Can your church get any better?

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wacky_wonderful

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If you could, what changes would you make in your church?
 
Yep…
  1. It would be bigger with a lot more seating
  2. There would be car parking for more than about a dozen cars
  3. The vestments would all match
  4. There would be ample storage space in the church
  5. The confessionals would have better ventilation
just externals I know but we have way too many folk for our widdle church:)
 
fix the leaky roof, exterminate the rats, clean the stained glass windows properly, i

increase parking,
somehow make people who attend the SRO noon Mass start coming to one of the other 4 Masses when the church is half empty,

get a sound system that works,

hire a music director who would hold auditions for choirs and practice with them weekly,

get rid of lectors who cannot even read simple sentence without garbling them.

burn the Gather hymnals which were donated 10 years ago and buy Adoremus hymnals

Insist everyfamily purchase a St Joseph missal and lose the misallettes

train the ushers

have a volunteer coordinator who actually calls all those who volunteer on stewardship Sunday and helps them find a way to serve, rather than ignoring them and then complaining when we get no help

fire everybody who is now in charge of anything or on parish council, have a big dinner to thank them for their years of service (where they have put an effective lock on new people coming in), “promote” them to the Evangelization team and send them door to door, and recruit all new people for every ministry and PC
 
At my parish, I would
a) move the statues of Mary and Joseph from the back wall
to the front of the church, on each side of the altar.
b) get rid of the ugly modernist tapestry hanging on the wall
behind the altar.
c) have Eucharistic adoration all day every Saturday.
d) replace the extra communion chalices, both of which are made
of crystal glass, with golden chalices.
e) get rid of the OCP missalettes and hymnals, have everyone
bring their own missal to church, and provide Adoremus
hymnals.

Not much, but I would change those things.

Jaypeeto3
 
You’re talking small 'c" right, as in the parish?

1.) Get Father another priest (not a lay pastoral associate, not another secretary or office manager). OK, I pray for vocations, I know there are priests with two or three parishes out there like Early Western circuit riders, but he is working too hard and needs the priestly help. We have about a thousand families. Figuring just on the basis of 65% of those families is two-parent and one-to-two children, and 20% (for a total of 85% of “families”) have 3 or more children- that is a lot of people.
2.) The other priest would allow for the increase of confession hours. Our current pastor is used to covering his hours, so Father Imaginary could perhaps do a weekday afternoon thing, along with opening his own confessional and assisting on Saturday afternoon and Sunday before Masses.
3.) Instead of permanent small groups being the only way to get adult discussion and education, develop an optional program of 4-6 week learning modules. It might not be the same in other parishes, but I think the small group thing is getting cliquish.
4.) Make our parish center more available, particularly to the parish school. It is about ten years old, and in pristine condition, in part because getting to use it is not unlike getting an audience with pope: Possible, but don’t hold your breath while you wait. Kids eat lunch in their classrooms while a fully functioning kitchen with restroom facilities waits across the blacktop. Kids can’t go out to play and burn off energy in bad weather, but there sits a gym during the day with nobody to use it, even though each kid has a special set of gym shoes specifically for said gym.
5.) Make it clear through pastoral announcement and policy to people that just because somebody’s parents were among the founding families of the parish way back 50/80/100 years ago, does not make descendents of any kind (esp. in-laws) keepers of who does what, or even who gets to register in the parish or enroll in the school. Ditto for making contributions to the church or school, as if a contribution gives that person the right to say who else can do what when, even the principal.
6.) Pay the principal more. That person richly deserves it, and has done a wonderful job with very little.
7.) Get an endowment for the school’s computer hardware.
8.) And have money, priests and good people rain out of the sky.😉
 
  1. No more of the 3/4 “In the round” seating…although our parish is kind of big, so we don’t really fit in the old Church.
  2. Tabernacle at the center of the sanctuary, rather than off to the side. The priest can sit off to the side. He’s not the center of attention.
  3. Crucifix over the altar. Right now we have a “Touchdown Jesus.”
  4. Bring back the old altar. We have a perfectly good altar in the basement that actually resembles an altar. Our current altar resembles a very tall kitchen table.
  5. Find a cantor whose voice isn’t four octaves higher than the normal range tolerable by human ears and who doesn’t think she’s performing at the Met.
  6. New hymnals. Right now we have “Gather” and “Journeysongs,” which may as well be called “Haugen’s Greatest Hits.” Some of the most atrocious liturgical music you’ll ever hear (although to be fair, we have a rather good choir and a great organist).
  7. Cassocks and Surplices for our Altar Boys. Currently they wear albs with liturgically colored cinctures.
  8. No more female Altar Boys. Something like 3/4 of our Altar Boys are girls (although to be fair again, there aren’t that many of the Altar Boy age in our Church, male or female, so we kind of take what we can get. Although nothing says we can’t have older acolytes…hmm…do I sense a suggestion for Father?)
  9. Get the Monstrance out of the closet, get the CCD classes out of the old Church and start Adoration. There is ample space in the Parish Hall for the CCD classes, as they’re small anyway. It breaks my heart to see this beautiful Church have its former glory forgotten.
  10. Bring back the confessional. I don’t know what happened to the one that used to be there, but we need to bring it back.
  11. Weed out the heterodox books from our parish library. I’ve found a book advocating women’s ordination (without Imprimatur; no surprise) and an NIV Bible while digging through. There are bound to be others as well (although to be fair yet again, there are a great number of really good books, like a nice 60’s Confraternity Version that I absolutely love…I use it for our Bible Study group because my DR/Confraternity isn’t well enough to travel–if anyone knows a good source for rebinding, please PM me…there are also a bunch of good devotional type books)
  12. Art preservation. This may be costly, but we could possibly talk to the Historical Society. We have a gorgeous painting of the Blessed Virgin, probably done in the 1920s or before–and it hangs in the lobby of the Church, right in front of a window, exposed to direct sunlight about half the day. We also have the Stations of the Cross painted on canvas from about the same time. These are set into the walls of the old Church, but could more than likely be removed for cleaning, etc. and then replaced with more of a mind for preserving them–although the old Church doesn’t have the direct sunlight problems that the newer part of the building does because of the stained glass.
  13. More art in the new Church. Touchdown Jesus, Joseph and Mary off to one side, and white walls. That’s all we get to see, save for the tabernacle. The design of the Church does not permit much stained glass, as it’s a very modern design (it wasn’t even intended to be a church…it was built as a social hall). We have a quilt on the wall that the parish made for the 150th anniversary, but this isn’t really what I would suppose belongs in the actual worship space.
Sorry if I sound a tad demanding, but our Church is still suffering from the effects of a rather liberal priest (about three or four priests ago). We visted Belmont Abbey College over the weekend, and aside from the rather strange cross/risen Christ over the altar, the Abbey Basillica was a real breath of fresh air. I haven’t heard the sound of kneelers hitting the floor in something like 13 years.

-ACEGC
 
I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t mean to say that to sound “uppity” but I really can’t think of a thing.
 
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edward_george:
…5. Find a cantor whose voice isn’t four octaves higher than the normal range tolerable by human ears and who doesn’t think she’s performing at the Met.
  1. New hymnals. Right now we have “Gather” and “Journeysongs,” which may as well be called “Haugen’s Greatest Hits.” Some of the most atrocious liturgical music you’ll ever hear (although to be fair, we have a rather good choir and a great organist).
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I should like to add these to my “list”. And confine the modern “ensemble” to their Mass, and let the rest of the Masses utilize the talents of the “schola”.
 
I’d make the priest announce after “The Mass has ended…” to remind everyone not to talk until they leave the building. Some of us like to stay and pray!

Which reminds me. I need to email my parish. 🙂
 
My parish is about as orthodox and about as far from the false “spirit of VII” as they come but the one change I would like to see is mass celebrated ad orientem. A few years ago our parish tried that and the bishop smacked them down hard.
 
A new pastor. This time one that is not a foul-up.

Follow the GIRM and Redemptionis Sacramentum.

Re-paint the inside of our church so it does not look like a faddish, Martha Stewart project.

Disband the “Liturgy Committee.”

Introduce Adoremus Hymnals, and stop buying new versions of garbage eah year.

Eliminate the use of female altar servers.

Cut 90% of the EMsHC

Fire all those with useless jobs/titles (even if they are volunteers.)

Fire 25% of the “music ministry” members.

Re-introduce the use of sanctus bells.

Build an entire new parish in this city to relieve over-crowding at the existing two parishes.
 
Paris Blues:
Yes, the inside ***should ***be beautiful like this one (but it ain’t):

But then, I’m being picky!:rolleyes: Reality is, I LOVE BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES!
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Me too.
 
wacky&wonderful:
If you could, what changes would you make in your church?
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Have the Tabernacle in a place where it is actually visibe and not hidden away in a side room with no where to sit or kneel for adoration.

Instead of having the piano and the other instruments almost directly in front of the altar at least move them off to the side somewere.

Move the presiders chair from directly behind the altar and under the Crucifix, it is a large hanging one, and place it over to the side. When the Priest sits in the chair to an untrained and unknowing eye, it liiks like a throne and that we are actually paying homage to the priest.

Replace the stained glass windows, which are just jumbles of color now with biblical scenes. I know, I’m old fashioned, what can I say.

Other than that the church is OK architecturally
 
Paris Blues:
This your Church?:ehh:
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Hey Paris Blues! I think I know you from another message board.

I think it looks like a picture I saw once of the Cathedral in Los Angeles, but I could be wrong. Sure, it’s not baroquely ornate, but in that 2nd picture it looked like a lofty, open, simple prayerful space. I honestly think I’d prefer that over the picture of the place with all the paintings, moldings, and bows on the pews (I find it more distracting, actually. All that stuff dwarfs the altar!)
 
Other than adding incense, the only thing I’d change is the stained glass. My church has a great mosiac/iconic Jesus in front in a very Celtic style, which suits it as a shrine to St Patrick. ( The other church I go to infrequently also has “Touchdown Jesus” that someone else mentioned. ) The whole church has a very Celtic feel to it, but the stained glass is very abstracty-modern art. It’s one of the reasons I like vigil mass. In the evening Mass, you can’t tell it’s modern. Oh, I also agree with the choir leader singing like she at the Met. Ours is actually a retired opera singer.

SAHmommy
 
  1. More Latin. My parish is very weary of it.
  2. More Gregorian Chant, less Kumbaya.
  3. Processions, incense, and grand hymns.
  4. Vestments that actually look like vestments, not sackcloth.
  5. A back altar, complete with tabernacle on it. Genuflection making a comeback. No talking in church.
  6. Altar servers wearing black cassocks and white surpluses.
  7. No more “Women participating in Holy Thurday’s foot wash” arguments.
  8. More Marian devotion. We seem to be so ashamed of the Blessed Mother!
  9. Incense again. You can never have too much of it.
  10. No liturgical experimentation or “winging it,” Father. Just do the mass in a normal, traditional manner.
 
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