www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Emboldened priests = Emboldened people

Father,

"The leaders of our Church simply have to come to their people and present the � state of the union.� They have to present the harsh reality which some people do not see, others deny and that still others (like yourselves) are just waiting for the permission to talk about and do something about. Our leaders simply have to gather the troops, the flock , the team and spell it out. Show it to them, loving, but forthrightly. THEN explain to the team that as depressing as the picture is, there is a way out, a glorious day awaiting us. But there is only on path to that glory. Like a football coach gathering his team at the beginning of the season and saying to them: �This year we are going to the Super bowl. There�s the goal line and we are marching down field and we are never looking back. It will require extraordinary sacrifice and tremendous teamwork but in the end you will all be wearing a Super bowl ring. � Anyone who does not want a Super bowl ring simply will not make the team or at best feel very out of place on that team. The coach does not compromise the vision because he might �loose� a player who does not have the stomach or the love of the team to make the necessary sacrifices."

I know you wouldn't want people to think that Annunciation's example is the only path that will work but a case study of what we've done might be useful. The fact that most of us at Annunciation can call the movement "ours" is a tribute to the trustworthiness of God when a priest will move out in obedience to the Spirit's call.

This transformation of the congregation began long before I arrived on the scene so it will be up to you to fill us in on those earlier years.

What I know is that Father has led us in planning mini-retreats for the past few years. His boldness is infectious. We catch it from the Spirit moving freely through him and then when we catch it it is as if the Spirit moves with even greater power with Father.

In part because of Father's work to bring three congregations together into one our parish is expanding in very amazing ways. Some left and came back later. Some left and have not returned. Many many have come because they see something happening.

New plans are taking root all of the time.

Tell the story Father. I'm sure that others have some similar ones and I'm sure that those who don't will be encouraged by ours.

Dan L

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Dan,

Yes, the key here is in catching the vision - a corporate vision which must be seen and grasped by priest and people. Then enthusiasm grows and things start happening in an energetic and renewed way.

"Without a vision the people will(or can) perish." The "City set upon a Hill" is here and now and it takes energy to light it up.

It takes good leadership to inspire and organize.

But, it is teamwork and collaboration that makes the leadership work well.

Reading your post that this is happening gives me hope.

In Christ,

Mary Jo

One of the greatest disasters in ministry today are self-centered pastors, sycophant parishioners, and useless and uninspiring bishops. It is truly amazing how the Holy Spirit gets the back seat during times when the church turns to the Assisted Suicide model.

Joe

Leadership for some is only what makes them look good.

We need a few Eliases, Ezras, Hoseas, and Jeremiahs to shake up the Sanhedrins of religion.

Joe

Mary Pat Fisher, "Living Religions" calls this "regularization of charisma". People are promoted not because they have any gifts for leadership but because they were in the right place at the right time, or knew someone, or never rocked the boat. But then St. Paul (Romans 13) seems to indicate that we get the leaders we deserve.

Perhaps we'd better all wake up and pray for and encourage our priests to be bold in the faith.

Dan L

I don't know, Dan. I take a different tact on this. As baptized, chrismated laity we have our share of the responsibility too when it comes to the leadership of the Church. And the priests do come from within our ranks...

So shouldn't we look within and find out why there is a lack of leadership among the "royal priesthood" and "holy nation" of believers instead? I think the character of leadership originates from within the family. If priests are spiritual fathers to parishes, where does their image of fathering come from? We have a responsibility to strengthen and help lead the domestic Church as fathers, but so many of us are functionally materialists, secularists and atheists. The results are clearly tragic as evidenced by the lives of many broken and spiritually lost youth. But the leadership gap isn't in the parish - it's at home. (After all, I believe that parents are the only "ordained" youth ministers!)

Any long term strategy that Father Loya alluded to must also seek to strengthen Byzantine Catholic homelife, so that the home and the parish are mutually sustaining and interdependent.

And priests must be welcomed into our domestic communion as fathers and brothers, especially those who are not married. Sometimes they just need to know that the laity care for and support them, and more than just financially.

My two cents...

Gordo

PS: You might check out Mark DeVries book, "Family Based Youth Ministry" published by IVP. He offers some terriffic insights on ways to use youth ministry to bring families and churches together.

Leadership for some is only what makes them look good.

We need a few Eliases, Ezras, Hoseas, and Jeremiahs to shake up the Sanhedrins of religion.

Joe [/QUOTE]

Joe, I surely agree! WE are on the same page. However, as you say, 'leadership for some is only what makes them look good' That kind of leadership isn't good leadership at all.


Mary Jo

Gordo,

I certainly agree. It is quite possible for change to start with the laity. It is very possible and is often very true that individual families can sustain revival in their homes. It is certainly true that Babas have more to say about future priests than do bishops. Nonetheless, without priests taking bold stands the parish as a whold is unlikely to do so. In fact I doubt that they could at all.

I certainly agree that families should always welcome their pastors into their homes.

Dan L

But babas don't make the decisions, do they? Bishops do. Period. They are solely responsible for their leadership on Judgment Day. All Babas will go to Heaven. But, I believe it was St. John Chrysostom who once said, "The road to Hell is paved with the skulls of bihops."

Joe

Joe,

I couldn't agree more. I was just referring to Gordo's insight that the laity have a great deal to do with the spiritual formation of future priests. It seems that Baba's have the greatest lay influence of all.

I would never seek to be a bishop. I would always be in great danger of hell. I'm not sure who comment on the paving of hell first but I seem to recall it from Dante, but St. John may well have said it first.

Dan L

Dante had several prominent churchmen in the lower cantos of Hell. Perhaps that is what you were referring to.

There is no way reasonably or objectively that anyone can say we do NOT have a priest shortage. That screams out at us. I defy anyone in any Greek Catholic Eparchy in the USA to state otherwise and provide the numbers to prove it.

In the Midwest, we have some states with one or two priests for the entire state. No clergy shortage? Absolutely ridiculous. Priests have to drive several hours for sick calls, etc.

There is no way concievably with the existing structural church we have that evangelization and outreach will occur. It is folly to think so. A simple "realignment" of priests and parishes will not fix this. Last time I checked, most Eparchies in the USA had a net clergy loss.

The issues are far deeper than meets the eye, unfortunately. I once had a priest scream, literally, at me because I was inviting and encouraging some of "his people" to attend a parish right in their town in a different "jurisdiction". He told me with reddened face and explicatives that they should drive the extra two or three hours one way to go to his church, which they rarely did, and I had no business "stealing" them. Jurisdictionalism is alive and well with us Greek Catholics also.

We are in a way in Alaska at the time of St. Herman, northern Russia at the time of St. Seraphim. We have to go to them, they won't come to us. Pray with them, amongst them. Good things will happen. The existing structure certainly is producing declining results.

Diak,

I'm not sure I agree with you, but I'm not sure. Father Loya who is more privy to these matters says that we really have a people shortage and that we need a shifting of where we put our priests.

E.g., By Roman Catholic Standards we have an abundance of priests. By some protestant standards we have a shortage. How many priests are needed per parishioner? Some RC parishes get by with one priest per 700-800 families. Some are even more stretched than that. In Protestant circles the ideal ration is 1:150 people (not families). I don't know how we might figure out a proper ratio of priest per people. Perhaps someone has access to those stats.

Let us try a hypothetical. How many people are served by each priest in Missouri? Do we have two priests for the entire state? How about for Illinois? I know that we have one priest serving the entire state of Illinois.

If our goal is to only ever have one Church in Illinois for the foreseeable future and we did not care if that Church grew very much I suppose our present ratio would be alright. Annunciation's present ratio is 1 priest per 250 families. If we used that ratio as a baseline I wonder how that would compare with Missouri or Minnesota.

That may not be exactly fair because what we may wish to do is actually grow in those states. So, let's compare the ratio of priests to people in Chicago area parishes to Cleveland area parishes.

In the Chicago metropolitan area we have about seven million people served by one BC Church. The Cleveland metropolitan area contains 2.9 million people served by at least six BC Churches. I wonder what the priest to person ratio is for the actual membership in the Cleveland area?

I don't have the figures but we should know. If we can distribute some priests from that area into areas that are more grossly underserved we might just find a burst of growth.

Look at it another way. In the Eparchy of Parma alone how many states have no BC priest at all, not one.

Not only is Annunciation the nearest parish for most of the state of Illinois but it is the only parish for most of Wisconsin and Iowa besides.

On balance I think we need more priests but what we really need are more servents of Christ no matter what they are called.

The main point is: I don't believe we must wait until a large number of new priests come along before we can start serious evangelization. What we need from the Eparchy is strategic planning. What we need from our people is a willingness, as Gordo, Diak, Woody and others have mentioned, to learn to start mission posts in people's homes.

Dan L

Dan -

I agree with you - obviously - on this point. At the same time, once these communities develop, they will need priests and deacons to shepherd them. An equipped laity is critical, but not enough, and one cannot always locate a Latin priest who desires bi-ritual faculties. I am inclined to agree with Diak on this. Somehow we need to get future priests into the "pipeline", and I would recommend including in that list married men of mature age and experience (in keeping with Paul's exhorttion to Timothy re: the witness of these men in the way they served their own households).

Also, the mega-parish phenomenon in the world of RC's and many Protestant churches strikes me as deeply out of touch with the true spiritual needs of most Americans. We have our mega-malls to get lost in...isn't the Church supposed to be a place to be found? To me this explains the growth of Small Christian Communities that affiliate with larger parishes as a way to stay connected to people, not just institutions. In the very least, perhaps a wheel and spoke model might be something to consider. Larger Byzantine parishes form hubs with spokes that extend out into various territories - usually outside of regular commuting distance. The "hub" is responsible for helping to channel support (pastoral), training and resources to the spokes, with the goal being to turn each spoke into a hub of its own, without, though, letting it grow too large. (Priests come out of the hub parishes to service the spokes on a periodic basis - such as a monthly or bi-monthly Divine Liturgy with confession or spiritual direction?) As each spoke matures and grows, the lay leaders are ordained as deacons, and, possibly, priests to serve the communities they are organically a part of. It seems that Orthodox Churches are using models very similiar to this one with great success. (The hub parishes obviously are spokes of their respective eparchies.)

One additional suggestion, and this is where eparchies can be especially helpful: Offer a weekly/monthly teaching tape on video by the bishop, a priest or a deacon with a pastoral message (based upon, or not based upon the liturgical readings) with a study guide with questions for group discussion. I think it would also be great if this came from the hub parish in the model I detailed above. At the same time, it would be great to hear from others around the eparchy - especially the bishop - to help people feel somewhat connected to some of the familiar faces around the eparchy.

Just some additional thoughts to throw out there.

Peace -

Gordo

Gordo,

Let's get more priests. Indeed so. My only point was let's find out if we we don't already have enough to get going through redistribution of priestly resources. While we are looking at redistribution let us at the same time keep praying for new vocations.

Dan L