While church lockdowns remain the norm in much of the country, parish management and ministry professionals say now is the time for parishes and dioceses to find ways to creatively keep the faithful engaged when the coronavirus hibernation ends, for a post-virus Church.
“This moment in crisis needs to be approached not as a short-term problem, but as a moment in which really smart strategic decisions about the future that have been put off for a long time now need to be made,” said Patrick Hornbeck, professor theology at Fordham University.
The focus, Hornbeck and others advised in interviews with Catholic News Service, must be on the future so that when the lockdowns end, parishioners realize the church remains vibrant and that the role of the laity in building the community of faith is more important than ever.
They also cautioned that harsh staff and ministry cutbacks in the face of tight cash flows could seriously endanger the restart of normal parish activities and have severe consequences far into the future.
Their advice revolved around several key actions:
- Clergy especially, but also parish staff, must communicate with parishioners. Check-in calls to parishioners, emails inviting people to keep in touch with each other and social media posts all can build a sense of community despite widespread physical separation and accompany people through a troubled time.
- Better integrating of new technologies into ministry on the heels of new ventures in online streaming of Masses and prayer services.
- Transparency in operations, including finances, so that people feel encouraged to offer financial support now or in the future when they are able.
- Sharing responsibility between laypeople and clergy in parish and diocesan ministries and operations, thereby taking full advantage of the expertise and creativity people have as the church manoeuvres through uncertain times.
“One of the things we’ve been encouraging parishes to do is that now is the time to communicate more with your people not less with your people,” said Matthew Manion, faculty director of the Center for Church Management at Villanova University.
“There can be a tendency not to get in the way of people’s lives. But in reality, in a crisis situation people look to their leaders for hope, and the church can be one of those voices, probably the strongest voice,” he said.
Mario Enzler, director of the master’s degree-level ecclesial management program at The Catholic University of America, echoed that call.
“I am encouraging clergy to reach out within their flocks,” he said.
“Let people understand it is through this crisis that we can discover the meaning and beauty of hope.”
New technologies make communication much easier today.
Online streaming of Masses has been the most common form of outreach to the faithful since the lockdowns began in mid-March.
Some parishes have seen that online Mass participation, at least during Holy Week and Easter, is greater than actual Mass attendance.
Rick Krivanka, executive director of the Jesuit Retreat Center in Parma, Ohio, and former director of pastoral planning in the Diocese of Cleveland, said he believes people are embracing the online liturgies.
The key, he suggested, will be engaging them as life returns to normal.
“People are finding it uplifting,” Krivanka told CNS.
“They are understanding it is our own responsibility about not only following a routine about going to Mass every Sunday, but now people are finding very uplifting experiences because of the personal initiative they have to take (to find an online Mass).”
Knowing that people are turning to online liturgies provides church leaders an opportunity to find new ways to creatively use technology in ministry. Continue reading