Has anyone been involved in starting or trying to start a new mission from scratch of an Eastern Catholic Church? What was your experience? Were any successful? If you tried and either were successful or unsuccessful what prompted you to do it? This is not simply an academic question.

Shlomo Dan,

Here in Las Vegas our Maronite Church is a mission Church. We have has some ups and downs, we are this weekend having a Lebanese-American Festival.

I will go into this a little deep later.

One piece of advice I will make is that you HAVE to make sure the Church is not an ethnic only Church. That is all people are welcome to the Church. Also, one thing that I did in Minneapolis to help St. John's Byzantine Church was create a flyer for the Church and had those families that were willing go door to door inviting people to attend with them. Most people just need an invite to come to a Church. Here in Vegas we Maronites have reached out to the Filopino, Mexican, and Armenian communities. With this we have grown. The draw back to avoid is to make sure that your services are not Latinized to make the new members feel welcome. Let them know you are a legitimate Catholic Church and that the Stations of the Cross, etc. are not part of your tradition.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

You might want to listen to Fr. Rochelle's series of podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio called Musing from the Missions. It is about the mission he and his wife started in Las Cruses NM. Very good stuff.

We have started a Byzantine Catholic community (not formally a mission yet)in San Antonio. We have been functioning since last March. We now have about 20 people attending Divine Liturgy every first and third Sunday of the month. We were fortunate that there was a biritual priest in San Antonio who was willing to serve our community. That is a big hurdle. Second,we have a very talented family who lead the singing, a second really big hurdle. Third, our priest took a job as campus minister at a local college so we have been able to use the student center for a nominal fee on Sundays, another big hurdle.

Our priest had some of the basics like a set of vestments etc. St. John Chrysostom in Houston was able to lend use a few liturgical things. We built temporary icon screens and a censor stand. We salvaged an old podium to make a tetrapod. Some icons have come in from the community. We were able to pull together enough to buy some pew books and order an icon of our patron saint. We are awaiting a couple of sticharions for our servers.

We have used word of mouth, internet searches and any other way possible to identify people who are interested. We have not yet advertised. We have a community of about 30+ people who come with some degree of regularity. We are slowly building our community.

The process has been very rewarding and at times frustrating. Things don't happen nearly as fast as you would like. People who told us they had lived for the day a Byzantine Liturgy was available in San Antonio came a few times then lost interest. Overall, we have a wonderful little community of committed Christians who care about each other and see this community as the best way for them to express their spirituality.

This week we are rejoicing with the birth of our first baby. The second one is coming soon. So now we are looking for a small sturdy table and a large glass punch bowl so we can have our first baptism. We have become very resourceful.

Jim

These are blessed stories. I believe that in years to come if it is the Lord's will that these efforts reach to a Church status you will look back at these times as some of the most glorious times of your life. I'm thankful for these positive stories. They encourage me. I have been involved in a couple of such efforts but neither got off the ground. You both have been allowed to see some fruit of your labor. Even if nothing more happens you are being greatly blessed now.

Within a few months my wife and I will fully retire and move to another part of the country. There are Eastern Churches there already but there are still some areas that do not yet have one. Perhaps God will give us the opportunity to help start a mission in our new area.

CDL