New idea, unwelcoming

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amazingcatholic said:
the church can have unwelcoming people.
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Very true. In any sampling of people, and the church can be considered that, there will always be predictable percentages of certain personalities. While some are likely unwilling to be open and friendly, there are others who simply don’t know how and have no idea they come across as unfriendly.
 
I have never heard of Relevant Radio before. Maybe the parish council is as ignorant as I am. Could you explain more about it to those of us on the forum who are as ininformed as I am.
 
Great to want to be an ambassador of that great Catholic radio station. Sometimes I call Catholics who are cradle catholics…boring…And I am a cradle catholic…converts have the gift of zeal and they suffer from 'boring ’ catholics ☺️ Then when a cradle catholic has a conversion or grows deeper in faith and begins to have a deeper relationship with Christ ----my goodness the name calling begins…you are too radical, intolerant, enthusiastic, unreal, get with the program, What did Jesus say about the lukewarm ? Just find Jesus a spittoon. Rev 3:16
"So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. "
But then we are not meant to judge and who knows what went through their minds. If this is a small church you might have a cultural thing going on or small town mentality. But if you really want to be one with Jesus…he was rejected …mocked, misunderstood, lied about and left alone in his walk to his crucifixion …Since its Friday ,in my neck of the woods,…we will all know rejection or even just feeling that way and what a great way to love Jesus and ask him for help, strength and courage when that happens. He gave us his Mother…she will get him through this. Great to have this guy with joyful enthusiasm come home to his big family…we are all just a bunch of sinners and that’s why we need the sacraments and the Our Father prayer…may we all forgive and forgive and…prayers sent his way.
 
warrior18 said:
I presented my Relevant Radio thing to the board of St. [abc] last night and it was uncomfortable, to say the least. Nobody seemed to want to make eye contact with me and people were pretty silent…almost like they saw me as a salesman. I think part of it was because I am not in the “Catholic club”. It felt like it was one clear indication of why the Church is hemorrhaging youth (not welcoming). At least [my instructor] and Father [xyz] liked the idea. I think everybody was at or over fifty years old. One guy said, “So you aren’t from here?”. I would not do that again.

Anyone have any suggestions?
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If your friend is looking for suggestions, I’d suggest that he not make sweeping generalizations about the people of the parish board. He went in and made his pitch and then states as “facts”:
  1. Everyone at the meeting avoided eye contact with him
  2. Everyone at the meeting was silent
  3. Everyone saw him as a “salesman” and disliked him
  4. There is a secret “Catholic Club” at the church, made up of a small, smug group of insiders who works to make sure no-one else gets in
  5. The church is “hemorrhaging” youth, mainly because of the things mentioned above
  6. Everyone was at or over 50 years old, so clearly they’re out of touch, stuck in their old ways, and solid members of the Catholic Club
  7. The spokesman for the group said “So you aren’t from here?” because everyone in the room took an instant dislike to your friend and the spokesman just said exactly what everyone else was thinking
Oh for crying out loud, could he have fit any more sweeping generalizations into one paragraph? Your friend seems awfully self-centered and has certainly made sure he’s the victim of this horrible old group of close-minded Catholic Club members. Maybe he should stop and think that there might be a THOUSAND other reasons for other peoples’ behavior instead of thinking he can read their minds and know exactly what their actions mean and what their motivations are.

The instructor and the pastor seemed to like his idea, and I bet everyone else on the board probably thought “you wanna set up a table in the narthex and become a Relavant Radio ambassador? Great, do it and good luck. Now, let’s finish talking about the $20,000 we need to come up with to replace the water-damaged carpet in the parish school and then we can talk about the condition of the parking lot and then I can finally get out of here and pick up my kid from basketball practice and get home since I’ve been up since 4:30 and worked a 10-hour shift today and I’m exhausted.”

You know, maybe if your friend is very very lucky, he’ll someday be “at or over 50 years old” and will have volunteered to be on the parish board for at least 15 of those years.
 
I think it would be an excellent idea to finish RCIA and actually become part of the parish. Then, after feeling the parishioner out for a time, one could broach the subject of re-invigorating their faith. Participate in parish events and devotions. Fill out the adoration schedule. Look into other ministries.

Then, with a handle on things generally, see what level of interest there is. The 50-70 year age group is a hard sell, and some may indeed be petrified in their faith. They are status quo types - comfortable with whatever their faith life is. They might view the faith as a social club and not actually want to increase their faith. Yet.

Maybe choose to market or promote the radio or other Catholic activity to those his own age - after becoming known and trusted.

A sure way to encounter resistance is to bust in with both guns blazing, so to speak.
 
warrior18 said:
I’m looking for support that the church does indeed have welcoming people. These comments are not helping.
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Asking a parish to be welcoming people as new members of the parish and the Church and asking that the parish council be in a hurry to give responsibility to someone who hasn’t even crossed the Tiber yet are a little bit different.

I can’t say, since I wasn’t there, but it sounds as if they were unfortunately not open enough to look him in the eye during his presentation, hear him out, and then perhaps say, “Thanks for the presentation. I think it is fair to say that’s not a possibility we’re ready to accept or reject. Here is the issue: until you’ve finished your conversion process, we’re hesitant to give you a leadership responsibility in the parish. We’d rather you not hurry into a leadership position, but spend a bit more time in obedience and listening before jumping into heading up projects. Is that something you could see your way to do?”

He should not be so hard on them, though. He did put them on the spot by proposing a leadership position for himself–even a minor one–before coming into full communion. They weren’t so much unwelcoming as unready to deliver a difficult truth in a way that felt gracious to him, since he didn’t realize what he was asking to do.

I’d advise him to be easy on both them and on himself. It was a more difficult situation than anyone realized. Live and learn. He sounds as if he’s generous and enthusiastic, not unlikely to be on a parish council himself some day, so this may turn into a lesson that he’ll be able to use later in his life as a Catholic and a parishioner. Lesson Learned: Take the time to ease people into seeing you as a leader. Give them time to choose you; don’t be in such a rush to take the lead that people feel you are pushing them. But again: he should be easy on himself. This is just a risk that comes with the good quality of being enthusiastic and willing to take responsibility, something few parishes (or organizations) have too much of!!
 
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My personal opinion is that if this person is only halfway through RCIA, I would like to see him complete his RCIA and be an active Catholic for a few years at least before I send him out as an ambassador to or from a communications organ like Relevant Radio.

I appreciate that new converts can get pretty zealous, but it’s reasonable to expect someone to focus on his own personal Catholicism for a while and be stable and rooted in the faith before he starts lecturing longtime Catholics or going out evangelizing people. Part of this is to make sure the person is serious and committed, and part of it is to make sure he has a good formation himself and doesn’t inadvertently make mistakes or leave wrong impressions when talking to others.

For him to want to go be a Relevant Radio ambassador now and then when the board is not thrilled to go on some rant about how the board must be a bunch of ageists prejudiced against youth just sounds like the person is immature, whiny and not even trying to see the other persons’ side. This is not the way to win friends and influence people and someone should tell him that.
 
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My first question is ‘If the priest like the idea, why didn’t the priest just tell him to set up the table’. I fail to see why he needed the church council’s opinion.

Next: Something I now know that I didn’t when I was young ‘People are unreliable’. I can’t count how many committees and boards I was on that had projects fail because people made promises they wouldn’t keep. The question ‘You aren’t from around here’ was VERY appropriate. The people want to make sure he is not some new guy in town that is going to make a lot of promises, get the parish’s hopes up and then leave.

Your friend is new to the faith. I would guess the people on the council have been there for years. They can no longer count the number of ‘new converts on fire’ that came down from their pink could and then left the faith.

My heart bleeds for your friend but he just learned a very important life lesson
 
warrior18 said:
Anyone have any suggestions?
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Well if the people at the parish reacted with the same dismissive attitude as some of the comments on this post have been, I don’t blame your friend for feeling brushed off.

Truth be told, I don’t know how the conversation went or how your friend may have come across to the church leadership council, but I don’t think it’s necessarily helpful to just assume negative aspects aimed solely at your friend for being immature or having the audacity to speak up and offer to do something productive and positive for the parish.

Relevant radio has been around for a several years already, if I’m not mistaken, and they purchased Immaculate heart radio a few years back. The leadership council could’ve easily and respectfully thanked your friend for his idea and maybe could’ve asked questions about what it was, if they didn’t know or maybe even offered to have a senior member run it with him so he’s not overwhelmed while finishing RCIA and trying to implement this ambassador program.

Instead it sounds like he felt most were more concerned with his presumptuous attitude for thinking he could just get up and suggest anything to them. Sad, but if that’s what happened, it’s no wonder many people leave the church after RCIA or don’t want to get involved at their parish.
 
Crusader13 said:
Instead it sounds like he felt most were more concerned with his presumptuous attitude for thinking he could just get up and suggest anything to them. Sad, but if that’s what happened, it’s no wonder many people leave the church after RCIA or don’t want to get involved at their parish.
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Actually we don’t know what else was said. Only that all of the members were “at or over fifty years old.”

Oh, and that, in his opinion, they saw him like a sales person. Which of course, he was. He was trying to sell them on the idea of Relevant Radio with him as their ambassador (representative.)

And yes, he may be “on fire” right now. But maybe he should turn that into learning about the faith, the Church and even about himself.

Then, when he is Catholic and he has shown that he can stick it out at least that long, he can start a new program.
 
Makes me harken back to my corporate days.

We would have annual training/retreat/conferences for the people who did the same job across the (International) corporation. There was always at least one new face who would have all of these suggestions, who would speak as if the rest of us had simply showed up and walked into walls all day long because we were not smart enough to think of “things”. The saying was “you can smell the new MBA on that one”. They would then earn the nickname “Skippy”.

By the next year, last year’s “Skippy” would be sitting at the big kid’s table.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Makes me harken back to my corporate days.

We would have annual training/retreat/conferences for the people who did the same job across the (International) corporation. There was always at least one new face who would have all of these suggestions, who would speak as if the rest of us had simply showed up and walked into walls all day long because we were not smart enough to think of “things”. The saying was “you can smell the new MBA on that one”. They would then earn the nickname “Skippy”.

By the next year, last year’s “Skippy” would be sitting at the big kid’s table.
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…who would speak as if the rest of us had simply showed up and walked into walls all day long because we were not smart enough to think of “things”…

This is an easy mistake for an enthusiastic person to make. They do not realize that the people at the “big kid’s table” were doing “things” but knew how to do them by consensus.
 
I am 78 years old an a cradle Catholic! Those fuddy duddies on the council should be ashamed! And anyone’s who believes someone in RCIA can’t benefit the parish should join the council members in shame.

Tell your friend I for one welcome him and am glad he spoke up.
 
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warrior18 said:
repentant2:
As a recent convert myself, I would never dream of getting up in front of an existing parish to lecture people unless asked to by the Pastor. Seems very pretentious.
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To clarify, it was not lecturing in any sense. He is seeking permission from the parish/priest to be able to have a kiosk with information about Relevant radio in the back of church. There are no fees, no costs. Sometimes, an ambassador could hold host a seminar to learn more about the faith.
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I would think it would be more prudent and beneficial to find someone who has been fully initiated in the Church and preferably well known in the parish to become the Relevant Radio ambassador for his parish. I would suggest that your friend find that someone. At my parish, a lot of older parishioners listen to Relevant Radio. How do I know? They’ve placed Relevant Radio bumper stickers on their vehicles!

So it should be pretty easy for your friend to spot fellow Relevant Radio listeners that attend his church. He should seek them out and ask them if one of them would like to become the Relevant Radio ambassador for their church. At the very least, after your friend has become a fully initiated member of the church, he could organize a group of Relevant Radio listeners from his parish (I’m sure he isn’t be the only one) to make a group presentation to the parish’s pastoral council sometime in the future in regards to Relevant Radio. It would be a lot harder for the Pastoral Council to ignore a group of parishioners compared to a single one of them.
 
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PatK63 said:
I am 78 years old an a cradle Catholic! Those fuddy duddies on the council should be ashamed! And anyone’s who believes someone in RCIA can’t benefit the parish should join the council members in shame.

Tell your friend I for one welcome him and am glad he spoke up.
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You for one, and everyone else here, have no idea what was actually said. But, hey, maybe you have more information than we do. If so, I welcome that information.

Otherwise you, just like the rest of us, are armchair quarterbacking. And for that, it doesn’t matter if you are 78 years old or 8 years old.
 
Mary,
It was reported someone on the council said “ you aren’t from here?” That was enough plus the body language. The attitude was all wrong. We don’t want any new ideas. We have been doing it this way for years!

There is no excuse for anyone making a presentation to the parish council to come away with anything but a feeling of being appreciated for the effort made.
 
It appears that the parish is a farm community. For all you city folks, farm communities tend to be staid; and farmers tend to be out in the fields working - and during the summer, an 8 hour day may be about half the working day. Listening to any radio which takes concentration (in other words, something besides background music) is not going to score, let alone score highly. I am not the least bit surprised that the interest by the “elders” was less than “break the door down and let me at it”. It is not a matter that the radio station may have something to offer; it is that there is no time to accept.

we had a young man from a fundamentalist/evangelical background in RCIA this year, and yes - he was on fire. He wanted to start a chaplet to St. Michael.

All well and good, but people in our parish by and large say devotional prayers privately, not in large or even medium size groups. We do have a rather small group which says the Rosary, but I suspect he would be rebuffed if he were to approach them with the suggestion - and probably part of that would be “you have never participated with us, and you are coming with suggestions of what we should do?”.

As noted, if it amounted to putting up a flyer or a small collection of materials from Relevant Radio, I am not sure why he would need to go to anyone except the priest for permission; and no idea what an “ambassador” would have for any other functions.

I suspect there are activities/groups within the parish in which he could participate, and that might be wise before he charges off with a new activity that he engage with one or more and become familiar with the parishioners - and they with him.
 
The young person, if he or she is going to be the least bit effective in the workplace, needs to learn to deal with skepticism in a constructive way, such as by saying, “I’m actually from Big Town up the road, but I love this community and am considering staying for a few years. Why do you ask? I sense maybe you’re concerned about some aspect of my proposal - I’m very open to discussing and getting your feedback, because you all know this parish really well and I want to understand it too, in order to be most effective.”

Not, “You unwelcoming old fogeys didn’t like my idea. Meanies! This is why young people quit!”
 
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