Sermons

This is a marketing lesson for the Catholic Church. I’m a lector and a Eucharistic Minister in the Church and converted 18 years ago. As some of you know, I’ve also spent a great deal of my coaching and consulting career in the field of strategy and have written two commercially published books on the topic. The average age in the church my wife and I attend is north of 60. Young people are not drawn to the church in the numbers of old, and as the population ages, it also diminishes. Churches are closing and being combined because there aren’t enough priests to go around. They, too, are aging as young men aren’t becoming seminarians in large numbers.  Strategically, the Church needs to permit women and married men to become priests, as is the case in many other religions. This would provide not only more people, but more diversity: female points of view (Mary is important only second to Jesus in the Church and many people feel they’re equal), and priests experienced in marriage, raising children, and intimate matters.  Tactically, the Church needs to equip existing and future priests with the ability to deliver pragmatic sermons which reflect how Christianity is to be lived daily, not just one day a week for an hour within certain edifices. (And even then, I often don’t get a break trying to get out of the parking lot.) I have heard, nationally and internationally, some brilliant sermons delivered by priests, bishops, and cardinals. But too often, the sermon is existential and philosophical, not something parishioners can take with them back home or to work. Too many priests read their sermons, which are horrible and not very heartfelt. And often, what they’re reading are their notes from when they first gave that sermon 40 years ago. The church needs to be audience-centered, not clergy-centered, and priests (as well as lectors) need to be instructed in professional speaking skills. (This is why the mega-churches always have highly skilled homilists, by the way). And there’s also humor to be found. St. Augustine said, “Lord, please make me a good man. But not too soon!” Church is community. The community deserves more than a shepherd; it deserves a diverse clergy whose messages can be applied to improve lives immediately, delivered in powerful and effective ways. So help me God.

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