Lay Evangelist
Till Christ Be Formed in Every Heart
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FOR PROPHETS AND APOSTLES

Posts in Church Life
apathy, half-way houses, and the revolution of faith

Pope Paul VI ignited the flame of Catholic evangelization with both Vatican II and "On Evangelization in Our Time"A Conversation with My Cousin

Recently I had a conversation with my cousin who runs a pro-life ministry helping unwed pregnant mothers who are in broken situations to find a home and a life. He does amazing work and has helped heal a lot of lives and saved a lot of babies from the abortion mills of Houston, Texas.

He was asking me about the in’s and out’s of being a Catholic lay evangelist and how it was going. “Too often,” I told him, “Catholics are so busy catechizing- which means taking a person deeper into the mystery of Jesus Christ- that we overlooked the fact that they have never, ever been invited to fall in love with Jesus in the first place. That initial proclamation and invitation just never happened.”

“I never heard a Catholic talk like you,” He said to me. “My parents left the Catholic Church because no one mentioned having a personal relationship with Jesus.” The practice of the Faith was just mechanical, mindless, and culture-based.

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Church Life, SpiritualityMichael GormleyLiturgy, Ritual, evangelization, inculturation, pro-life
The Professional Church: leadership (part 2)

Intro to Leadership

The first principle from the private sector is leadership. The second principle is effective team building. Both go hand-in-hand. In a small operation like a parish (even a mega-parish) every hire needs to be a leader. You cannot afford to hire non-leaders, even if they are not in “Director” or “Coordinator” positions. And just because someone is ordained by the grace of God in the sacrament of Holy Orders that does not automatically make them a good, effective leader.

Leadership is a topic of so many nauseating business and self-help books that it is a little frustrating to sift the good content. I sought after books authored by, or written about, men and women who proved their leadership in the arena of for-profit work, not just those who make a ton of money selling self-help leadership books and giving seminars. This way I avoided empty-headed, nice-sounding rhetoric about leadership and immersed myself in the praxis of real world principles, tactics, and examples.

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Church LifeMichael Gormleyleadership, manager, motivation
The Professional Church: Introduction

Introduction: An Unprofessional Story

A few years ago a parish ministry leader asked me to be in one of her big events as an Emcee. The event was just not my cup of tea, at all. I did not want to be in it, and so, politely, I told her just that, which should have been enough. A few days later, however, I was greeted with an email saying that, oops! she went ahead and wrote me into their official program and printed off 1,000 of them with my name in there. "So," she said "I guess you're stuck!" 

I was furious and astonished that someone would do that.

In my reply I told her how unprofessional it was to try and paint me in a corner to do something I already made clear I did not want to do. Her reply told me volumes about parish work: "Professional? It's not like we work at Exxon or something! This is a church. You don't have to be professional." 

Wow. Just wow.

So with that lead in, I would like to bring up some questions and draw upon the wisdom of the private sector to find answers to some pressing parish worker questions, like: 

  • Where is the line between being pastoral and being professional? 
  • How much should your local parish reflect the life and culture of a successful business?
  • What practices, if any, should a parish incorporate from the business sector?
  • What is the role of numbers in terms of audiences reached and money budgeted?
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Church LifeMichael Gormleybusiness, ministry, parish staff, professional
I don't evangelize. I'm Catholic.

Intro: I got it all wrong

Evangelization, evangelism and evangelical are all pretty much Protestant words for most American Catholics today. I considered myself one of those Catholics for a while. Catholics did not preach on street corners, did not pass out pamphlets, and did not knock on doors to spread the Gospel. If we did anything, the most we did was toss in the collection plate a few bucks on Mission Sunday in order to donate to those religious orders who were taking the Gospel to strange lands on the otherside of the world. Not the average pew-sitter's vocation.

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Church Life, TheologyMichael Gormleyevangelization, inculturation