Chicagoland

Survey says emphasize evangelization of youth

By Michelle Martin | Assistant editor
Sunday, July 18, 2010

Results of an online survey conducted in the spring gave the archdiocese’s Strategic Planning Steering Committee new reasons to focus evangelization efforts on teenagers and young adults, said Father John Canary, archdiocesan vicar general and chairman of the committee.

The survey, which was completed by more than 8,000 people, showed that most Catholics who leave the church do so by age 24, and that the best indicator of whether a person will remain connected to the church is whether he or she attended Mass regularly as a teenager.

The committee has been discussing the survey results and their implications for evangelization and formation — its top two priorities — and consultant McKinsey and Company’s analysis of parish finances, Canary said.

Keeping connected

Members of the steering committee are talking with leaders from youth ministry and young adult ministry to find ways to keep young people connected, both with spiritual growth opportunities and opportunities to serve their parish communities, people in need throughout the archdiocese and people around the world, he said. That can vary from helping in a parish food pantry to spending a year as an Amate House volunteer to promoting the worldwide efforts of Catholic Relief Services.

The survey also showed that parents are a key group to work with if the church is to evangelize families who identify themselves as Catholic but do not participate fully in the life of the church. Parents in such families who responded to the survey placed a high value on obtaining the sacraments for the children, especially baptism and First Communion.

“How do we use that as an opportunity for the parents to become more active, and how do we help parents help other parents become more active?” Canary said.

Knowledge vs. belief

Committee members were happy to see that survey respondents answered questions about what the church teaches correctly 92 percent of the time.

“I think that would be a pretty high grade,” Canary said, who noted that not everyone who knows what the church teaches necessarily agrees with it.

“The problem isn’t whether they understand it. The problem is whether they were convinced of that teaching,” he said. “How do we touch people’s hearts with the beliefs of the church in a way that engages their commitment?”

In the areas of both evangelization and formation, the steering committee has been pleased with how many pastors and others have been willing to share their ideas, Canary said.

“Each time we have gone back to pastors, they have been very hopeful, very supportive,” he said.

Financial advice

That kind of helpfulness will be needed for the third area the steering committee is discussing, — parish finances. The analysis done by McKinsey and Company showed that many parishes are spending down their savings to pay for operations. If that continues, they will become insolvent.

“At some point, they will run out of savings,” Canary said. “The question is, how do we turn that around.”

The first answer is to expand the “parish transformation program,” which is the new name for the “parish benchmarking project” that was piloted over the last few years. The program involves matching a parish that is having difficulties with one that is solvent, based on similar demographic and other characteristics, to see what the parish having problems can do differently.

While finances are one area to look at, the program aims to improve overall parish vitality, Canary said, with the idea that if parishioners are more engaged and committed, finances will improve.

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