Culture of Prayer Resources
Start praying the Amazing Parish prayer and ask God to guide and bless your parish.
THE AMAZING PARISH PRAYER
Heavenly Father, We thank you for gathering us together and calling us to serve as your disciples. You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission of evangelizing and witnessing your love to the world. Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern Your will for the spiritual renewal of our parish. Give us strength, courage, and clear vision as we use our gifts to serve You. We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother, and ask for her intercession and guidance as we strive to bear witness to the Gospel and build an amazing parish. Amen.
Intentional Prayer as a Parish Leadership Team
- Pray every day as a team. If you’re not sure what to pray, start by using the Amazing Parish prayer.
- Begin and end all meetings with prayer.
- Pray for your pastor, parish staff, parishioners and each other.
- Consider going to Mass as a team or doing a devotional prayer together.
- Start a prayer journal and write down the intentions of your parish leadership team members. The Amazing Parish staff keeps a prayer journal, and it’s been amazing to see how God has answered so many of our prayers!
Intentional Prayer as a Parish Community
Ask your congregation to pray for your parish, that it may become a strong community of missionary disciples. Consider adding this intention to the Prayers of the Faithful during Mass at your parish. Here are some examples of prayer intentions that parishes have written and included during the Prayers of the Faithful:
- For our parish, that we might be transformed through our encounter with Jesus Christ and be compelled to share the Gospel with others. We pray to the Lord.
- For our parish, that we might become a community of discipleship, outreach, and charity. We pray to the Lord.
Consider making Eucharistic Adoration, the rosary or other devotional prayer available at your parish and ask your parishioners to pray specifically for the direction of your parish.
Personal Prayer
Commit time every day to prayer.
If you are having trouble thinking of ways to grow in your personal prayer life, here are some ideas:
- Sign up for a weekly holy hour
- Attend daily Mass
- Learn how to pray with Scripture – here’s a short guide to Lectio Divina (Holy Reading).
- Start a prayer journal
- Read a spiritual book
- Consider getting a spiritual director, someone who can guide you on your spiritual journey
- Receive the sacrament of Reconciliation monthly
Culture of Healthy Teamwork Resources
Team Model - Learn the 5 behaviors of a healthy leadership team.
Team Model Illustrated
Learn the 5 behaviors of a healthy leadership team.
Overcome Team Dysfunction
Overcome these 5 dysfunctions to build and maintain a cohesive parish leadership team.
Big Amazing Goals Worksheet
A resource to help you and your parish team determine your goals and define the next step in reaching them.
Vision - A Simple Approach
The purpose of this process is to allow a pastor and his parish leadership team to flesh out the basic elements of its vision for the parish.
Thematic Goal & Parish Scorecard Example
A resource to help you determine what's most important for your parish right now.
A Guide to Building Teams for Catholic Parishes
Getting teamwork to take root – and continue – takes ongoing work and real courage on the part of a pastor and team members.
Culture of Active Discipleship Resources
EVANGELIZATION IN YOUR PARISH
Inviting People To Come To Know Christ
St. Paul Street Evangelization
Provides tools and training for engaging the culture.
DISCIPLESHIP IN YOUR PARISH
Helping People Deepen Their Relationship With Christ
FORMED
Unlimited access to programs, studies, movies and books with a parish membership.
Real Life Catholic
Videos and resources to ignite a bold and contagious faith in your parish.
Families of Character
Build your family’s character by exploring and studying different virtues.
The King’s Men
Small groups and retreats to build up men through education, formation, healing and action.
Walking With Purpose
Small group Bible study that enables women to know Christ through Scripture.
RESOURCES FOR YOUTH
NET Ministries
Traveling missionary teams that lead retreats and events for youth.
Theology of the Body for Teens
Videos to help navigate teens through questions about God, sex and the meaning of life.
The Sunday Experience Resources
Among the many activities of a parish, “none is as vital or as community-forming as the Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day.”
—Pope Saint John Paul II
BOOKS
As parish leaders, we have the responsibility and great opportunity to shape the Sunday Experience so that we maximize the opportunities for God to reach people through their experience at Mass. The books Rebuilt by Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran and Divine Renovation by Fr. James Mallon discuss three areas that a parish can focus on in order to improve their Sunday Experience:
Music | Hymns
Message | Homilies
Ministers | Hospitality
MUSIC | HYMNS
The primary purpose of good music at Mass is to help people to praise and worship God. Beyond that, music creates an environment of peace, prayer, community and engagement. Pope Benedict XVI provided three basic criteria for music: it is related to God’s word and saving action, it lifts the human heart toward God, and it unites the individual with the larger community.
Enhancing the Beauty of the Mass
Now, different people will have different tastes and preferences when it comes to liturgical music, but they will all have one thing in common: they don’t like bad music. What is bad music? It is poorly performed, distracting, inappropriate — or perhaps all of these.
Whether your parish is doing traditional hymns, modern praise and worship music or Gregorian chant, make sure it enhances the beauty of the Mass and improves the Sunday Experience.
Watch this video from The Sunday Experience presentation at one of our conferences.
Music & Ministers
Video from Rebuilt about the impact they have on the Sunday Experience at your parish.
MESSAGE | HOMILIES
All other things being equal (and they never are), the best homilies have three things in common: they are delivered with a genuine sense of passion, they give people an idea of how they can take action, and they are relatively short and to the point. Regardless of how eloquent or charismatic a priest is naturally, these three qualities ensure that parishioners will listen to, remember and talk about the homily with others.
Watch this video from The Sunday Experience presentation at one of our conferences.
Make the Message Matter
Video and ideas from Rebuilt to help prepare relevant homilies.
ePriest – Resources to help priests prepare effective homilies.
Examples of Pastors with Podcasts
MINISTERS | HOSPITALITY
Whether someone is a long time parishioner or is attending your church for the first time, it’s very important that each person is greeted and feels welcome. First impressions are powerful, and the way someone is met when they approach the front doors of a church makes a difference in terms of their mindset coming in to Mass, and their attitude about the parish as a whole. Every parish understands this theoretically, but many still lack effective greeting and welcoming programs. They are either too informal about organizing these activities, or they don’t believe they make a difference.
It’s also important…
that parishioners are able to serve and give their time and talent to the parish. The goal should be that every parish member be a minister and serve the church in one way or another.
Watch this video from The Sunday Experience presentation at one of our conferences.
Making Ministry a Team Sport
Video and ideas from Rebuilt to help get members involved in ministry
MORE IDEAS
Have Your Staff Work Weekends
Too many pastors are left alone to create a great Sunday Experience at their parish because staff members aren’t present during the weekend Masses. A pastor can’t do it alone. He needs a team to help him. Consider having the parish staff around and available for the weekend Masses and giving them another day off during the week. Remember, the weekend Masses are the best opportunity your parish has to reach out and welcome others into your community of faith.
Post-Mass Fellowship
When parishioners scramble for the exits as soon as the priest gives his final blessing, and sprint to their cars to get home, they often miss a rich opportunity for fellowship and encouragement in their faith. What is more, parishes miss a great opportunity for discipleship, and for sharing the programs and ministries that can change parishioners’ lives. An amazing parish will provide parishioners with attractive and easy opportunities to stay after Mass to grow in their faith and build on what they experienced during the previous hour. This doesn’t have to be complicated. Some parishes simply have coffee and donuts available after Mass while others may be able to support a parish coffee shop. Do whatever makes sense for your parish, but definitely do something to help facilitate fellowship after Mass.
Evangelization Team
Again, Sunday is your biggest opportunity to encounter newcomers or “church shoppers”. Having a team of people available to answer questions and welcome new faces is very important. Consider having your parish office open for people to walk-in and learn more about the parish.