Deacon Keith Strohm - Ablaze: 5 Essential Paradigm Shifts for Parish Renewal

PRAISE FOR

ABLAZE

M3 Ministries is one of the great emerging evangelization apostolates in the Catholic Church today. In this book, diocese and parish leaders will find the help they need to discern their first steps in transforming the life of a parish.

Bobby Vidal, associate director of evangelization, Office of the New Evangelization, Archdiocese of Los Angeles

As the Catholic Church continues to take seriously Pope Francis call to foster communities of missionary disciples, this book is essential reading to help our parishes move from maintenance into mission. Deacon Keith writes an accessible, engaging, and practical resource peppered with Scripture and anecdotes drawn from his vast experience.

Julianne Stanz, director of Parish Life and Evangelization, Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin

Copyright 2019 Keith Strohm

All rights reserved.

Published by The Word Among Us Press

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23 22 21 20 19 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-59325-364-6

eISBN: 978-1-59325-284-7

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, Second Edition, copyright 1997, by the United States Catholic ConferenceLibreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Cover design by Faceout Studios

Interior design by Suzanne Earl

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author and publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907533

Made and printed in the United States of America

To Ron Huntley, Fr. Simon Lobo, CC, Rob MacDowell, Fr. James Mallon, Dan ORourke, and Kate Robinsonfor friendship, inspiration, and your enduring commitment to the truth that culture matters.

CONTENTS

by Fr. James Mallon

Foreword

What does this have to do with Confirmation?

Everything! I, almost, kind of, yelled.

I wasnt proud of my reaction. The kid was really getting on my nerveshe had been for weeks. We were one month into the new Confirmation program that I had introduced at a parish I was pastoring when I was a young priest. I had changed the model from a classroom-based, information-delivery model to a dynamic, relational, and evangelistic program that spoke a great deal about a relationship with Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The kid in question was real, but on reflection I realized that he was more of a living, breathing reminder and symbol of the colossal failure of the Confirmation programs I had thus far experienced. He had zero interest in faith and the Church. His family came to Mass twice a year but would be highly offended if their Catholic credentials were ever questioned.

I had received complaints about the new program from some of the parentsthat after all these weeks their teens had not yet memorized the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. But my answer still stands. Confirmation has everything to do with living in a personal relationship with Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in the midst of the Church. To be fair to this young theologian, however, he was also correctat least based on what he had experienced. In his experience, in the experience of his family, and in the experience of the parish until that point, a personal relationship with Christand all that goes along with ithas absolutely nothing to do with Confirmation.

That initial attempt to transform a parish Confirmation program was a clear experience of culture eating strategy for breakfast. This phrase, attributed to the business and leadership guru Peter Drucker, has proven to be profoundly true in parishes and dioceses all over the world. It is one of the reasons that beautifully bound parish and diocesan strategic plans litter bookshelves all over the world and collect dust. However, as I once heard it said, if culture eats strategy for breakfast, leadership eats culture for lunch. Gastronomic metaphors aside, the point simply is that nothing shifts unless the culture shifts, but heres the thing: it can be shifted. Leaders shape culture consciously or unconsciously, by design or by neglect, through what is rewarded and what is tolerated, and to do anything by design simply means that it is done with intentionality.

I have known Deacon Keith Strohm for more than five years. He was and is a great friend of Saint Benedict Parish, and has spoken at several events and done staff retreats. He is also a great friend and supporter of Divine Renovation Ministry, as he leads parish missions throughout the world that are connected with Divine Renovation and also helps to edit our books. Deacon Keith has years of experience working within parish and diocesan structures and is active in accompanying parishes and dioceses through M3 Ministries. I welcome this new book and I rejoice in yet another voice that speaks on the necessity of doing the groundwork in this challenging time in our Church.

Parish and diocesan renewal will never take place by simple tweaks or focusing on some best practices or programs. These practices need to be supported by plans and by strategiesand all strategies will be effective insofar as the underlying culture supports it. Ablaze gets to the heart of the matter in challenging parish and diocesan leadership to step up and, in spite of the cost, lead a transformation of the culture of their organizations.

Read this book, pray, and discuss. Let us change our conversations and the conversations in our parishes and diocesan board rooms. Let us change the conversation in the Church because when the conversation shifts, so does the culture.

If we get this right, perhaps fewer young priests will experience frustrating conversations with young, frustrated confirmandi.

Fr. James Mallon
Author of Divine Renovation: Bringing
Your Parish from Maintenance to Mission
June 21, 2019
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Introduction

Why do you keep doing this to me, God? I yelled from the confines of my Honda Civic, which was stuck in heavy Chicago traffic.

The frustration and anger were very real but had little to do with the intense congestion on I-90. I had just finished a retreat for the parish council of a Chicago Catholic church. Fewer parishioners were engaging in the life of the parish, and the council had asked me to help them address this issue. I understood that lack of engagement was likely the result of a deeper, more systemic problem, one that would require more work than a three-hour retreat. Nevertheless, I had hoped that we could lay a good foundation on which to build a comprehensive response.

For twenty years, I have worked with (and within) parishes to bring about renewal. For the past two years, Ive worked full-time as the executive director of M3 Ministries. I knew from experience that the concepts behind parish transformationconcepts such as evangelization, discipleship, accompaniment, and encountercan be challenging for Catholic parishioners and leaders to integrate into their understanding of parish life. I also knew that I had to find creative ways to communicate those concepts, to help leaders grasp what was involved. With that in mind, I had spent a good deal of time the night before this retreat retooling my presentation and fine-tuning my language and approach. By the end of the night, I was confident that I had put together something that would bear fruit for this group.