Taking the pulse of your congregation
Posted by Carson (July 21, 2006 at 4:35 pm)
Taking ones pulse is not the only way to measure ones health but it is a way. It is possible to take the pulse of your church. You won’t know everything about your church by taking its pulse but it can be an indication of its relative health.
There are many ways to take the pulse of your congregation and they are all fairly simple. One could look at the number of study, interest, or prayer groups in your congregation. One could look at how faithfully the sacraments are offered in the Eastern tradition. Once could look at how many young adults, youth or children are actively involved. Conversely one could look at he average age of the worshiping congregation. One could see how many vocations come from your congregations or how many congregations it has helped establish. One of my favorite ways is to look at the number of baptisms both children and adults that occured in your congregation this past year.
Looking at baptisms: If your church had less than 5 baptisms you are probably a dying congregation with members exclusively past child bearing age. You are headed for death but you can be revived. In a recent poll on byzcath.org it was discovered that a majority of the respondants fit into this category. Look around at the average age of your congregation. Are you willing to change your habits drastically? Are you willing to receive some help in order for you to be revived?
If you have between 6 and 20 you may well be in plateauing. Now is the time for revival. The people may be open to it and want to begin growing again. If you do nothing you will probably begin to die. If you act you can find renewal and begin to grow.
If you are EO or EC and have more than 20 per year you are probably growing and healthy. It is important to take a look at your strengths and continue working on them and look at a weekness and try to make it a strength instead. You are probably in a good place to begin the work to establish a mission congregation some place and to give some gifts to churches that are planting Churches or who are growing. Don’t begin to rest on your laurels. Everytime you do well rejoice and set the bar higher.
Living organisms grow and develop. Stagnant organisms are dying. Same goes for Churches.
Carson Daniel Lauffer
A good way for your churches to grow would be for families to have more than one or two children. Contraception is killing many churches.
It’s time that we took the Fathers seriously when they taught that abortion and contraception are gravely sinful (in Western Catholic terms.) It’s time we listened to Popes Pius XI, Paul VI, and John Paul II and their modern teachings on contraception.
Islam is exploding the world over because Muslim families are having 5-12 children per family.
Catholics follow the world lock-step in terms of abortion, contraception, divorce, and other abominations. Only when we reclaim our true Faith will these kinds of trends reverse and we will again grow in numbers as we should.
Comment posted July 22nd, 2006 at 9:36 am
Dr. Eric,
Right you are. It’s too late for us…unless God allows us to be like Abraham and Sarah…but we have a growing group of families with ever growing numbers of children. It is a glorious site. I’m thinking off the top of my head but I’d guess we have about 10 families with five or more children; 2 with six and one with seven.
The sad thing is that in some congregations there are no families of child bearing age. Pray, pray, pray.
CDL
Comment posted July 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 pm
The issue here is just getting parents to have more children. That is a piece of the puzzle, but not the whole. Have you ever taken a look, even a glance, at your congregation so that you can see if you are faithful in bringing the Gospel to the world? It might be the beginning of an exciting adventure.
CDL
Comment posted August 12th, 2006 at 11:23 am
I attend a dying congregation. I have made suggestions that could be tried, but nothing ever is.
Comment posted March 14th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Bob,
We hear this frequently. If you can get your priest to have a group come in help you analyze your Church perhaps we as outsiders could help get some ideas going that could help revitalize your Church. Talk with your pastor. He may be willing to contact us to offer some help.
CDL
Comment posted March 14th, 2007 at 9:07 pm