About a month ago, one of our church regulars came up to me after the 5 PM Mass.  She pointed to a man, and asked me if I knew who he was.  I said, “yes, why?”  She said that all during Mass he had been walking around and taking pictures of the church.  In this age where we are told, “If you see something, say something,” she thought he might be casing the place.  With a chuckle, I told her “no, his name is Tom Corcoran, and he is a parish consultant.”
    In the early 1990’s Tom Corcoran was hired by Fr. Michael White to minister at the Church of the Nativity, in a suburb of Baltimore.  The Church of the Nativity was pretty similar to our parish; suburban, middle-class, but also it seemed to be missing something.  Many of the parishioners seemed to have consumer attitude towards the parish instead of the committed attitude of a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Fr. White and Tom, set off to “rebuild” the faith of their parish.  After years of successes and failures, of attending church conferences to learn best practices, today the Church of the Nativity is probably one of the most vibrant, dynamic Catholic parishes in the United States.  Fr. White and Tom were frequently asked to talk about the work they were doing at conferences, and to visit other parishes to give advice.  In 2013, they put their 20+ years experience at Nativity into a book, "Rebuilt: The Story of a Catholic Parish."  It is one of the most respected book on the “new evangelization” in the United States.  They have gone on to write several other books, their most recent being "ChurchMoney."
    Because so many parishes wanted to try to do what they did, they formed the Rebuilt Parish Association, which we now belong to.  It is where I have been getting the “Message Series” from.  It is also a place where pastors can ask advice, share experiences, and starting this past year, they offered to do site visits.  The Rebuilt Model is based on three Strategic Anchors: 1) Create an Exceptional Mass Experience; 2) Welcome Outsiders; and 3) Shape a Clear Discipleship Path.
    Since I arrived here, the Pastoral Council has mentioned that for the past few years there has seemed to be a malaise in the parish.  Not as many people coming to Mass, volunteering for things, etc.  They mentioned that Fr. David had, a few years prior, had the Council read "Rebuilt," but before they could really implement some things in it, he and the Franciscans left the parish.  I enthusiastically agreed to pick up where we left off.  The Council thought it would be valuable to have a site visit, so on the weekend of October 19/20 Tom Corcoran and two other consultants came to observe all the Masses and the religious education program.  They then wrote us a very detailed report with suggestions.  The Pastoral Council and I, and the deacons, are going to be digesting the recommendations and set priorities of where to begin.
    The report did note some “low hanging fruit” – easy things to do right away.  For example, they mentioned that having the hymnals just piled at the end of the pews at Holy Name made the church look cluttered and unwelcoming.  So we will be getting some book racks to attach to the back of the pews.  Another example is with the coat drive, instead of just having a plan box to collect the coats, decorate it.
    A major recommendation was to better promote the Message Series.  They like the fact that we are using them, but said that the deacons and I need to remember the main reason for making it a series:  to make people want to comeback each week.  So we should review what the main theme was for the previous weeks in the series.  Also, we will advertise the Message Series in the bulletin.  So next week you will find an article, with artwork, about the coming Advent Message Series, “Grace & Truth,” and each week afterwards a brief summary of the message theme for the week.  On the parish website, there is a new item on the menu bar entitled “Living the Message.”  It has two sections, “Worship Fully” which takes you to a calendar; click on a date (starting December 1) and a brief reflection pops up with a suggestion of how to put that week’s message into practice.  The other section is “Small Groups” which is still a work in progress.  We want to start one or two small groups which would meet for about 90 minutes each week.  The days, times, and locations with the contact information will be listed there.  As members of the Rebuilt Parish Association, we can get their small group material which includes a brief video and discussion questions for each week of the message series.  Small groups give participants an opportunity to apply the message to their lives, to share Christian fellowship, and grow as disciples.
    Another major recommendation is making people feel more welcomed, so we are going to start a new ministry here at Resurrection:  the Ministry of Greeters.  This is not a renaming of the ushers.  The ushers will remain as the hospitality inside the church; show people where the restrooms are, the crying room, taking up the collection (but we are going to stop the clickers of counting how many people are at Mass – we don’t need to do that).  The Greeters will be the outside ministers of hospitality:  they will open the doors when people come in, saying things like “Welcome! Good Morning/Evening”  “Glad you are with us today” etc.  After Mass, they will join the priest and deacons to say good things to people as they exit the church such as, “Have a good week,” “See you next week,” “Thanks for coming.”  We are going to start small, the 8th Grade catechists are going to organize our 8th Grade students to be Greeters at the 10 AM Mass at Holy Name.  We will be looking for Greeters for the 8 AM Mass at St. Casimir.  Hopefully within six months we will expand the ministry to the other two weekend Masses.
    You will notice a couple other changes that we are going to try for six months to see how they work out.  For example, we are not going have announcements before Mass; the stuff is almost always in the bulletin.  After Communion I (or a deacon if I am not at the Mass) will make any “reminders” if there is something important coming up, e.g., a Holy Day during the week.  The Pastoral Council also agreed with the report’s recommendation that we do not sell things BEFORE Mass (too much like the money changers Jesus drove out of the Temple).  Don’t worry, Altar Rosary will still sell the ShopRite cards, but only AFTER Mass.  Before Mass we want to encourage people to recollect themselves for the celebration of Mass, and welcome any visitor present.  Like I said, we are going to try these things for 6 months – if they don’t work, we will make changes, even if that means going back to the old way.
    This is an exciting beginning of building on the so many great things that we are doing here at Resurrection, and doing other things even better.