My parish has been struggling with declining attendance over the past few years.
We have a Pastor now who many people do not “enjoy.” He is a very nice man and very Godly, but he is an academic, and his personality is very dry and his homilies – well, to be frank, they are boring and difficult to understand.
This issue comes up often in social situations, most recently at a Memorial Day BBQ. Many people are worried about the declining attendance and tend to blame our Pastor’s personality as the root of the problem.
I find myself defending him often (I am involved in our parish more than most others and have had more one-on-one interaction with him), but I am also worried. I tell people often, that in the face of declining numbers of priests, we should try to feel fortunate that we have this Godly and intelligent man heading our Parish, and that we should seek to support him and give him the benefit of the doubt.
But in my heart, I totally understand why people don’t want to come. I am an intelligent, college educated person, well-Catechized through 12 years of Catholic school, and raised in a practicing Catholic home, and I WANT to listen and understand his homilies, but 99% of the time, he loses me – I can’t follow him.
I feel bad for our Pastor, as he took the place of an extremely beloved Pastor who passed away. That priest was so charismatic, funny, inspiring, and he was very good with children. This new Pastor is not really any of these things, and he is very awkward with children, you can tell he just doesn’t relate to kids.
What advice do you guys have? How can we as the congregation try to combat the declining attendance (and as a result, declining financial support of the Parish) in the face of this problem?
