Dear New Roads friends,

We have been closely monitoring the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Belmont and around the world. There have been several local developments this week including the closure of Belmont Public Schools for 2 weeks beginning today and the Executive Order from Governor Baker this afternoon prohibiting all gatherings of over 250 people throughout the state of Massachusetts. Therefore, based on the Governor's Executive Order and in accordance with the Archdiocese of Boston guidelines, here's what you can expect from New Roads in the weeks ahead:

• Both churches, St. Joseph and St. Luke, will be closed effective immediately and continuing through March 29th.
• We are working on ways to praise God through teaching and worship online. Stay tuned for more details to come by following us online: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and our email list.
• We invite parishioners and guests to stay safe, to stay healthy, and to join us online.

As a church community, our first and foremost concern is for the safety and well-being of people--those who attend New Roads as well as our wider community. While many are cancelling events “out of an abundance of caution,” we prefer how our neighbors at Highrock Church phrased it -- “out of an abundance of love.” Our decision is based on love and care for our community. Many members of our community are over 65 years of age, which the CDC considers at higher risk for severe outcomes related to COVID-19.

As a community, we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us, even if it inconveniences those of us who are not at higher risk. It seems that right now, the best way to follow Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” is to support the federal, state, and local efforts to slow the spread of this virus so that our neighbors are protected and our healthcare system is not overwhelmed. We are choosing not to act out of fear, but to be responsible and proactive, and to lead with love and care for our neighbors.

Finally, like many churches, we rely on our weekly offertory collection to cover our operating expenses (staff salaries & healthcare benefits, heating & maintaining our buildings, etc.). We are making an intentional choice to prioritize the health and safety of our community, but also know that cancelling Sunday Masses will be a challenge for us financially. If it’s at all possible for you and your family, please consider making a one-time gift or a recurring gift online. Thank you for your continued support of our community! 

To keep informed of further updates, we encourage you to be on the lookout for future emails as well as to follow us online using the social media links above. This is a powerful moment to be the church, to lead and live not out of fear, but out of love, to step up and to serve those in need, and to be thoughtful and creative in doing so. This is certainly a “new road” for all of us, but our God is with us and for us; God goes before us and will lead us to new life. 

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.” 
2 Timothy 1:7

With love for you, your families, and all our neighbors,
The New Roads Team
info@newroadscatholic.org

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.

Initially, our plan was to continue the 11:30am Mass, in thinking like a collaborative and wanting to offer a variety of Mass times between the two parishes, as well as to create the least disruption in the current schedule overall. However, after conversation and consultation with the community over several weeks, it seems that a Mass time between our two existing Sunday Mass times at St. Luke (9:00 and 11:30) would be the best time for our community to invest in, to join together and to serve. Given that, at St. Luke we will continue our 4pm Saturday Vigil Mass and we will have a 10:00am Mass on Sunday mornings at St. Luke. This change will take place starting March 1, 2020, the first Sunday of Lent.

At St. Joseph, given the increase in attendance, we will have a 9:00am and 10:30am Mass, also starting on March 1, 2020. Both those Masses will be the same experience as the current 10am Mass at St. Joseph--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 or 11:30 Masses at St. Luke are invited to come and serve at the 10:00 Mass at St. Luke--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. 

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!

​Happy summer! We hope summer is off to a great start for you and your family and we wanted to share some of our summer plans here at New Roads. 

This winter, our staff team spent some time praying and reflecting on the life and ministry of Jesus and particularly about his rhythm between work and rest. This rhythm is something we’ve been working hard to incorporate into our lives individually and organizationally, as a church community. It’s surprisingly tough to do though, because we live in a busy, exhausting, and overworked world. In many ways, today’s world idolizes work and busyness. 

But Jesus was very clear in his life and ministry about taking time to retreat, to get away, and to rest. There is a time and a season for both work and rest--or to use the terms Jesus used: “fruitfulness” and “abiding.” 

As a community, we are being intentional about leaning into a rhythm of rest this summer. Of course we’ll be coming together for worship every week, but during July & August specifically we’ll be taking a break from our kids programs, message series, and coffee after the 9:00 & 10:00 Masses. There’s simply less going on here in general, and that’s intentional.

People in this church--including, of course, many of you who serve as ministers throughout the year--work really hard year round. And that’s needed and necessary and brings glory to God. And it also brings glory to God when we pattern our life after the life of Jesus.

We were created to work, to bear fruit, that’s for sure. And we were also created to rest. In fact, we were created not simply to rest from our work, but to work from our rest. Summer is a natural time for many people to experience the joy of rest--the joy of being vs. doing--and we hope you have some plans for rest and renewal this summer (or at another point this year). 

Kids programs, message series, and more resume on Sunday, September 9, 2018. And we'll be celebrating the start of a new year on Fall Kickoff, Sunday, September 16, 2018 at the 10:00 & 11:30 Masses. In the meanwhile, we look forward to worshipping with you at New Roads this summer at our normal worship times.

Two weeks ago we gathered together with over 120 member ministers in our community--people who serve in ministry here at New Roads. It was a wonderful experience to be together as one big New Roads team and to thank so many people for pouring light and love into our church throughout the year. It was a chance for us to be together; to express gratitude; to celebrate what we’ve accomplished together this past year; and to be inspired and encouraged in the work that lies ahead of us as a community.

As part of our gathering, we shared a few “wins” we’ve experienced as a whole community throughout the year. We limited ourselves to just five highlights. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. We had a team goal--as a whole community--to focus on our 10am Mass in a way that was completely brand new, which included several wins. One highlight was a group of New Roads members who teamed up to launch new hospitality ministries to help each person who comes to our church to feel welcomed and loved by us and by God. It was amazing to see this team mobilize into action this year!
2. Because of the commitment and leadership of many kids ministers, this year we saw more and more kids looking forward to being at New Roads and feeling at home here. We also had leaders come together in our community to work on infrastructure and equipment upgrades to make our worship experience more engaging for everyone.
3. We’ve been engaging together in more conversation about our mission and vision as a church--in ministry meetings, one-on-one, and small group meetings. Conversation is so foundational because it’s all about relationship and collaboration. Our mission is much bigger than just a handful of people--it’s about all of us.
4. In the last year, we welcomed over 70 new people into serving in ministry here at New Roads!
5. For the first time in many years in both parishes, this year we had an increase in our regular offertory year-over-year. And our annual appeal was up 39% at St. Joseph and 11% at St. Luke compared to last year.

These are some of the “bigger picture” wins, but each one is made up of many more wins that happened throughout the year. And each win was made possible through our work together. At our Ministers Appreciation Night we invited people to share some of the wins they’ve witnessed throughout the year, or how their serving in ministry has impacted their own lives. Here’s just some of what our amazing member ministers shared:

• Serving this year has deepened my faith. I feel much more focused and connected during Mass. I also feel a deepening in my relationship with God. Through serving I have received more.
• When I bring the Eucharist to the homebound, I get so much out of it, more than I ever expected. It is such a joy to bring Christ to others. 
• Welcoming the young parents of our tiny disciples - my faith has grown more & more - this year continues my experience with a community whose mission is also mine - to belong, to love and to serve God, his people, all in concert with the Holy Spirit who resides in me and all. Positive impact for me is the growth of new friendships, new encounters with people returning or coming to church for the first time. 
• Serving deepened my faith - the more I gave, the more I was filled with God’s love & grace.
• It’s always meaningful to me to interact with my kids and Kids' Church. I was blessed to participate as a Kids’ Church minister and am looking forward to help the ministry grow in the future! 
• Without being embraced and loved by this community I could not have grown into a friendship with Jesus or come to truly experience God’s incredible love for me. I have healed from life long pain in ways I never thought possible. 
• I found an inner peace and acceptance of myself in realizing that no matter where I am in my faith journey, I can be a bridge to others.

What each of us has given this year is part of what God is doing and what God wants to do in our community. It’s wild and beautiful that we get to be a part of what God does! 

This Monday our team got together to check in about our community-wide goal for the current year: to make the 10:00am Mass an excellent, dynamic worship experience. (We’ve detailed this goal, which we call “the lab” in previous posts here and here.) This goal is for our current fiscal year (July 1 2017-June 30, 2018) which means January 1, 2018 put us at the half-way mark! What better time to assess our progress in the last 6 months and spend some time planning and prioritizing for the next 6 months? So that’s exactly what we did. 

In the last 6 months we have enjoyed the incredible privilege of being coached and guided in this goal-planning process by Russ & Carol Sabia, members of our community who are also professional consultants in organizational health and clarity with Patrick Lencioni’s firm, The Table Group. With Russ & Carol’s guidance, we set out to identify accomplishments in the last 6 months by asking the question: what’s different now from 6 months ago, particularly when it comes to the 10am Mass? 
Here are some of the highlights:

LITURGY -- We’re always working to improve our messages and message series, but we’ve recently begun to focus and tailor our series in ways that our community specifically needs to grow (e.g. our current series, Upgrade, all about prayer). Music has been a core focus as well and in the last 6 months we’ve worked to improve both the quality and consistency of the music at the 10am Mass. We’ve also begun to use music not just as something that happens occasionally during the Mass, but as a tool that enhances the experience overall, to help focus our attention and draw us in (e.g. we’ve experimented with having soft music underneath the Gospel and during the Eucharistic Prayer to draw people into the meaning and importance of those parts of the Mass). This fall we’ve also worked to make Kids’ Church and Tiny Disciples more engaging and relevant for our younger members and seen more children participating with greater enthusiasm.

ENGAGEMENT/COMMUNICATION -- We decided to explore staying in the hall as a longer-term possibility (see this post for more background). We have had (and continue to have) conversations with people in small groups and one-on-one to discuss this possibility. We’ve worked to communicate our vision and engage people in conversation, not shying away from disagreement but seeking to listen and hear from people who have different ideas and perspectives. We’re deeply grateful for people’s engagement in this process as it’s crucial in helping us make decisions and move forward. We’ve also started this blog as a way to communicate more and improve clarity of communication among our team, volunteers, community, and beyond.

HOSPITALITY -- We’ve made some big steps with hospitality in the last 6 months. We defined a vision for hospitality: everyone who arrives on our campus feels welcome and loved--by us and by God--from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave. And in a meeting in October, we had the chance to share that vision and brainstorm ideas with people who have served or are interested in serving in hospitality in our community. Since that meeting, we’ve had many one-on-one meetings with people who feel called to be a part of implementing this vision for hospitality at the 10am Mass. It’s been so exciting to engage with people in our community who have a real gift for hospitality and also a deep sense of ownership for making this vision come to life in our church. In 2018, we’ll be launching our hospitality team at the 10am Mass. Stay tuned. 

TECHNOLOGY -- We’ve made some key purchases when it comes to our technology--some visible and some behind-the-scenes. The most visible (or audible!) change has been the purchase of a new headset microphone for the presider (Fr. Thom) as well as a new wireless (handheld) microphone, both of which tie into the same sound system as the music. The sound quality of these mics is far superior to our previous wireless mics for the hall which could only be used through the outdated built-in sound system in the hall. We also purchased some tech and sound equipment for both churches so that the churches own all the equipment used by the worship team. This is a healthier and more sustainable position for our churches to be in.

Those are some of the specific highlights from the past 6 months related to our goal. But when we think about what’s different now from 6 months ago, particularly when it comes to the 10am Mass, one big aspect of it is hard to describe. The best way we could describe it was this: the 10am Mass has a much different energy than it did 6 months ago. God’s Spirit is active and moving before, during, and after Mass in a new way. There’s a sense of excitement and anticipation. A few Sundays we’ve run out of seats (a good problem to have).

Certainly we’ve got a long way to go in realizing our vision. And most days we’re more focused on closing that gap and thinking about what’s next. But taking the time to pause to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of our team and our community related to this one goal was an encouraging and energizing experience. We hope sharing it here encourages and energizes you in our work together!

​We are excited to share an update about our facilities and space use. We’ve been working to address space use at both our churches since we became a collaborative in 2014. 

The St. Joseph parish house (also called a rectory, located directly across Common Street from St. Joseph Church) was unfortunately neglected for many years. Built in 1880, it had many outdated systems as well as significant deferred maintenance. The cost of renovation and updating for modest results was determined to be approaching a million dollars. Clearly, this was not a reasonable or appropriate option in keeping with Pope Francis’s direction about a simple lifestyle for priests.

The suggestion that the property be sold had been floated repeatedly, helping us to recognize a great opportunity. Following a site survey and consultation of the zoning regulations, it became clear that the property could be subdivided, permitting the sale of the existing building and allowing St. Joseph to retain the subdivided lot at 345 Waverley Street for future use. The parish proceeded with this plan in late 2015: the land was subdivided and the old rectory building and lot was sold. 

The original plan was to use the proceeds of the sale of the rectory to cover the cost of building a new rectory on the subdivided lot. However, it was determined that building a new rectory would require use of almost all of the funds from the proceeds of the sale of the rectory, which did not make it a good option as other capital improvements are and will be needed at St. Joseph.

Instead of building a new rectory at St. Joseph, it was decided that a more prudent path forward would be to use the St. Luke rectory as a residence exclusively. The Guidelines for Rectory Living established by the Archdiocese of Boston require parishes to provide living space for clergy separate from office buildings. Disciples in Mission, the pastoral plan for the Archdiocese, encourages that every consideration be given to encouraging priests to live in common rectories. Given this, St. Luke’s rectory will be used as a residence-only space where our pastor, Fr. Thom, and our parochial vicar, Fr. John, reside.

This also means that our collaborative offices will move to St. Joseph, which will house all staff by the end of this year. Since the existing first floor office space at St. Joseph does not accommodate our team and is more essential space for parish and ministry meetings, the decision was made to convert the 3rd floor of the building between the church and the hall into office space. (Belmont Cooperative Nursery School continues to rent space on the second floor of that building.)

There are several benefits to these changes:

1. The ability to provide a residence-only space for our two priests.
2. The ability for our staff to be in one facility which enhances collaboration and efficiency on our team.
3. The cost is substantially less than building a new rectory; only a portion of the funds from the sale of the rectory are being used to construct the offices. This allows us to have sufficient funds left over for additional capital improvements projects for the St. Joseph facility as required.
4. We have still retained the subdivided lot at 345 Waverley Street for future use.

By the end of this year, we will have transitioned our collaborative offices to St. Joseph. Stay tuned for an announcement about exactly when that will happen! In the meantime, please contact our Finance and Operations manager, Lou Fabrizio (lfabrizio@newroadscatholic.org), with any questions.

As a church, we are in the communications business. We are charged with communicating the most important message ever--the gospel of Jesus Christ. On any given weekend, we communicate in many ways: the homily (which we call the message), the announcements, Kids’ Church, the bulletin, the Web site, the environment of our spaces, interactions with volunteers and staff, and so much more. We want all these communication elements to work together to communicate the good news of God’s love for all people.

Today we want to dig into one area of communication which we do differently from other churches: the announcements. Aside from what is communicated during the celebration of Mass itself, we communicate at the beginning of Mass (something we call “the welcome & announcements”) and at the end of Mass (we call this “the news”). Why do we do announcements this way? And what is “the news” all about?

Welcome & announcements
At the 10:00, 11:30, and 5:30 Masses, before we begin worship, a member of the team welcomes everyone and shares what’s going on and what’s coming up in our community. There are many potential things to share and announce, but we limit these announcements to information that is relevant to many and open to all. Beyond the content of what is actually announced, our overall message in the welcome & announcements is that we’re glad you’re here, we’re excited to be here, and there are exciting things happening here! Ideally the welcome & announcements starts Mass off with excitement and enthusiasm. Mass is a celebration and the gospel is good news--every part of our worship experience should reflect that.

News
The news is what’s communicated at the end of Mass, after the Prayer after Communion, at the 10:00, 11:30, and 5:30 Masses. This includes a welcome to people who don’t normally come to church, the message summary and challenge, and some conversation with Fr. Thom. The news has a few purposes and goals:

1. Our priority as a church is to reach those who have been disconnected from church, and research shows that the number one reason unchurched people don’t come to church is that they don’t feel welcome. So the special welcome to them in the news is a chance to put them at ease, to speak to what their experience might be like, and to tell them that no matter what, our whole community is glad they’re here. And it seems to work. We have newcomers approach us after Mass to say, “Thank you so much for saying that. It really makes me feel that I am welcome and I belong.”
2. The message (the homily) is the primary communication method of the whole worship experience. Given that, we take some time to recap the message and challenge for the week so that people are sent out on mission. The message recap also allows people to hear the message in a voice other than Fr. Thom’s. Oftentimes an idea or concept sinks in better when you’ve heard it from more than one person and in different words.
3. Another goal of the news is to give some visibility to staff. In Catholic culture, there is often the idea that the pastor does it all. Fr. Thom does a lot, to be sure, but the parish is not the pastor alone and seeing other staff regularly (and knowing their name and role) helps to reinforce that there is depth of leadership in our church and that ultimately all of our work is a team effort.
4. The back-and-forth conversation at the end of the news is meant to lend some humanness to the liturgy. People are more likely to put the message into action if they feel it’s approachable and modeled in a way that makes it accessible.

That’s our current thinking about announcements at Mass. We've learned a lot and been inspired by looking at how healthy, growing churches communicate. With that being said, it’s definitely a work in progress! We rehearse the welcome and news every Thursday with an eye toward accomplishing the goals above and improving our communications skills. We know we’ve got room to grow and it’s great to gather weekly to work on it together. What’s coming up? We’ve experimented with an announcements video in the past and plan to take a next step with that in the new year--stay tuned!