For Kiwis it was a big parish — a Mass count approaching a 1000 people on the weekend. It was a contented parish, well organised, it had some money in the bank, its biggest age cohort was the 60-75yr olds.

A small group of people tended to do the majority of the work, it had a large representative parish council, and an enthusiastic but inexperienced parish priest — me.

After the earthquake

When the earthquake struck, this parish burst into life. Good people started doing good things.

I personally had multiple funerals to attend to.

I had a large team of volunteers bagging emergency food parcels every evening. I had lots of men and their trailers towing barbecues into the worst affected parts of Christchurch to help feed people without electricity.

Our main church collapsed into a pile of bricks, but a little steel-framed box of a church also in the parish became our liturgical home and it hummed with activity.

Masses were full to overflowing. The ongoing aftershocks, the shifting ground and the uncertainty that this brought, led people to return to their faith.

I left that parish seven years later. Interiorly, I was a broken man. You see, over those seven years things had leaked away.

The urgency left us, apathy shifted back in. I didn't receive complaints, I didn't receive suggestions, I didn't receive many requests for anything much at all. We just drifted off to sleep again, happy enough I suppose.

The bishop asked me to take on a smaller semi-rural parish after this, but to be honest I was feeling a bit beaten.

Yes, we are custodians of the greatest love story ever told—but so what?

I started searching around, I wanted an answer to this riddle. It wasn't that I hadn't worked hard, it wasn't that I lacked endeavour. It wasn't because I had a parish full of dull people—no, they were good Catholic people.

I felt a failure as a leader, I questioned my own formation.

I experienced the devastating loneliness of the Sunday after first Holy Communion Sunday. I woke up to the fact that I had sacramentalised hundreds and hundreds of young people, but I had failed to evangelise them and their families.

Parish renewal

So, I arrive in my new parish, and if you are not a parish priest you won't know this, but I went over to the main filing cabinet in the parish office, and when I opened it up, out slid all these clear files with previous parish renewal programmes and restructuring plans. Oh dear.

Then I had a little moment of grace, someone told me about a parish here in Australia that was having a time of renewal.

I found their email on the internet, and wrote to them. Could they spare me 30 minutes on the phone to share a bit of their story with me. Graciously they said yes.

I remember that phone call quite vividly.

The parish is Springfield in Brisbane, and I got my first surprise when the camera started up on the zoom call to Fr Mauro, because he wasn't alone, he had Vanessa with him.

Vanessa was a part of their SLT, they went on to tell me. They have put into place a collaborative leadership strategy. Collaborative leadership—what a thought.

The next hour was hugely important for me, (yes, we went way over time).

Collaborative leadership

The next hour was hugely important for me, (yes, we went way over time).

Fr Mauro and Vanessa painted a picture for me of what parish life might look like.

Fr Mauro was clear that collaborative leadership, leading from a team, had rescued his priesthood. He remained firmly the parish priest, but he also came to know the gifts and talents of his parishioners and they were put to work.

Vanessa was outstanding. I could see her passion, I could see her excitement, I could see her sense of what might be possible if we shift our focus away from maintenance to mission.

You know above all, that phone call showed me that parish renewal can and does work. After wandering my way as a priest through a decade and a half of parish life they said to me, "Try that door."

Journeying together

Things moved pretty quickly from that moment. It seemed to me that this notion of a renewal of missionary endeavour is an anointed one.

Increasing docility to the Holy Spirit, the best of leadership, and the primacy of evangelisation — the three keys to parish renewal just seemed to make sense.

So, I got going on the journey, and better than that, I managed to get a group of brother priests for some of the main parishes in Christchurch to start on the journey with me.

This is a supernatural project, you see if we are going to be on mission in this world, a world that so desperately needs to hear the Gospel, it's not what we take with us on mission.

It's who we take. And here is the good news — it's our job to make a decision for Christ, the strength and the power to become missionaries will come from him. You can't fake this work of renewal.

Leading from a team is a beautiful thing—to my brother priests out there, don't be afraid! Put together a team that loves the Church, put together a team that has been converted, put together a team who will help you.

Cast a vision that is bold, and a mission that is fed from the heart of the Church. Trust in the programme that has been with the Church since the beginning.

There is no substitute for Scripture and sacred tradition. It's the way in which this is communicated which is the key.

• First published in the Catholic Weekly
• John Lewis Adams is the third bishop of Palmerston North,

Adams was a special guest speaker at the weekend conference which included discussions, workshops and inspiring testimonies.

Transforming parishes

The conference organisers aimed to equip participants from dioceses in Sydney, New South Wales and even New Zealand to transform their parishes into vibrant hubs of faith and service.

Sydney's Archbishop Anthony Fisher (middle) challenged participants to "rise to the occasion" in renewing their parishes.

"Creating communities of the faithful requires concerted effort by all if parishes are to be powerhouses of evangelisation" he said.

Adams' contribution

In his session, Adams spoke of leading his parish through Christchurch's post-earthquake trials and recovery.

Participants saw images of his beloved church reduced to rubble.

They heard how the seven-year trudge after the earthquakes saw his parish descend into a "dull pessimism" and his flock "masquerading in their faith".

He offered some practical advice based on his successful parish renewal experience which included fostering an atmosphere of spiritual growth and community engagement.

Inspiring a faithful fusion of clergy and laity, of vision and mission, to work together to foster a culture change in his parish needed fundamental change.

They started with creating 20-strong parish "project teams" he said.

The teams met weekly to begin the process of parish renewal.

He also created "leadership pipelines". The purpose of these was to identify parish leaders.

Another group encouraged parents of children preparing to receive the sacraments to complete the Alpha programme.

Deeper conversions occurred in a re-engaged parish that "became truly Catholic".

Baptisms grew from 30 to 90. Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults groups began to flourish.

Adams discussed energising parishes and initiating renewal in more detail at other workshops.

Participant responses

" As Bishop Adams so eloquently shared, we all have a part to play in fostering a welcoming and compelling environment in which Christ's love is personally encountered" said the Director of the Sydney Centre for Evangelisation.

"It will be good to incorporate all the things Bishop John mentioned to open the doors and explore other ways people can come to church" a participant said.

"There is a real culture change ...  a little bit of revolution in our faith to reach out to our young people and older people to bring Christ to absolutely everyone. As people, not projects. And I learned that today." 

A young woman was encouraged to see so many young people in attendance.  

"We are the future of the church, and it's we who need to lead renewal in our churches, to experience the Eucharist and the joy of Mass ... after today, I am more confident to be what my parish needs me to be."

Bishop Richard Umbers thought it was an enriching day for everyone.

"Today people were very raw and real about sharing what they believe and that's what is missionary. There's a solidarity in that, in the mission. We're all in it and today has been a real sharing of faith."

Source

• The Catholic Weekly

It could be said his experience seeing his church reduced to rubble during the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes uniquely qualifies Adams for the task. He has a broader sense of parish renewal perhaps.

"I was standing next to our triple unreinforced brick church which suffered the biggest of the earthquakes. I watched it fall into the adjoining creek" he recalls.

A blasted landscape

On 22 February 2011, Bishop - then parish priest - Adams had been at St Joseph's in Papanui for only three weeks.

Then the earthquake struck.

It claimed 185 lives and changed the cityscape forever. St Joseph's was one of many landmark buildings to fall victim to nature's forces that day.

"We never got back inside it. I crept in and saved some statues. No one knows about it, because you weren't supposed to go anywhere near those buildings" the bishop says.

"You literally risked your life because the aftershocks were quite big, for quite a long time."

The worst wasn't over though.

The death toll in his parish mounted.

"I buried a person a day for the next five days. I had just funeral after funeral after funeral" he says.

Keeping the parish going

Having to deal with an event so shocking, so huge and so sudden isn't something anyone expects. Yet survivors did pick themselves up and cope.

"When something happens, you surprise yourself. The adrenaline gets going and you really start just working faster and harder. And I was proud of my parishioners from that point of view" Adams says.

"We delivered food parcels, people brought in their barbecues, we'd put them on the backs of trailers and we'd go into the poor parts of Christchurch and have a big cookout for the people trying to live in the streets.

"It was a tremendous surge of goodness from the Catholic community."

Mass continued in a makeshift hall. Twelve hundred people shared a space built for 200.

For seven years, Adams rolled up his sleeves and got on with the job of leading his parish.

But while he rebuilt the exterior of his church, he felt something was amiss with his parishioners' interior lives.

"Our parish was treading water. People were happy. But there was no sense of urgency, there was no conversion" Adams says. He blamed himself.

He wanted to make disciples and nurture a parish where evangelisation thrived.

Evangelising the people

In 2019 when Adams was reassigned to a semi-rural parish in Rangiora, he saw a chance to revive the parish community.

"It was an ageing parish in decline — declining number of baptisms, declining number of confirmations, declining first Holy Communions."

Then began the task of establishing a vision and mission for the parish, starting with creating an atmosphere of welcoming.

It was a "painfully slow process" he says.

Slow processes weren't good enough he decided. He needed to be tough. "I had to be bold" he says.

"We started doing things like on the night confirmation class started, the parents would drop their kids off for confirmation and we wouldn't let [the parents] go home. They would go and do Alpha.

"So, we not only sacramentalised the kids, but we evangelised the families.

"Out of a parish of 500, we had 380 doing Alpha! Those doing Alpha were leading the next course. The parish started to catch on fire and the fruits started to come."

Leading parish renewal

Adams plans to share the strategies he used in his four-year term in Rangiora at the Parish Renewal Conference that starts on 3 August.

"I want my brother priests to know this is possible and it works. It's about engagement and about creating ‘on ramps', getting people on the ‘on ramps' on that journey. I'm excited!" he says.

Sr Anastasia Reeves OP from the Parish Renewal Team is excited about what the bishop will bring to the conference.

"This time a year ago Bishop John was a regular parish priest, leading transformation effectively but very humbly.

"I think it will be a great gift to our local church for Bishop John's experience and wisdom to be shared more widely."

• To register for the conference, click on: Parish Renewal Conference

Source

• Catholic Weekly