Church kids are better behaved

According to LiveScience.com:

Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development....



The kids whose parents regularly attended religious services—especially when both parents did so frequently—and talked with their kids about religion were rated by both parents and teachers as having better self-control, social skills and approaches to learning than kids with non-religious parents.

Read the entire story here.

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What does the parish of the future look like?

Overall, Mr. Wagner is optimistic about the state of the Catholic parish in coming years.

"Generally, it's going to be an exciting time in the near future as these changes come into place," he said. "I'm a person who enjoys newness and change, and I think that challenge is ultimately what the Catholic faith is about: seeing the face of Jesus Christ in that challenge. It's going to be a lot of fun."

Click here to read the rest of Karen Dietlein Osborne's interview of me regarding the parish of the future.

7 things you need to tell young Catholics

Twenty-Third Publications author Michael Carotta was in San José for a workshop on young adolecent Catholics. (The event was hosted by Harcourt Religion Publishers). He spoke on some of the recent data regarding middle school aged children and how that data relates to catechesis. He said that 6th, 7th, and 8th graders have more in common with college students than college students have with their parents. This is primarily because of the postmodern outlook that folks in their 20s and younger share. This age group, from middle school to college age, is commonly referred to as Gen Y. For them, everything has to be immediate. They do not understand delayed gratification. Mike identified five myths about this generation:

1. They have low self esteem
2. There is a large parent-teen gap
3. They are generally troubled
4. They are all the same
5. They have little faith

None of these are true. However, two things that are true: they have diminishing levels of hope and their ability to make moral decisions is not based on traditional, authoritative voices.

Mike said we have to do two things catechetically. We have to turn up the volume on hope. And we have to start conversations on morality from the perspective of who gets hurt. Gen Y places a high value on not hurting anyone and not allowing anyone to be hurt.

He said this generation has two basic questions about Catholic identity: how are we different and why do you (the adults in their lives) remain Catholic.

He said he would spend the short time we have with them on these issues:

1. Spirituality
2. Hope
3. Providing a powerful experience of God
4. Emphasizing the multicolored richness of Catholicism
5. Engaging their moral imagination
   
6. Attending to stories
7. Teaching discipleship. What is the difference between a believer and a disciple?

He had lots of data, most of which he culled from the National Study on Youth and Religion, pulling out the specifically Catholic data. He emphasized over and over again that this group has a high level of faith. He urged catechists not to spend precious catechetical time trying to evangelize this group. "The already believe," he said.

A couple of the statistics he cited struck me as especially interesting. 8 out of 10 believe in God, and yet only one third of them have had a powerful religious experience. I wonder if they have not had a powerful experience of God, what or who is the God they believe in.

Another interesting thing is the majority of them talk with their parents about religion at least five times a month. And the majority of them are interested in learning more about their faith. This seems like a huge opportunity to provide catechetical resources for the domestic church so they will know how to talk with their kids.

Finally, half of them find liturgy to be boring. I'm amazed it's only half. Still, there is a lot of work to do to keep this group engaged liturgically.

Why I would get fired in the parish of the future

I don’t think I’d last long as a leader in the parish of the future. Here’s why.

I’d give the pastor more time off. Not exactly vacation days, but days away. At least two contiguous days (in addition to his day off) to work on his homily, the question of the week, and the pastor’s letter in the bulletin.

I’d ask the director of religious education and the school principal to work a lot more. Catechesis would happen year-round in the parish and school community. Instead of a week or two of “down time,” Christmas and Easter would be the busiest times of the year for catechetical ministers.

I’d change the receptionist’s schedule. Sunday would be a work day, and she’d be available to answer the phone, welcome new parishioner sign-ups, and direct people to the activities taking place on the parish campus. She would also be on hand for major liturgies in the parish, even if they happen at night or on the weekend. I’d also move her office. At least during the liturgies, the “front desk” would be right inside the main doors of the church.

I’d make the ushers networkers instead of seat-finders. Going to church on Sunday would be less like going to a play and more like a huge family reunion. No one seats you at a family reunion. Everyone greets you and introduces you to folks you haven’t met yet.

I’d stop charging for sacraments. I understand the budget implications. I understand many folks “use” the parish services without contributing on Sunday. But I don’t understand how we can say sacraments are a free gift of grace, and it will cost you $60 to have your baby baptized or $200 to get married.

I would make the director of the catechumenate the highest paid member of the staff. I’d do a national search and find the very best leader available. She would hire and manage the director of religious education, the school principal, and the director of liturgy. All catechetical and liturgical ministries of the parish would be oriented toward evangelization and catechesis.

I would end second collections, including those for the annual contribution to the diocesan structures. I would work with the parish council to devise a stewardship plan that includes all the charitable contributions to needs outside the parish.

I would ask everyone—pastor, staff, volunteer ministers, catechumens, the parish as a whole—to each have a set of goals for their ministry. I would ask them to devise a method for reaching their goals and a method for talking to each other about their progress on their goals.

I told you I’d get fired. Or maybe never hired in the first place. This vision of parish is, perhaps, too idealistic. Maybe it’s too threatening to some of the parish “pillars.” It could be too edgy for some communities.

It probably wouldn’t work in your parish because of your unique circumstances. It might not work in the neighboring parish either. The pastor probably would never go for it, not to mention the bishop. And who is going to fund all these grand ideas?

I guess that’s all true. But before I’m shown the door, I have to tell you the first thing I would implement in any given parish. I would declare a permanent, parish-wide ban on the sentence, “We’ve never done it that way before.” I would replace it with this sentence, which would be memorized by every child, confirmation candidate, and catechumen in the parish: “For human beings it is impossible, but not for god. All things are possible for God” (Mk 10:27).

[To read a spirited(!) reply to this post, click here.]

The Final DaVigil Code Entry

In the April/May 2007 issue of Today’s Parish Minister, this clue appeared.


The key to the clue is “The answer faces the question” and “emboldened looks.” On the page facing the clue (page 7), several words have a single letter printed in bold face.

Put all the bold faced letters together and you get:

The Easter Vigil

Preaching from Triduum to Triduum

In Whole Community Liturgy, I suggest that parish leaders develop a year-long preaching plan based on how they plan to lead parish growth and faith development in the coming year. The best time to start this plan is in the weeks just after the Triduum. That way, parish growth and development can be measured from Triduum to Triduum. The parish should ask itself how it has grown in faith and holiness in the last year. The homilies throughout the year should be the inspiration for keeping the parish on track with investing its talents.

For a simple outline for a preaching planning retreat, see the Center for Excellence in Preaching site. The day is based on a Bible-preaching (vs. liturgical preaching) model, and is designed for a single person. However, it could easily be adapted to a liturgically oriented team retreat.

DaVigil Code, March issue

This clue appeared in the March 2007 issue of Today’s Parish Minister.

If you Google “Caesar’s Cipher,” you will learn that a Caesar's cipher is a simple substitution cipher in which each letter in the original message is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions further down the alphabet. For example, with a shift of 3, A would be replaced by D, B would become E, and so on. The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it to communicate with his generals.

If you go to the Web address listed in the clue, you will find a “calculator” that will decipher the message for you, using a shift of 23 (“encrypted three and twenty more provides the key”). Type the encrypted text into the “Shift cipher” box, set the decryption key to 23, and click on “decrypt.” You will get the following unencrypted text:

Saints awake the victory’s won.
Death has fled trod down by light.
Angels hymn the sheep now one.
Ransomed on this holy night.

What is the church’s hidden treasure? If you haven’t figured out yet, all will be revealed in the next issue of Today’s Parish Minister.

RCIA resources

In the March 2007 issue of Today's Parish Minister, Paul Turner writes:

To receive a previously baptized Christian into the church in the same ceremony when catechumens are being baptized blurs the nature of the Easter Vigil.

He provides some supporting resources below that back up his statement.

What do you think?

---

Johnson, Maxwell E. “Let’s Stop Receiving ‘Converts’ at Easter.” In Worship: Rites, Feasts, and Reflections. Portland: Pastoral Press, 2004, 83–94.

Journey to the Fullness of Life. Washington DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2000.

Oakham, Ronald A., ed. One at the Table: The Reception of Baptized Christians. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1995.

Sieverding, Dale. The Reception of Baptized Christians: A History and Evaluation. Forum Essays 7. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2001.

Turner, Paul. When Other Christians Become Catholic. Pueblo. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007.

Genius Tool

We posted earlier about mind maps. Here is a short video of Tony Buzan, the inventor of the concept, discussing how to use mind maps to boost your thinking power.


[via Slacker Manager]

Empty font for Lent?

I've never quite understood to motivation to empy the bapsimal fonts and holy water dishes during Lent. Don't we want the Elect to be confronted with the awe-filled power of the plunge they are about to take? Where is the conversion to be found in a dry hole?

So keep the fonts filled this year, and keep the challenge of baptism in front of the whole community—especially those who will be entering the water for the first time.

(For another look at the same issue, click here.)

Photo by Michael Wilson.

Funeral planning

When I first started in ministry, I worked with a pastor who advised people not to plan their own funerals. He believed funerals were for the living, and the dead should leave the planning to the surviving family and friends. I recently came across a similar opinion written by Mary Roach in her book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers:

Here's the other thing I think about. It makes little sense to try to control what happens to your remains when you are no longer around to reap the joys or benefits of that control. People who make elaborate requests concerning disposition of their bodies are probably people who have trouble with the concept of not existing. Leaving a note requesting that your family and friends travel to the Ganges or ship your body to a plastination lab in Michigan is a way of exerting influence after you're gone—of still being there, in a sense. I imagine it is a symptom of the fear, the dread, of being gone, of the refusal to accept that you no longer control, or even participate in, anything that happens on earth. I spoke about this with funeral director Kevin McCabe, who believes that decisions concerning the disposition of a body should be made by the survivors, not the dead. "It's none of their business what happens to them when they die," he said to me.

What do you think?

Lent on your iPhone

The Church of England is bringing Lent to your iPhone, Blackberry, or cell phone this year. For "10 pence a day," you can text he word "Lent" to 64343 to begin receiving daily suggestions for actions from Monday 19 February through to Easter Monday. The messages are simple actions (50 in all) that church leaders hope will encourage kindness across the planet.

Actions include:

• Give up your place to someone in a traffic jam or a queue
• Have a TV-free day and do something you have meant to do for ages
• Take part in an environmental clean up
• Watch the news and pray about what you see
• Leave a £1 coin in the shopping trolley or where someone will find it.
  

The campaign Web site, Love Life Live Lent, also includes downloadable prayers, background information on Lent, PowerPoint presentations, and doezens of ideas for living Lent well.

[via Chrisitan Today]

10 Ways to Inspire Others

Lisa Haneberg has listed 10 ways to inspire employees on her Management Craft blog. The suggestions are all business oriented, but several could be translated to parish or school environments. Here's my favorite:

Be a role model of courage. When our managers demonstrate courage, this will inspire us to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

That could be adapted to read:

Be a role model of courage. When pastors demonstrate courage, this will inspire parishioners to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

Or:

Be a role model of courage. When teachers demonstrate courage, this will inspire students to do the same, and we will respect them all the more.

Can you suggest some adaptations or some brand new ideas for inspiration? Post your thoughts here, and I'll compile a list of the best entries.
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/7455470

DaVigil Code — January 2007

This clue appeared in the January 2007 issue of Today's Parish Minister.

The Vigenere cipher (“erenegiv” spelled backwards) is named after a 16th century French diplomat, Blaise de Vigenere, who created a very simple cipher. If you Google “Vigenere cipher,” you’ll learn that the cipher uses an alphabet square as the basis for the code. In addition, the cipher relies on a repeating keyword to encode the letter based on the alphabet square.

So, in this case, the keyword is “Asterius.” The letters in “Asterius” are repeated as many times as necessary over the text to be encoded. For example:

Keyword: Asteriusa ste

Text: Christmas Day

Ciphertext: Czkmjbgss Vtc

The first letter of the text, C, is coded using the alphabet in row A, which is the first letter of the key. This is done by looking at the letter in row A and column C of the alphabet square, namely C. Similarly, for the second letter of the text, the second letter of the key is used; the letter at row s and column h is z. The rest of the plaintext is coded in a similar fashion. Decoding is done by reversing the process.

Using this process, the decode text from clue 4 reads:

O night more light than day
More bright than the sun
O night, night more white than snow
More brilliant than many torches
O night of more delight than is paradise.

So what night was Asterius, Bishop of Amasia in the fourth century referring to? More clues to follow!

Holy Smoke

The first time I was an M.C. for an Easter Vigil, I used so much incense I think the choir, up in the loft, had trouble seeing their music. If I only I would have had this contraption, think what might have happened!

How to evangelize with Web 2.0

The United Church of Canada recently launched $10.5 million advertising campaign centered on hot-button religious issues like gay marriage and sexual boundaries. One advertisement shows a whipped cream bottle in the fridge along with the question:

"We hope is that it will be much more than a website, we hope that it will be a gathering place for people with their faith questions—the big questions of life as well as the small ones," said Right Rev. David Giuliano, moderator of the United Church of Canada.

"How much fun can sex be before it's a sin?" The goal is to lead people to a Web 2.0 style site where controversial topics can be discussed.

The primary target audience is said to be 30- to 45-year-olds, but the site seems to skew younger than that. Take a look for yourself, and see if you come up with some ideas for evangelization in your own community.

WonderCafe [via social media group]

Hospitality in the New Year

Why not resolve to ramp up your hospitality efforts this year? Catholic parishes can seem cold and unfriendly to newcomers. Here are 20 suggestions to guage your warmth factor from an outsider’s point of view.

1. What does your outdoor sign say? If a person who knew nothing of Catholicism read it, would they be drawn in?
2. Is there enough parking for newcomers who may arrive late? If your lot is overflowing, can you reserve a few spaces for visitors? Or provide a valet service?
3. Do you have parking lot greeters?
4. Do you have a hospitality team? Do you have more than one?
5. Do ushers and greeters have name tags?
6. Do ushers and greeters go out of their way to say hello to people they do not recognize and provide them with a hymnal or worship aid?
7. Are restrooms clearly marked?
8. Is there a place to hang coats?
9. Do regular parishioners “slide in” so newcomers don’t have to climb over them to find a seat?
10. Do regular parishioners introduce themselves and at least one other parishioner to a new person each Sunday?
11. Do communion ministers smile? Really, check next Sunday.
12. What’s in the bulletin? Are there confusing (for newcomers) words and acronyms such as “RCIA” and “CCD”? Is it clear who to contact if someone wants more information about the parish or parish programs?
13. What happens at coffee and doughnuts? Are newcomers sought out and welcomed into circles of conversation? Really, stand back and watch next Sunday?
14. Is there a simple way for newcomers to request more information? Cards in the pews or a book in the gathering space for example? If someone fills one out, how long will it take for a staff member or parishioner to reply?
15. Is there a live receptionist on duty on Sunday? Think about it. Sunday is the parish’s biggest day to receive and welcome people.
16. How does the receptionist answer the phone? Call anonymously sometime (or listen in while a friend does), and think about how a newcomer would hear things.
17. Do you have a parish Web site? Try looking at it from the eyes of someone who knows nothing about Catholicism. What does it “say” to seekers?
18. Is there child care for young families during Mass? One of the biggest draws of your neighboring evangelical parish is that they have child care on Sunday.
19. Does your parish recognize and celebrate the diversity of “family”?
20. Do people on the margins feel welcome at your parish? How do you know? What are you doing to reach out to them?
    

Pastor/Principal as CEO

Thomas J. Healey writes in the San José Mercury News:

If the pursuit of best practices and improvements in corporate governance has pushed companies to higher performance levels, why couldn't the Catholic Church -- whose workforce of 1 million is triple the size of General Electric's, and whose annual operating budget of nearly $100 billion would rank it among the nation's largest corporations -- reap the same kinds of rewards?

That's the message the church is beginning to hear from a small group of parishioners who also happen to be CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives from some of the country's most successful private and non-profit organizations. They've formed a team of consultant volunteers known as the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, which is offering a range of talent and expertise, free of charge, to the Catholic Church.

[More; free registration required]

Who should sing the Christmas proclamation?

The Christmas proclamation is the formal announcement of the birth of Christ. The birth is related to events in secular and sacred history, going all the way back to the first moment of creation. It is traditionally sung at the Midnight Mass, although it can be sung at other times. (You can download a PDF version here.)

Note that the rubrics identify this proclamation as a ministry of the deacon, cantor, or reader. It is not a presidential role. Nor is it necessarily an ordinary role of the deacon if the assembly would be better served by a trained singer chanting the proclamation. When planning the Christmas proclamation, the needs of the assembly are paramount.

Empty your “mind-clutter”

In the January 2007 issue of Today's Parish Minister, Jason Womack has written a terrific piece on getting rid of the stuff that clutters up our lives. Here are five additional suggestions from him:

1. Outline: Create a linear hierarchy of ideas with supporting data for each point. To create an outline in MS Word, go to the Format menu, click Bullets and Numbering, and then click the Outline Numbered tab.
   
2. Mind map: Sketch a loosely connected, non-linear association of ideas linking similar concepts in an organic method. For more on mind maps, click on the example image above that Jason created. Also see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindmap.
   
3. Sticky note collage: Use Post-it® notes as movable puzzle pieces to create and change the flow of information as needed.
   
4. Index cards: Use 3x5 index cards as data points that can be grouped and resorted as topics grow and change.
   
5. MindManager® (software): Use a digital version of a mind map that creates an outline at the touch of a button. This has the flexibility of easily moving data and regrouping like sticky notes and index cards (www.mindmanager.com).