Parish Dos and Don'ts from Millennials

Status
Not open for further replies.
I might add that instruments are expensive. A lot of people don’t have the money to maintain their own.
  • Signed, DarkLight who would very much like a nice instrument and does not have that much money. Or space.
 
PetraG said:
Back to the topic–I don’t think this is just “millenials,” but rather I think there is an increasing appreciating of doing important things well. The care that is taken reflects how important the thing being done is to the person doing it. There is an increasing awareness that time-wasting is a problem, such that “if it isn’t worth doing well, why were you doing it at all, again?” is raised more often.

Certainly this has to apply to worship! If there is a message for older people, I guess it is that it is a mistake to dismiss younger people as being tolerant of doing things in a sloppy way. That’s sometimes true, but more and more it that attitude is being questioned, but especially by those who want to be spiritually aware. When young people want to be religious, they tend to want to be pointedly dedicated to doing it well. If you aren’t interested in doing it well, they’re going to question whether you really believe or if you’re just doing something out of habit or out of an unexamined sense of duty that doesn’t mean a lot to you.
Click to expand...
I’ve found in general, young adults of ANY generation tend to be more passionate about their endeavors (whatever their endeavors might be) than older adults. So young adults who have become focused on their Catholic faith tend to be more passionate about living their Catholic faith than older Catholics.

I think this is a great thing. It’s God’s way of helping the church to be renewed every generation. Again, I don’t think this is unique to Millennials. Baby Boomers when they were in their 20s had the same passion, but it was the passion of spreading the “Spirit” of Vatican II throughout the world. Which of course demonstrates the possible pitfalls of such unbridled passion — which why this zeal demonstrated by 20-somethings ought to be tempered at times by the wisdom and knowledge of older Catholics.
 
The first choral from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio also has a nice drum sound too.
 
DarkLight said:
I might add that instruments are expensive. A lot of people don’t have the money to maintain their own.
  • Signed, DarkLight who would very much like a nice instrument and does not have that much money. Or space.
Click to expand...
If it’s a piano you’re looking for, look harder.

Almost every week, someone in our city is GIVING away a piano. When people die, often their relatives are trying desperately to get rid of their loved one’s piano!

Sometimes those instruments are ancient wrecks that are actually a condominium for mice, but sometimes, they’re brand new–a relative purchased the instrument for the loved one so that they could play for their own comfort and rehabilitation during their last years.

I am active in a music club in our city, and on a regular basis, at least a half dozen times a year, someone calls to ask if the club would take a piano.

I get an email or phone call every few months from someone asking if I can take in a piano!

And if you shop the vintage shops, often pianos are for sale cheap. Not always–if the piano is a beautiful antique, it will be costly, but it won’t sell, and it will sit there for months and eventually, it’s gone–probably the owner got desperate and dropped it off at a church door!

A lot of churches are going for keyboards now because of the low maintenance. (No tuning, no humidity or temperature restrictions, and it’s portable so it can be taken to a nursing home gig or outside to the parish picnic!) So their old uprights and spinets are sitting unused.

So look around! Call and ask, especially the Evangelical Protestant churches (many of them have abandoned their pianos in favor of P and W bands!)
 
DarkLight said:
My space is small right now, but I will actually keep that in mind!
Click to expand...
If you were in my city, I would invite you over to practice anytime on my piano and organ! My husband works from home, and he’s used to me banging away as I prepare to play for various churches! So he wouldn’t even notice you.
 
I think there’s possibly going to be renewed tension between spiritual people and the demands of modern secular and materialistic society. I think the younger generation is particularly going to resent the chasm between spiritial life and secular life and want greater allowances made to allow people to fulfill the demands of their religious life especially as stressed economic realities make balancing things more and more difficult.

I personally would like to be able to attend Mass daily before work or at least in the evening. For me, one of the only major benefits to urban living is just that there tends to be more Churches around in fairly short distances offering Mass and Reconciliation.
 
Last edited:
Peeps said:
Almost every week, someone in our city is GIVING away a piano. When people die, often their relatives are trying desperately to get rid of their loved one’s piano!
Click to expand...
Indeed. My daughter has been taking lessons, and we just obtained a new piano this way. Her piano teacher’s piano tuner guy is always hearing from people who are giving their pianos away. The one we got was from a lady who moved to an assisted living place and none of her kids wanted it.

It’s a spinet, and it’s probably 50 years old, but it is in great shape. We had the guy come and tune it and he remarked that the only problems with the piano were from lack of use. Many of the internal parts look brand new.

Never did I imagine we’d actually have our own piano. But all it cost us was having the guy move it and tune it for us. That was still cheaper than buying an electronic keyboard.

Now I’m wondering how I can teach myself piano. 😝 I always wanted to learn an instrument but never did.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Now I’m wondering how I can teach myself piano. 😝 I always wanted to learn an instrument but never did.
Click to expand...
Ask your daughter’s piano teacher.

There are methods for teaching adults that help the adult to stick with it and not get discouraged.

My organ teacher uses these methods because they get the adult playing with two hands much faster, and they are able to play actual songs, not just notes and chords.

Music teachers have done a lot of work and research to figure out these methods and write them up for others to use and for college professors to teach the music majors to use when teaching! So find a teacher who has knowledge of how to teach adults.

And have fun! And keep going until you are able to substitute at your parish!
 
Like yourself, I found the article arrogant and insulting, quite frankly. You can tell that generation is used to being catered to.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Now I’m wondering how I can teach myself piano.
Click to expand...
It goes a long way to know what type of songs you want to learn. There might even be some Tutorials to learn from on Youtube. It gets easier when you get familiar with the key note and there are some charts online so you can better understand which key is which.
 
Last edited:
I’m a parish secretary at a large parish. People have no qualms about telling the parish secretary everything they think should be done in the parish 🙂

However, what I have noticed is the 16-35 year old group is really interested in adoration, they really enjoy when anything Latin is part of the Mass (hymns, prayers, etc), they love traditional music, wearing veils on their heads and the are super motivated to invite others to join them when the combination is right.

So many parishes have 50-60 yr old pastors who still feel young but… (and I’m included in the lowest end of that range so it’s not a dig). For some reason, they think the whole protestant thing of coffee bars, praise & worship music and all that is what this age group wants. But they are wrong - they want what’s not of this world. They want the church that has persevered throughout the ages.

We have one parish in a really bad part of town. Anywhere else, it would have 5 daily Mass attendees and maybe 30 on the weekend. A younger priest (late 30s-early 40s) was assigned to the parish and within a year, the place is bursting at the seams. People drive 45 minutes away, past a dozen other parishes, to attend Mass there.

Why? They have a full Latin Mass on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. They have another in English, I guess it’s called Novus Ordo later in the morning, but Communion is at the rail with a Communion paten held by a BOY altar server. It’s beautiful. It’s sacred.

Another church in a similar situation location wise has almost outgrown its location too - boy only altar servers, confession daily at noon, holy music and a holy Mass.

If pastors would consider catering more to God and His reverence and Glory and less on what’s fun, hip, exciting, they’d be surprised at the blessings that would flow over their parish and its parishioners.
 
Some of them give, most of them don’t. From my experience, the biggest regular donations come from 40+ aged parishioners. With the very wealthy, it’s hit or miss - some will weekly give $500 and write a $20,000 check at the end of the year while others give nothing at all. The non givers are the most demanding people too - requesting women’s and men’s groups that they don’t want to organize and then don’t attend, requesting certain types of music, preaching, Mass times, etc. Demand all but don’t contribute with time, talent or treasure. It’s a very weird phenomenon.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top