ME-25 Survey & Partners Listening Sessions

Nov 12

November 12, 2023

Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~

A big thank you to those of you who answered the Measures of Engagement survey’s 25 questions. Both Holy Redeemer and St. Thomas parishes did this the same weekend of September 17. The survey was administered by the Gallup Corporation which has been studying successful organizations for several decades.

The intention of the survey, as the names implies, was to measure your engagement with the parish and in your own faith practice. At the time I started to pursue this last summer, I assumed I would remain as the pastor of the new parish family here, and I wanted to get a feel for St. Thomas Parish. So I asked Fr. Raja at St. Thomas if he was agreeable about taking the survey and he was. [By the way, Fr. Raja is about the easiest priest to get along with you’ll ever find.] The survey gave the leadership of the two parishes a chance to meet each other, start trusting one another, and to get a “feel” for the other parish.

Steve Homiak from the Archdiocese of Seattle came down to St. Thomas’ fireside room for a morning of review on Saturday, October 21st with leadership from both parishes (staffs, pastoral councils, finance councils) and even a leader from Stevenson (where the survey wasn’t administered due to lack of sample size). The results were impressive.

First, the national normal.

Nationally 30% of Mass goers are “engaged.” These members are loyal and have a strong psychological connection to their parish. They are more spiritually committed, more likely to invite friends, family members, and coworkers to parish events, and give more both financially and in commitment of time.
Nationally 48% of Mass goers are “not engaged.” These members may attend regularly, but they are not psychologically connected to their parish. Their connection to the parish is more social than spiritual. They give monetarily but not sacrificially, and they may do a minimal amount of volunteering in the community. They are less likely to invite others and more likely to leave.
Nationally 22% of Mass goers are “actively disengaged.” These members usually show up only once or twice a year, if at all. They are on the membership rolls, and can tell you what parish they belong to, but may not be able to name the priest. However, they may also be regular in their attendance. If that’s the case, they are physically present but psychologically absent. They are unhappy with their parish and insist on sharing that unhappiness with just about everyone.

Holy Redeemer came in at 41% engaged and 15% actively disengaged. Steve Homiak, who lead the review of the surveys and interpreted them for us, remarked that in his over 10 years of walking parishes through this survey, he had never seen a parish that hadn’t been actively working to improve their results through an ME 25 coaching program, perform that well anywhere in the country.

That did not surprise me. Many of us at Holy Redeemer know that this parish is a national leader in many ways. The survey results only confirmed for me what I already knew about Holy Redeemer Parish—that we are an extraordinary parish. All praise be to God!

The surprise for me was St. Thomas Parish. Over the past 21 years, they have had four different pastors, two of them from other countries, and a lay leader for much of Covid (5 different leaders in 21 years), yet they still scored higher than the national average! St. Thomas is a remarkably resilient parish (one tough puppy). St. Thomas came in at 35% engaged and 17% actively disengaged.

The other significant take away are the guts of the survey. They show two parishes that are remarkably similar, focusing on spiritual growth and holiness. Which leads me to make this observation (again): with regards to the partnering of Holy Redeemer and St. Thomas in the summer of 2024 under the same pastor and moving toward becoming one parish, this is a natural fit. Not only geographically being so close to each other (only a 15 minute drive from church to church), but being essentially the same people in faith and practice. Of the 16 parishes and missions in Southwest Washington who will fall under only four pastors in the summer of 2024, the two of us have lucked out being partnered with so much in common. The same can’t be said of many other pairings in other proposed families of parishes throughout Western Washington.

Note: I will not know until January whether I’m staying here as the pastor or being reassigned somewhere else.

Now to the results of feedback sessions for the Partners in the Gospel at Holy Redeemer.

All 163 parishes and missions in the Archdiocese of Seattle held listening sessions to hear from everyone what they think about the reorganization of the Church in Western Washington. Holy Redeemer Parish held ten different feedback sessions with over a hundred of you showing up. As to be expected, the feedback was all over the place, as it was all over the Archdiocese. The biggest feedback (by far) was your concern about me leaving, I’m concerned about that too. Thank you for sharing that with the powers that be in Seattle. The second thing that stood out for me, and this surprised me, is your question: “what about this reorganization is going to prevent us from having to do this again in ten or twenty years?” What a great observation! The answer to that is this—we need more priests who are capable of effectively pastoring parishes (not all parish priests make effective pastors). To that end, we will need to at least maintain the number of priests we are ordaining for the Archdiocese of Seattle over the long haul. If that number continues to drop, then we’ll be going through another round of reorganization in the next twenty years. The point being: we can administer many things, even parishes, but we can’t administer vocations. So keep praying, doing penance, and encouraging young people to pursue priesthood and religious life. The Church depends upon priests from our own parishes for her survival, and the world depends upon priests for its salvation.

May Almighty God Bless You,