Pastor's Blog

Thom S. Rainer is an author and speaker on church life. He is Protestant, so not everything fits the Catholic context, but much of what he says about congregations usually sheds light on parishes as well.

Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive is an interesting book. It is about 100 pages long.  It is available at Amazon.

He writes about how churches die (Thousands of churches close each year in the United States; most of them are very small.) .  His point is that in looking at why they lost their vitality and died, churches can change for the better.  Some of his chapters include:

• "The Past is the Hero" All the thinking about the church is what it was like once upon a time.  Usually the time chosen was a special time which was vibrant in the personal life of the rememberer. It avoids thinking about what the church should be like or doing today.
• "The Church Refused to Look Like the Community" People move. At least in large cities, they tend to move to the suburbs. Others come and move into the area where the church is. Congregations often see the people in their neighborhoods as "new people" or "outsiders." They do not see them as possible new members, and certainly not as some one to reach out to and invite.
• "The Budget Moved Inwardly" Another commentator said that there is a difference between "church work" and "the work of the church." Church work is internal; it is important. But it focuses on the internal life of the church; it is intended to prepare people to reach out to invite and serve others. The work of the Church is to evangelize, welcome, and serve others; it involves reaching out to the margins, as Pope Francis says. It the work mentioned by Jesus in the Last Judgment. But all too often, the church loses this focus and thinks of its own needs only.