Core Member Commitment
The Task of the Core Member within Small Group is not to be a teacher, but a facilitator. A facilitator is a leader who starts, guides and pushes the conversation and learning of others. This is primarily done through open-ended questions that do three things: help process a presentation, make new connections, and apply Christ’s truth to one’s own life.
The most basic requirement of a Life Teen Core Member is an adult who has received the love of Jesus Christ and is living his/her Catholic Faith daily. (Note that I did not say “perfectly” but “daily.”) This means that every Core Member is first a disciple of Jesus Christ. A disciple is one who follows Jesus Christ and not merely one who believes in Him. Believers hear, but don’t act. Jesus said that the wise person is one who “hears these words of mine and does them”. Jesus as extended an invitation through faith- “Come, follow me.” And it is by faith, hope and charity that we actually follow Jesus.
Vision for a Change
Archbishop Fulton J Sheen used to say, “Evil has it’s hour. But our Lord has His Day.” We must give the Devil his due before we can fight him like Hell. We must face reality, own up to it, if we are ever going to change it for the better. Karl Marx once remarked that the philosophers of the past were always trying to understand the world, “but the point is to change it.” But change without understanding is a false start. Chesterton would agree that we don’t know what we’re doing because we don’t know what we undoing. Our lack of understanding the problem means that all our activity will only lead to more problems. And the business of the Church will become reduced to busyness.
What is the problem? The Catholic Church in America is dying and the way we “do church” has failed us.
Too Big Not to Fail...
We have approximately 22,000 parishioners, 10,000 of which are adults. Do all of these adults attend our parish every week? No way. Only about 6,400 individuals (children and adults) attend each weekend. If our parish coincides with the national averages, that means about 2,540 are adults, and 3,860 are kids. So that means out of our 10,000 adults only 2,540 get to Mass, and of that number a substantial portion are monthly Mass goers.
And our parish is getting bigger. Right now we are at 5,300 families and are expected to climb between 7,000 to 10,000 families in the next 15 years, due to the influx of Exxon employees to their new super complex just south of The Woodlands.
We have three priests. Our pastor is a diocesan priest and is supported by two associates from an Indian religious order. We have 4 very active deacons as well. Our staff is probably 30 people, not counting the school, that are part or full time.
This means that for 22,000 parishioners we have 7 clergymen and 30 staff. That's just a mere 595 congregants per staffer! For now. In five years it will look more like 811 congregants per staffer.