religious issues'.
In the words of the study authors:
"It is a myth that as children enter adolescence that parents do not matter. Most parents have swallowed the 'parents are irrelevant' myth. Yet parents are hugely important. Peers are important but less important than parents. Parents, and other non-parental adults, know it or like it or not, are always socializing and teaching emerging adults about religion."
College No Longer the Culprit Another study conclusion seems worthy of sharing. College does NOT corrode religious belief and practice as much as
previously
thought. Some quotes:
"The religiously undermining effect of higher education on
recent
youth has disappeared."
"Among recently surveyed college students 2.7
times as
many report strengthening religious beliefs than weakening."
"If
anything NOT
attending college is associated with lower levels of religious
practice."· "American higher education seems to have become an environment less
corrosive than in the past."
One factor is growth of campus based religious and parachurch
organizations
"that provide alternative plausibility structures for sustaining
religious
faith and practice in college."
Parents, Church Schools, Supportive Parishes & OCF are Critical So, in summary:"Religious orientations appear to be set early in life..." National Study of Youth and Religion
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- Religiously oriented emerging adults are healthier, happier, more active.
- Parents matter a great deal.
- Other adults matter a great deal.
- Early formation (before teen years) is very important.
- Parish environments matter a great deal.
- College can possibly help religious formation.
While Orthodox participants in the study were, for the most part, statistically irrelevant the implications for Orthodox parishes are, we believe, important.
Consider the serious impact of these finding on youth programming,
church
school, parish attitudes and support, and in the establishment of OCF chapters on campuses!
Sunday of the Paralytic Shortly after finishing the book we were present in a parish, on
the Sunday of the Paralytic, where Fr. Thomas Hopko delivered the homily.
Fr. Thomas noted that...
...the lesson for the day tells us
nothing about the faith of the paralytic. The healing is enabled by the faith of the people who dropped the paralytic through the roof. When
Jesus saw their
faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you."
Noting also the many children in church that snowy day, he drew a parallel.
Someone brought these children to church today. They (the children) may
have no faith but their parents brought them to church to see Jesus and learn about Jesus.
So who needs statistics? The lesson is before us.
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