COVID is holding up a mirror for the Church and evangelization

Most Catholic dioceses track Sunday Mass attendance. This annual exercise has become discouraging for many pastoral leaders.

Year over year comparisons are tolerable, but the long-term trend is difficult to observe. Some dioceses have remained stable or increased attendance, largely because of immigration, not evangelization.

In 1974, Venerable Servant of God, Bishop Fulton Sheen, declared, “We are at the end of Christendom.” It was a provocative statement that needed further explanation. Sheen said, “Not Christianity, not the Church. Christendom is the economic, political, and social life as inspired by Christian principles. That is what is ending and, because we live in it from day to day, we do not see the decline.”

Until COVID-19.

What will happen to Sunday Mass attendance post-COVID? Some think it will bounce back. I do not, at least not quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I want our pews filled – more than anything – I just can’t see it happening unless we change the way we think about a couple of very important terms.

One of the problems is that for several decades we have assumed that attendance at Sunday Mass was evidence of something deeper and more important – engagement. The COVID mirror has shone a great big spotlight on the differences between attendance and engagement. Everyone that is engaged will attend, but not everyone that attends is engaged.

During a time of crisis, like this year’s pandemic, Christian congregations with a high percentage of engaged members have seen an increase in volunteers, an increase in financial giving and an increase in the number of people belonging to their small group communities.

Think about it, in times of crisis, people cling to what matters most. When someone’s Church matters a lot during normal times, it matters even more during times of adversity.

If a crisis leads to disengagement at Church, the crisis wasn’t the cause. It was merely the opportunity to physically disengage. The heart wasn’t in it for a while.

I’d rather not ask this question, but it begs to be asked: How many Catholics will find in COVID an opportunity to physically disengage and not return at all once the restrictions are lifted?

This may be hard to understand the hope animating my question. The kind of hope the Church needs right now looks a lot like courage, courage to confront the most brutal facts of current reality no matter how difficult and dire they may be. Once known, we can plan a roadmap to make it better, way better.

If one is already disengaged, deciding not to return will not seem like a big decision. It may not seem like a decision at all. Small decisions with seemingly small consequences are easy to make.

Howard Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, shared a vision that every local Starbucks would become “the third place” for most people. Meaning, only their homes and places of work would be more important than their coffee shop. Engaged Church members view their Church as their “third-place.” That is what engagement looks like.

People are talking about not being able to participate in the Mass and so we should be. This prolonged fast from holy communion and from our communities has been extremely difficult. What I am asking myself is this: once we are back in our Churches, once we can celebrate the Mass with full congregations, how will our parishes focus on deepening engagement and moving beyond – way beyond – mere attendance?

Decades ago, when people were still regularly going to Mass, making Sunday a better experience was a helpful approach. With fewer people attending, making Sunday more attractive by decreasing the time required to attend Mass or making it more entertaining, is simply deficient. Also, it feeds a consumeristic paradigm of membership which will never lead to engagement.

Sunday Mass attendance may be one of the last remaining footholds of Christendom. The key is helping our people move from mere attendance to engagement. Superficial fixes will not work.

Fostering Engagement

Let’s look at what fosters engagement by exploring what vibrant parishes and ecclesial movements have already discovered. There is a way.

Parishes around the globe are recognizing how many parishioners were disengaged at a heart level, even if they were physically attending Mass. Think of how important the implications are in terms of how we approach recovery from the pandemic.

As I said before, in times of crisis, people cling to what matters most. If the parish mattered a lot during normal times, it matters even more during adversity. If disengagement is happening in a parish, the crisis was not the cause. It was merely the opportunity for some to physically do what the heart had already done – disengage.

There is a law in organizational development theory that states: every organization is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting. If we want to see different results, we need to do things differently. You cannot expect to keep doing everything the same way and expect different results.

One of the graces of God during this pandemic may be to see things as they truly are, not as they were decades ago or as we wish they were today. It is a grace of vision, even if painful to see, the gap between attendance and engagement. Only when we confront with brutal honesty the true state of current reality, will we be able to plan for something better, more missional, more fruitful.

If we are going to fully recover and emerge even stronger, we need to better understand what engagement is and how to foster it within our communities.

Engagement is a Matter of the Heart 

True engagement is a function of the heart. Every single parishioner makes a choice to be engaged or not.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2563) speaks of the heart as, “our hidden centre.” Furthermore, “The heart is the place of decision, deeper than our psychic drives … It is the place of truth, where we choose life or death … It is the place of encounter … It is the place of covenant.”

People are not robotic machines. While they may go through the motions at times, their highest commitments and contributions come if and only if they engage with their full heart.

Disengagement is the gap between the level of discretionary commitment that is possible, and the level of discretionary commitment given. Real engagement happens by choice, a deliberate, intentional decision.

Parishes that foster engagement do so by frequently offering opportunities to increase discretionary commitment. They do not shy away from raising the bar.

Now, they are not motivated to gain something from their people, they are motivated to gain something for their people. Human beings are made for self-gift. We thrive when we find a cause that resonates so deeply with our soul that we gift our time, talent, and treasure to that cause that is bigger than ourselves. Pope Benedict said it like this, “The world offers you comfort but you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness.”

Engaged parishes are led by vision, a vision that leaks from the leaders of the community who then inspire others to a heroic, passionate, gift of oneself.  This is what engagement always translates into, self-gift. Some of the most vibrant communities I am connecting with have seen an increase in financial giving, volunteer hours, evangelizing outreach, and community small groups DURING the pandemic.

Some parishes have the mentality of just holding on and weathering the storm. Others see what the pandemic has made possible in terms of outreach, community building, service projects. They have given their people opportunities for increasing commitment and their people responded. It’s like the old adage, “If you think you can (increase engagement) or think you cannot, you are right.”

Faith is needed.

Focus on Being not Doing

Many pastoral leaders hesitate to ask for volunteers. “Everyone is so busy” they reason.

It is true, very few people have any spare time at all. But just because people are busy does not mean they are engaged with what keeps them busy. They might just be busy.

The best pastoral leaders understand that they are not competing with what fills their people’s schedules, they are competing with what has a hold of their heart. Think of Jesus’ words to Peter, a fisherman, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”

Jesus knew the issue was not Peter’s day job or his busy boating schedule. He was pointing to the emptiness of his heart and offering him an opportunity to find true meaning, a mission worth living and dying for.

Fostering engagement is all about helping people find meaning and fulfillment. As Antoine de Saint Exupery said, “If you want to build a ship, do not drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, foster within them a yearning for the vast and endless sea.”

Rather than adding to anyone’s busyness, because we are all too busy, address the hearts ache for meaning and give your people something to BE not just something to DO.

If you are starting with the premise that you need time from your people, you will only get the scraps and leftovers. Nobody has free time! Rather, don’t start with what you need, start with what you are offering – meaning, significance, the majesty of ministry, and the fellowship of the burning heart!

Invite Your People to Leave a Legacy 

Not only are your people hard-wired to find meaning and purpose, but they are also hard-wired to leave a legacy. They want to make a difference. They want to make a personal contribution that lasts.

Leading for engagement means finding opportunities that are uniquely tailored to align with the passions and gifts of your people. Managing others is a lot easier when you align the work that needs to be done with their talents and passions. Because they are so motivated and excited about the work, they manage themselves.

Leadership is Critical

When I think of engagement at a parish level, the words of Henry David Thoreau ring true: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root.” More than anything else, disengagement is a symptom of a much bigger problem – lack of leadership.

In the Gallup study, the biggest factor influencing engagement was poor leadership from the immediate supervisor. Engagement rises and falls on leadership. Victor Lipman, a contributor to www.forbes.com, suggested that engagement hinges on, “the employee’s relationship with his or her own leader.”

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton said, “Here’s something they’ll never teach you in business school: the most important decision you make in your job is naming your leaders.”

Parishes with high levels of engagement have one thing in common – they focus significant time, energy, and resources on the leadership development of their people. They invest in their pastor getting better. Their clergy getting better. Their lay leaders getting better. Their ministry leaders getting better.

Why? Because when the leaders get better, everyone and everything gets better.

What does it mean to lead for engagement? It is the difference between having power over people (authority) and having power with people (influence).

People don’t care how much a leader knows (or can do, or can accomplish) until they know how much a leader cares. Great leaders have genuine care and concern for their people. They cannot help but make it personal.

Engagement is not an event, here today and gone tomorrow, it is a disposition of the heart. It involves making a deliberate decision to bring forth the best effort – enthusiasm, creativity, sustained effort, ingenuity, collaboration, strategic thinking, discipline, and passion. Real engagement happens by choice.

At some point in everyone’s life, their inner fire goes out. All of us can lose our passion and become disengaged. Often it takes an encounter with another person – a leader – to see that inner fire burst into flames again.

We should be thankful for the people that have ignited our passions and strive to be the kind of leader that ignites the hearts of others.

Brett Powell is the Archbishop’s Delegate for Development and Ministries in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. This article first appeared on his website Leadership Where it Matters Most. Reprinted with permission.