How to shake back-pew Catholics into action

    One of the most common observations – if not complaints – about church ministry is that there is too much work being done by too few people.
    The groups that organize and run the parish fair, the pro-life committee, the Ladies’ Altar Society, the Men’s Club and the St. Vincent de Paul chapter very often are composed of “the usual suspects.”
    You know who they are. You see them at every major parish dinner or Christmas concert and at daily Mass. No parish worth its salt could thrive without these salt-of-the-earth Catholics.
    The reality of parishioner overload and even parishioner apathy is so universal in the U.S. that Jeff Korgen, executive director of diocesan planning for the Diocese of Metuchen, N.J., wrote a book about how to turn back-pew Catholics, who blend like camouflage into their missalettes, into active participants in their parish’s mission.
    Korgen, the author of “My Lord, My God: Engaging Leaders in Your Parish,” told a Parish Social Ministry regional gathering in New Orleans earlier this month that the lack of involvement is especially apparent in a parish’s social ministry outreach to the needy.
    Rather than bemoan that reality, Korgen decided to interview Catholics across the country who actually are getting results in transforming the non-committed into the committed.
    “I wanted to start with what works,” Korgen said. “Everywhere you go, you hear, ‘People are so busy today and so apathetic and it’s the same people every time who show up.’ Instead of talking to those people, I talked to people who said, ‘Wow, we did something and twice as many people came.’ We wanted to look at how and why that happened.”
    In every case, Korgen said, the parish used a method that Jesus used in the Scriptures.
    “Jesus did not put notices in the fishermen’s bulletin to get Peter and many of the other disciples,” Korgen said. “He went out and got to know people by eating and drinking with them. With all the eating and drinking we see in the Bible – what’s going on there? What do you do when you eat and drink with people? You talk to them and get to know them, and then you start to understand what animates their lives and what they’re passionate about.”
    As a spiritual exercise, Korgen suggests going back and placing yourself at the seashore where Jesus first called Simon Peter.
    “When he was calling the apostles, he didn’t say, ‘I’ve got this new job. It’s going to be high level. You’ll get some special teachings. You might get killed – actually there’s about a 93 percent chance of your getting killed – but don’t worry about it. It’s a good thing. You’ll have treasure in heaven.’”
    And then, Jesus did not say, “Any volunteers?”
    “Jesus got to know people and then invited them in,” Korgen said.
    Relationships usually take time to grow, Korgen said, which might lead some to say it’s not happening fast enough. But hands-on activities such as mission trips or helping out at soup kitchens can lead to incredible conversions of heart.
    “Anyone who has ever gone on a mission trip and come back on fire for Jesus knows what I’m talking about,” Korgen said.
    The JustFaith program, where parishioners interact with the poor and needy and also read church documents about human dignity, is another powerful catalyst, Korgen said.
    “Relationships do take time. But there are times, though, when people have an experience of one person, and it taps something powerful inside them,” Korgen said. “If you’ve ever had a youth do some service activity, you’ve seen them come back changed. That’s real. Someone might be on a mission trip for five days, and yet they’re transformed. Then there are people who do ongoing service, like with St. Vincent de Paul. Something triggers in them.”
    Korgen senses a great opportunity for Catholic social ministry, especially with some of the dramatic gestures Pope Francis has made ensuring that the church is “poor” and “for the poor.”
    “Pope Francis has strengthened and accelerated all these new evangelization efforts,” Korgen said. “A lot of my secular friends and people who are non-believers used to come to me with lots of questions, and they were always questions about negative things about the church. Now they’re asking questions that are positive in nature. It’s fascinating.”
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected]