Below are two situations someone who works in a parish might encounter today. Give them a read and then ask yourself how you would honestly respond. Not the way you ‘should’ respond - but how you would actually respond if they happened this week.

Imagine I was asked to evaluate your parish on how well it makes disciples. Now imagine there are only two things I would look at. 1 - The budget - what you spend your money on. 2 - The calendar - what your staff and key volunteers spend their time doing. That's it. No survey. No interviews. No site visit. Just those two documents. How would your parish score?

If you have been Catholic long enough, you have seen the annual Catholic version of the military draft. Before or after Mass, someone gets up and announces that we are in dire need of catechists, or that the parish festival is a week away and we have half the volunteers we need. A few people are guilted into helping. A few more are nagged. A few just want the announcements to stop.