Engage your imagination with me. Imagine that your local bishop tells every pastor that all parishes in your diocese must stop running programs, teaching classes, and putting on events. The parishes should still offer the Sacraments, but all formation, ministry, outreach, etc. must now be done out of small group and one-on-one relationships. What would happen to your parish?

If you aren’t sure, then maybe a bit of history can frame this question a bit more for us.

During the 20th Century, in both Russia and China, Christians were viciously persecuted under Communism. But in the modern era, we see Russian Christianity stagnating (at best and declining in many ways), even though the government now shows a preference for Russian Orthodoxy. Yet, in China, the growth has been exponential, despite official bans and limitations on Christianity. Why is this and what can we learn?

While most Russians still identify as Christians, few go to church (less than 10%). The story is very different in China. Chinese Christianity has grown so rapidly that China is poised to possibly become the nation with the most Christians in the next decade or two, if trends remain the same.

WHY DID CHRISTIANITY GROW IN CHINA AND DECLINE IN RUSSIA?

The Russian Orthodox Church was the official Russian Church and was given preference by the Czars and government for many centuries. Then the Russian Revolution happened. Once the Bolsheviks took over, the Orthodox no longer had government support. Later this became persecution. The Orthodox Church shrank. The institutions of the Orthodox Church suffered. Fewer parishes. Fewer priests. Less money. Shrinking attendance at church. Part of the reason was that the leadership was intent on maintaining social prestige and institutional management.

Sound familiar?

But, the story is different in China.

For most of the 20th Century in China, Christianity was considered a Western religion and not accepted by the people. There were small pockets of Christians, but there was not large amounts of growth until later in the century. It happened in house churches and the underground churches primarily. The growth was person-to-person and family-to-family, not through programs, institutions, or events.

The major differences between Russian and Chinese Christianity were / are:

In a sense - China had to live out your hypothetical Bishop’s mandate of no programs /classes /events.

THE BISHOP’S LETTER

Now return to your own parish, and be honest.

Most of us, when asked what would happen if persecution came, assume it won't, so the question stays a distant theory. Let us set persecution aside and return to the Bishop’s letter. He could send it tomorrow. Nothing in canon law prevents it. And it removes only the institutional machinery, while leaving the Sacraments, the budget, and the staff untouched.

So what happens?

Month one. The calendar empties. Most of the staff discovers that a large share of their job was coordinating, scheduling, registering, and administering things that no longer exist. The parish is quieter than it has been in decades. Mass attendance may not change at all, which is itself worth noticing.

Month three. The people who came only for a program stop coming. The people who came for relationships are still there, because they had something the letter did not take away. You now know, for the first time, which was which.

Year one. You find out how many people in your parish can actually lead another person to Jesus. Not teach a class about him. Not run a group based on a video series or book. Sit across from one human being, understand where that person is, proclaim the Gospel, invite a response, and then walk with them afterward.

For most parishes that number is very small. It might be a handful. It might be zero.

And that is the real finding. Not that programs / events / classes are bad (they are good). The finding is that our programs have been carrying the weight of relationships we never actually built, and their existence let us avoid noticing.

RESIST DEFENSIVENESS

While reading this next session, please resist the urge to defend your parish, diocese, or even yourself. If we are going to be better Catholic leaders who lead renewal in our Church, then we need to be honest and humble enough to admit when we have a lack of fruitfulness. You may be thinking to yourself - BUT we have a big parish, lots of people, or we are growing.

Honestly ask yourself, without immediately answering “yes” or “of course”:

• Is our parish as fruitful as it could be?

• Are we (am I) reaching the unsaved, unchurched, and lost in our local area?

• Do we (do I) operate as we ought to in our evangelization and discipleship?

• Is any “growth” we have due to local demographic shifts (people moving to our area) or due to our efforts of outreach and evangelization leading go conversions, baptisms, etc.?

The answers may not be comfortable to hear - for the most part, the Church in the USA is not reaching those we are called to reach and we are not fulfilling our mission (to make disciples) as we ought to. There are numerous reasons, but one of them is because we have identified ourselves and our Church by methodologies, institutions, and practices that just don’t work for our modern world. We run the programs / events / classes - but have little relational ministry. We just aren't operating how Jesus operated, on the ground, in our parishes.

WHAT TO DO NOW?

All that Jesus taught and said was true. Through his words, he revealed the content of the faith that Catholics are bound to believe. All of our Catholic doctrines are based on Jesus’ teachings. But, what Jesus revealed to the world was not only through words, but through the way he lived his life. He revealed not just truth, but a methodology for how to live, evangelize, and lead others in discipleship relationships. This revealed methodology is as true as anything he ever said.

The problem with the modern Church in the USA is that we have hung onto the truth of Jesus, without hanging on to his methodology, yet we expect the same results as the early Church. To Christians in China, the idea that all we would need is the truth, without the revealed way of living, would seem foreign to most of them. It would be like Jesus saying "I am the truth" without also being the "way and the life" as well.

THE LETTER ONCE AGAIN

Which brings us back to the letter one more time.

Good leaders with the wrong vision gather crowds, renovate buildings, grow budgets, stay busy, and run a great many programs - and still watch their parishes stagnate or shrink. They may be leading the people who come to them. They may also be leading them nowhere, and reaching only the people who would have come regardless.

The mark of success for a parish is not the number of groups, the growth of income, or traffic on the website. It is whether mature missionary disciples are being raised up, and whether those disciples are turning around and raising up more like themselves.

Programs are not the enemy here. Events and classes are good things, started and run by good people with good intentions. But they have to be judged by fruitfulness rather than by history. Are they making disciples? If the honest answer is no, they are not serving the mission of the Church. They are serving themselves, and they are a distraction from what we were actually sent to do.

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITHOUT THE LETTER

Your bishop is not going to send that letter.  

But the question it forces is one you can answer this week without anyone's permission.

Name the people in your parish who could sit down with a stranger, understand where that person stands with God, proclaim the Gospel, invite a response, and walk with them afterward. Write the names down. Not the number - the names. 
Also, answer for yourself…can you do the same?

Then ask what you are doing to grow that list, and whether any program on your calendar is actually producing one.

Because if the letter comes tomorrow, that list is your parish.

Most Catholics are not there yet. Most Catholic leaders are not there yet either. But nobody can stop you from becoming a missionary disciple yourself, or from making missionary disciples of others. Nobody, that is, except you. You do not have to wait for your pastor or your bishop. If you are baptized and confirmed, you already have all the grace you need for the mission.

The only question is whether you will say yes to it.

------------------------------------------ 

If you are a parish or diocesan leader and want to know more about how we help leaders change culture, please contact us here.