What if…

What if the Creator and Ruler of the Universe took a personal interest in your life?

This Creator sent his Son to talk to you, and that Son encouraged you to call the Creator “Abba,” or Dad?

Then the Son shared he had to die for you at the hand of your enemy, so you–and everyone else–would have an open path to the Father’s love, forever?

Then the Son, alive again after a horrific death, promised to send his Spirit to impel you to keep going and share this news with everyone on earth?

What if these were his last words: “Go, and make disciples of all nations….”?

Now: what if the Catholic parishes in America only had ten years left to do it?

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Why ten years?

The gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. But that doesn’t mean that the heartbeat of our faith, the local parish, will not take a beating. Many could close their doors, because we are losing our youngest generations with no plan in place to win them back.

It is not news that more and more people in America identify as “nones”–that is, they do not affiliate with any religion. Right now, that percentage is around 28%. Within Generation Z (the youngest adult generation), 46% identify as nones. And the average age at which young people decide to embrace the “none” label is quite young: 13 years old.

If you look at the current statistics of who is coming to Mass, 46% of those attending Mass in the USA are ages 60 and up. With each successive younger generation, fewer attend. If nothing changes, and this 46% 60+ crowd dies within 10-25 years–and are less able to invest in the activities of the parish due to aging throughout that period–we honestly have ten good years before the bottom falls out.

Fr. James Mallon argued at The Amazing Parish Summit in Milwaukee (Fall 2018) that the frightening problem with the disaffiliation slide is that like a snowball, it gains speed. Sociologically, the snowball effect is statistically common: people follow the crowd. But with regard to church disaffiliation, we can see our future all the more precisely, because of Europe. European Catholicism is about a generation, maybe two, ahead of us in this slide out of Christianity. And where are they at now? Historically majority Christian, even Catholic Christian, countries are suddenly in the cellar. The Netherlands has 3% of its self-identified Catholics attending Mass. Germany, 4.3%. France, 4.5%. Apparently, Catholics in these countries have gotten used to the water getting incrementally hotter, until all of the sudden, like the proverbial frog, you’re boiled to death.

But: It doesn’t have to be this way!

We know why people are identifying as nones, and how the surrounding secular values undercut and hobble Christian belief. We know that our younger generations have institutional trust challenges. And we know what we need to do as Christian disciples: proclaim the gospel and love God and neighbor in a post-Christian age, turning outward to those who need to hear good news. We need to become deeply invitational, meet people where they are at, and joyfully witness to a loving and powerful God.

So…why aren’t we doing it?

Change is hard and needs support.

We can’t keep doing what we have been doing for decades and centuries in the United States and expect a different result. These numbers are not “we need a tweak” numbers. These are “we need to pray and look within our tradition for a different approach to the people God has entrusted us.” Basically, we need to change the focus and approach of parish ministry to an apostolic age. We need to act like the apostles, as a people sent to share the good news. We need to become missional.

But as people continue disappearing, and invested parishioners dying, the busyness of “keeping up appearances” only gets worse. People in parishes, from pastors to the ardent volunteer, are working very hard. Too hard to sit down and absorb how to adapt their parish to a new mission field. Throwing an evangelization noodle at the wall and watching it fall is discouraging as well.

But we are at a turning point. A deep and deliberate conversion to evangelizing God’s people is necessary. We can’t keep plugging this dike while a tsunami is washing in. The parish is supposed to be the local lighthouse of the gospel of God. When the parish suffers, the people of the community suffer. And people’s salvation is lost.

How can The Mark 5:19 Project make your parish an evangelizing parish within ten years?

Solutions for Catholics ready for change

The Mark 5:19 Project believes that God wants your parish, organization, and community to thrive on the good news, And we have the learning, analysis, and encouragement help you live out the call to share the gospel, grow in discipleship, and invite the world to encounter Jesus Christ.

• Speaking.
  • Speaking at your diocesan/parish/school/university event, 
  • Bringing events that change hearts and give marching orders.
    • Example: The 30 Day Holy Spirit Kickstart is a parish mission combined with a mission launch.
  • Discipleship retreats on prayer and forgiveness, especially for Advent and Lent
• Consulting.
  • Mission Ignite is a 10-month intensive that leads your hand picked team to pray, analyze, discern, and organize a mission launch for your community, 
  • “Mission Mastermind” sessions that solve your immediate problems with the help and moral support of other leaders, 
  • And one on one (or one on team) consulting help you implement specific ministry shifts in your parish.
• Resources.
  • Immersion resources for your parish that educate why our mission field has changed and how the Holy Spirit has moved to prepare us for this moment in time.
    • Books (The Four Ways Forward: Becoming an Apostolic Parish in a Post-Christian World, 101 Ways to Evangelize, The Apostolic Leader: Servant, Prophet, and Hope-Bearer/forthcoming) 
    • Booklets (leadership in an apostolic age booklets, forthcoming)
    • Bulletin inserts, council/committee/small group resources for discussion.
    • Brainstorming and vision discernment resources

In other words, we directly support Christians accepting the Lord’s call in Mark 5:19:

He said … “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” (NASB)