The start of a new year is always a time that draws us to two opposite but related tasks: to reflect on the past and to look forward to the future. As we reflect on the past six years of being a collaborative, what rises to the top is the mix of highs and lows, failures and successes, challenges and joy, progress and pain; as well as the unpredictable nature of this new road we’ve been journeying on. 

New Roads Catholic Community, St. Joseph and St. Luke, was formed as a collaborative in 2013, in response to the reality of declining churches. The reality of declining churches is a complicated problem without a simple or easy solution. But since day one we’ve been eager to jump in and work on it together.

Over the last six years, we’ve made mistakes to be sure--in communication, implementation, and more. One significant miss early on was to try to do more than was possible given our limited resources. We started off with an ambitious--and ultimately unrealistic--plan to transform all six Masses at both parishes. 

We worked to make various changes to create a dynamic experience of worship that would help grow disciples as well as welcome back the overwhelming percentage of Catholics who have disconnected from church. Attempting to create an engaging, relevant, accessible, and transformative experience at six Masses simultaneously was unsuccessful. 

Around 2017 we began focusing specifically on one Mass, the 10am Mass at St. Joseph. More than two years later we’re seeing some of the growth and fruit we’ve been praying for. People are growing in their relationship with God and deepening their commitment to following Jesus. Others are reconnecting with church for the first time in a long time. Children and families are overflowing. We consistently have over 60 children at Kids’ Church, our Children’s Liturgy of the Word program, as well as a dozen or more children in Tiny Disciples, our worship experience for kids ages 2-5. 

On a weekly basis we are over 75% full at the 10am Mass, a metric that points to the need to add an additional Mass to accommodate our current size and continuing growth. We need to pause here and say: wow! God is at work here. Our vision at New Roads is to be a growing church and because of the people who serve at New Roads, this vision is becoming a reality.  We’re at a point where we need to expand what we’re doing at the 10am Mass to an additional Mass time. 

Meanwhile, all of our other Masses, at both St. Joseph and St. Luke, have continued the decades-long pattern of slow to moderate decline in attendance over time. This decline is not something with a single cause or an easy solution. Churches everywhere are facing this reality.

At St. Luke’s we are at the point where we do not have enough people coming to Mass overall to justify the number of Masses we have on Sunday morning. Given that, we need to reduce the number of Masses at St. Luke by one.

To accommodate as many worship times as possible in our community, we have come up with a change to our Mass schedule which we’ll try out beginning in Lent: March 1, 2020. At St. Luke, we’ll continue our 4pm Saturday Vigil Mass and 11:30am Sunday morning Mass. This means we’ll stop our 9:00am Sunday morning Mass. 

At St. Joseph, given the increase in attendance, we will have a 9:00am and 10:30am Mass there. Both those Masses will be the same experience as the current 10am Mass--the same message series, music, hospitality, and kids programs. To make this additional Mass at St. Joseph a reality, we’ll be expanding all of our ministry teams at the 10am Mass. If you’re wanting to join in and support this effort, contact anyone on our team for more information.

Those who currently attend or serve at the 9:00 Mass are invited to come to the 9:00 Mass at St. Joseph--or of course to any other Mass time in our collaborative. To be clear: there is no plan to close St. Luke’s. The vision of New Roads always has been--and still is--to become two healthy, growing parishes. The fact that we have successfully created a Mass in our collaborative that is growing is truly good news for both parishes. 

Our plan, our hope, and our prayer is that the growth we are seeing at the 10am Mass at St. Joseph will one day expand fully to all Mass times at both parishes. We are excited and committed to continue to journey together toward that vision. It will take all of us working together to get there. 

As we announce this Mass schedule change, we have set aside time for some initial small group conversation next Sunday, January 19, after the 9:00 Mass at St. Luke. Any and all are welcome to attend to ask questions or to process this change together. 

Thank you for your love for this church and commitment to it. Let’s keep it up. The future might not be certain, but what is certain is that realizing our vision of becoming a collaborative with two growing parishes will require more love, more commitment, and more collaboration from all of us.

​New Roads is excited to launch Small Groups, a new initiative to help people integrate faith into their everyday lives, become more deeply connected, and to experience and share the blessings of community. The spiritual growth in a small group setting ideally leads to personal transformation, as well as an outward move to others in service and discipleship.

What kind of small group would you like to be part of? Young adult professionals? Students? Moms with young children? Interfaith couples? Women juggling family and career? People who live alone who want to share a weekly potluck meal? LGBT Allies? Men’s? Women’s? Married couples? Shared interests such as participating in a social justice outreach effort? Our relationship with God is part of every element of our lives, and belonging to a small group community helps us to better integrate our faith and the way we spend our days.
 
Small Groups will begin in conjunction with the next message series in mid-October. The structure of the group process is a weekly meeting of about 90 minutes, to include a reflection on the message, and how its challenge can be integrated into your life. Group leaders will receive questions to guide the conversation and sharing. Groups will meet in homes or settings appropriate to the group’s needs. The series will run for approximately 6 weeks. 
 
We’re eager to learn what kind of small groups would appeal to you, and who you might invite to join you! Once the groups are finalized and have designated leaders, the meeting times and places will be published on our website, and you will be able to sign up there, or at Mass.

To learn more or share your idea for a group, contact Paula Lee in the New Roads parish office: plee@newroadscatholic.org. We look forward to starting this new initiative with you! 

​Two weeks ago, New Roads had the honor of hosting the Rebuilt Roadshow, one of four one-day conferences this spring put on by the Church of the Nativity, a Catholic parish located in Timonium, Maryland. Several staff members from the Church of the Nativity journeyed up to Belmont to share insights and encouragement about what they’ve learned along their parish’s rebuilding journey. Through transforming their Catholic parish culture, Nativity experienced dramatic increases in weekend Mass attendance, giving, and service, amounting to nothing short of a transformation. The Roadshow is all about encouraging other parishes in their efforts to rebuild and make disciples.

About 100 people from over 25 parishes around New England came to the Rebuilt Roadshow at St. Joseph to listen and learn, ask questions, connect, and be inspired in their own rebuilding journeys. Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran, authors of the book Rebuilt, gave the opening and closing keynotes which were insightful and inspiring. The New Roads worship team led us in worship throughout the day, helping us feel God’s presence and bringing a palpable energy and excitement to the atmosphere. Q&A sessions allowed attendees to learn more about Rebuilt as well as what our path has been so far at New Roads. 

We were thrilled to have over a dozen of our New Roads ministers serving at the conference to make it all happen. It would not have happened without our ministers! From parking ministers to greeters to our café team to small group discussion leaders to our operations and facilities team, it was amazing to see New Roads members stepping up to serve, modeling servant leadership, and making this event possible. 

Attendees at the Roadshow were eager and curious, challenged but encouraged and open, in beginning to implement some of the transferable principles of parish rebuilding in their own parishes. We are so grateful to get to partner with Church of the Nativity and continue to benefit from their honesty, humility, and generosity as they work to make disciples, reach the lost, and make church matter--and help churches like New Roads and many others to do the same.

With Labor Day officially behind us, we’re excited for the start of the fall season at New Roads. This summer has been an intentional time of rest, slowing down, and pausing (from message series, kids programs, fellowship after Mass, etc.). We hope your summer has been a time of rest and refueling too! Starting this Sunday, September 9, 2018, we’ll resume our message series, kids programs, and more. What’s starting back up exactly?

New message series: On September 9, we’ll start a new message series called “Born to Run.” This series is all about our tendency to want to run away when life gets tough. On some level, we’re all running away from something or avoiding something in our lives: maybe it’s a stressful job, a broken relationship, or a messy past. And there are as many ways to escape as there are reasons to want to run away. But no matter our circumstances, our escapism actually provides no escape. Join us for this series at 10:00, 11:30, and 5:30 as we explore what’s below the surface of our escapism and chart a better path forward. 

Tiny Disciples: A drop-off worship experience for kids ages 2-5 starting just before Mass begins and ending just after Mass is over. Kids get the chance to have fun and learn about God on their level while their parents get some quiet time to participate in worship. Tiny Disciples takes place weekly at 10:00am (St. Joseph) and 11:30am (St. Luke). No sign up needed; just follow signs to the Tiny Disciples Room to join us!

Kids’ Church: A worship experience for all kids in grades K-5. How does it work? Children come to Mass with their families. Then, after the opening prayer, they are invited to come forward to gather in a separate space for readings, a message, and fun activities geared to their age. Parents stay in “big church” and kids rejoin us about 30 minutes later, at the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Kids’ Church takes place weekly at 9:00am (St. Luke) and 10:00am (St. Joseph). No sign up needed, just show up!

That’s all starting this Sunday, September 9. The following Sunday, September 16, at the 10:00am and 11:30am Masses, we’ll celebrate our annual Fall Kickoff. Fall Kickoff is all about inviting friends and neighbors who don’t have a regular church home to join us at New Roads.  Fall is naturally a time when people and families are open to trying something new (like coming to church) and Kickoff is a great, specific day to invite new folks to join us at New Roads. After all, our vision is to be a growing community of people growing in relationship with God and reaching out to friends and neighbors. Inviting friends and neighbors isn’t just something we do, it’s who we are!

Our goal on Kickoff Sunday is to help new folks feel welcomed and get connected. It’ll be an all-hands-on-deck effort from our fantastic hospitality teams (greeters, host ministers, info desk, etc.) and from our community as a whole. Want to be part of making it happen? Email info@newroadscatholic.org to get plugged in to serving on Fall Kickoff. And be sure to grab some invite fliers at church this weekend to make inviting a friend or neighbor to Fall Kickoff even easier. Or, send them the link to our Fall Kickoff page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

​The inspiration for starting this blog is to bridge a gap in communication that exists in our community. There is so much going on behind-the-scenes at New Roads--at our weekly team staff meetings, with our kids programs, with our worship team, our team health and growth, our building plans, and more. And yet, it’s too much to communicate on Sunday or even to include in a printed bulletin. 

But there’s information we want to share, ideas that people are eager to be a part of, and plans that would be helpful for people to know about, especially people on our extended team--that is, anyone and everyone who serves in ministry at New Roads. Anyone serving in ministry at New Roads is part of our team and team members get to know what is going on and what is coming up! So the primary purpose of this blog is to communicate with our whole team, not just our paid staff, but the many volunteers who make New Roads what it is!

Our goals for this blog are simple:

• To open up a communication channel with our broader team (all those who serve in ministry at New Roads)
• To communicate more clearly with our community about strategic decisions and to give us common language and understanding around strategic decisions or topics
• To help us to see how everything we’re doing fits into our larger mission and vision
• To help other churches who seek to understand or learn from what we are doing
• To give staff a voice to speak to our whole community

We’re excited to launch this blog and we invite you to subscribe by email so that you don’t miss a beat! Just enter your email address below, click submit, and you'll get an email whenever a new blog post is published.