Book of the Week
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Tools for Rebuilding: 75 Really, Really Practical Ways to Make Your Parish Better, by Michael White
and Tom Corcoran. Ave Maria Press, 2013.
Proven tactics "to get the job done"...the job set out in their first book is the focus of this book of 75 WAYS. This book offers many a challenge to keep parish ministers on their toes in the work of evangelization. The ultimate goal is to bring people closer to the
Lord, instead of being able to boast "see how many programs we got going in our town".
Fresh life into a parish, new zeal for the Word, visions that folks say are not possible, more and more programs...all these and more have to be discerned if the parish is to truly be a great place to worship and in which people will want to put their energy and enliven their faith.
Under subtopics which all include the word "TOOLS", the authors write about strategic, building, office, communication, people, weekend, preaching, sacramental, kids and student, money, staff, critical, fun, and overall tools. Short chapters give specific ways to enliven the parish. Patience is an often used word as changes are contemplated. Ability to admit failure and to acknowledge that "we don't know what we are
doing" win many brownie points.
Enlivened with examples from Scripture, the authors show clearly that the earlier leaders in the church were also afflicted with lack of enthusiasm, of trust, of the "dragging of feet", and also just walking away from the Word and the Word bearers. But the Church lives on.
Some of the short chapters have titles such as these: Just clean the nursery, connect with the community, don't just do something...stand there, did anyone unlock the front door, get over it, baptism are opportunities...take them, do something for the kids, celebrate wins, have fun, seek wise counsel, talent attracts talent, widen the gene pool, be leaders who learn, don't be surprised when the right people leave, or when the wrong people leave, get the right people on the
bus, treat students like adults, and many more interesting titles.
Don't be afraid to tell your congregation, "I love you." This is closing advice of the book.
(Thanks to Sr. Irene Hartman OP for this
review)
Paperback, Kindle
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Saint of the Week
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St. John Fisher: (1469-1535) June 23
John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More and other Renaissance humanists. His life, therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals and political
leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge. He had been made a bishop at 35, and one of his interests was raising the standard of preaching in England. Fisher himself was an accomplished preacher and writer. His sermons on the penitential psalms were reprinted seven times before his death. With the coming of Lutheranism, he was drawn into controversy. His eight books against heresy gave him a leading position among European
theologians.
In 1521 he was asked to study the question of Henry VIII's marriage. He incurred Henry's anger by defending the validity of the king's marriage with Catherine of Aragon and later by rejecting Henry's claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England.
In an attempt to be rid of him,
Henry first had him accused of not reporting all the "revelations" of the nun of Kent, Elizabeth Barton. John was summoned, in feeble health, to take the oath to the new Act of Succession. He and Thomas More refused because the Act presumed the legality of Henry's divorce and his claim to be head of the English Church. They were sent to the Tower of London, where Fisher remained 14 months without trial. They were finally sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods.
When the two were called to further interrogations, they remained silent. Fisher was tricked, on the supposition he was speaking privately as a priest, and declared again that the king was not supreme head. The king, further angered that the pope had made John Fisher a cardinal, had him brought to trial on the charge of high treason. He was condemned and executed, his body left to lie all day on the scaffold and his
head hung on London Bridge. More was executed two weeks later. americancatholic.org site
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