Relocating -- how do we choose a new Church?

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My family will be moving to a diiferent part of the country in a few months. Naturally, we will need to find a Church home in the new place. The city we will be moving to has four Catholic parishes, plus the one on the base and several in nearby small towns.

I would like to have an idea of which parish we want to join before we get there, so we don’t spend time parish-hopping. I could start a conversation by mail, email, or phone with these parishes to find out about them, but am unsure of all the questions to ask. So what are the things you would like to know about a parish before you decide to join it?

Also, I know that you can tell a lot by the things that people omit from the conversation. What topics would you specifically question if the other party doesn’t bring it up?

Thank in advance.
 
When we moved, I made an Excel spreadsheet of the things we wanted in a parish. It came to about 10 things in all, columns B through K. In column A, I typed the parishes in the area. I printed out the sheet.

We then went to Mass at the different parishes. The one where we are parishoners hit 9.5 out of 10 points at the time. The next one only hit 8.
 
Call each of the churches and ask to speak to the priest. If he’s not available, try talking to the church secretary or the deacon and find out if the guy is fluent in English. I cannot tell you how bad it is getting here where I live. The priest shortage is so bad that I heard this morning at church that we will have a new assoc. pastor coming from a foreign country and he knows very little English and understands less. We were told to speak very slowly and clearly so that he can understand.

Good luck.**
 
Calling might tell you something, but in my experience, you really need to go to Mass at all the parishes and see which one “feels” right. Seeing how the Mass is celebrated will tell you a lot about the parish.

Websites can be deceiving, because they are often very, very old. Also, the character of the website will mostly reflect the character of the person who designed it.
 
I would see if ministries that are important to your family are even listed on the website or mentioned as active by whomever you talk with. I agree that it will be hard to choose a parish without seeing it in person. Once you get to a city you can ask actual people who may have been to the various places.

I drove across a large metro for a couple of years before I could transfer offices to move closer to my parish of choice. However, quite often when I mentioned the name of the parish to other Catholics in my part of the state, they had very favorable comments about the parish. The opposite was true about another nearby parish which shall not be named. My parish has many, many families who could not stand to continue worshiping at the other location due to strange liturgical problems, etc.
 
I recently moved about an hour away from my beloved home Parish. Before I moved, I checked the websites of the 4 Churches in my new neighborhood. However, I found reading the bulletins the most helpful. There are certain items one can find in the bulletins that will give an indication of the Parish’s character. I was very dismayed by most of them, I hate to report. And after visiting them all, I am even more distressed. I would suggest reading the bulletins on the websites but visits to Sunday Mass are the most revealing. I wish you the very best of luck.
 
I once walked into a church I hadn’t been to before and knew I was home. I was not really aware of the difference that iconography, architecture, etc makes so if I were looking for a chuch now I would probably overlook that same church. It had more ministries, including prayer groups and bible studies, than any church I’d been to so there was something for everyone.

Also, don’t go on what one or two people say about the church; one person’s “orthodox” is another person’s “happy clappy”. The tricky part is figuring out which Mass to go to. Those can have as many “personalities” as parishes do.

I think if I were going to ask questions I would find out if have devotions: Adoration, Divine Mercy. And what about bible studies, adult RE. If they don’t, how open to having these things are they. That can be tough to guage. If you are truly available to do it. you could ask, “what if you had someone organizing it, would you be willing then?”

See what the Youth Groups are up too. If all you see is ski trips it could be a problem. If you see ski trips and Stuebenville find out the ratio of attendees. Do they get as many takers for retreats as fun trips? The closer the ratio the better.

I like the spreadsheet that OutinChgoburbs mentioned. Very organized and I can see a friend of mine doing that. I typically go with my gut.
 
I WOULD go parish hopping for a while. Why not? In my opinion you can only really get to know a parish by going to Mass there. Maybe try out some of the daily Masses as well… grab a bulletin from each one, find out the websites…
But most importantly, get to know the people and the priests…

Good luck on your upcoming move!
 
Visit the Parishes, not just for Mass - sit in on the CCD class and on RCIA. A website is not a good indicator, heck, my wonderful Parish does not HAVE a website.

2 good indicators, do they pray the Rosary befor Mass and do they have perpetual Adoation?
 
we attended Masses at the 4-5 surrounding parishes, varying the time of the Masses (huge difference between 5pm Sat youth Mass, 9 am old folk’s Mass, and noon children’s Mass, for instance). we did this for a year and the parish we had planned to join did not make the cut. we read bulletins to see what kind of activities were going on, talked to DREs to find out how PSR was taught, asked about volunteer opportunities, esp. listened to homilies and looked at the reverence of the Mass. We discarded parishes that had no hours of adoration at all, or very rarely (it is more common now than it was back in the 80s, when the custom was just starting to be revived). We did judge on music too as that seems part of the commitment to good liturgy (two that had missalettes featuring mostly songs verging on heresy were scratched).

we also looked at the demeanor of the members of the congregation–welcoming, attentive at Mass, children behaving or at least learning to behave, lots of families with children, lots of youth attending, good vibrant youth program (our kids were in HS - Jr Hi at the time), solid confirmation program for DD.

we ended up in the parish we did because a neighbor invited us to come with her and become active in various ways. no one at the other parishes spoke to us in the year we attended at least 2 masses a month there.

DH was trying to find a parish that already had a new church and no debt, because we always manage to register the week before a new capital campaign is announced. Well, they started raising money for a new parish hall/ccd building 3 months later. Oh well.
 
Thanks for the ideas.

I’ve already pretty much eliminated the parish that has Mass only in Spanish and the parish that speaks only Viet Namese because we don’t speak either of those languages. I would love to visit them, of course. That would be a wonderful experience of the catholic nature of the Catholic Church.

One of the other parishes actually has their bulletins available online, so I can start checking that out before we go.

I really like the idea of noticing which parishes offer which devotions. Adoration on a regular basis would be a plus. The parish we currently attend says Rosary before Mass, but I don’t like that. I prefer to be able to say my own prayers to prepare for the upcoming feast. Almost everyone also stays behind after Mass to pray. We were members here for five years before I found out the practice of saying three Hail Mary’s after Mass for the next person in the parish to die; we never did that growing up.

A spreadsheet, or at least a checklist, sounds like a great way to organize the things we are looking for. If you don’t mind sharing, what would be some of the items on your checklist?
 
Loren,
If you (or your spouse) are in the military, you may want to remember that it is much easier to get sacramental records for your family from the Archdiocese of the military than from individual parishes where you are stationed. When my oldest was going through First Eucharist, it was easy to get his baptismal records from them than try to hunt down which parish we had each of the kids baptized in. One email and they sent all my kids sacramental records to my new parish that I joined after leaving the military… Just something to think about.
 
It was mostly stuff mentioned here already:
  • Eucharistic adoration: How often and when?
  • Is sacramental catechesis “jump through the hoops and let’s see what else we can find to stop you” or real catechesis? EXAMPLE: One parish had baptismal catechesis for parents that ran for a month on four different nights. Godparents were expected to attend, as well. This was the same for the first baby, or the tenth baby in the same family- no shorter refresher course for those who stayed on in the parish for the next children.
  • Rosary? St. Jude? St. Peregrine? Benediction? Vespers?
  • What are Mass times for Sunday/ Saturday vigil? Go to each of them on different days, unless the parish is so not your style that you run screaming at the first Mass you attend.
  • Is there daily Mass? What time? EXAMPLE:* I like daily Mass, but when I was working for an enterprise, I couldn’t take off at Noon to go to Mass.*
  • Parish school? How funded? Real Catholic or Catholic in name only? What’s the religion program and how is it implemented? How often are the children given the opportunity to go to Mass/ Confession/ Adoration/ Rosary? Do the children take part in walking the walk through charitable activities?
  • Is the parish at least trying to fall into a stewardship pattern, or is it a constant beg-a-thon? Are they too nosey about a family’s money? EXAMPLES:* In one parish that did interest us, they would not allow a family to simply register. The family had to attend two sessions, only offered each one evening per month. In the first session, all the ministries in the parish presented their goals and activities. The parish school was trotted out and examined. In the second session, the family was expected, in addition to bringing their completed registration forms, to tell what they would do for the parish- along with bringing proof of income so they could be told how much they were going to contribute. I have also been told by a priest at another parish that when I came to register, I should bring along my checkbook, so he could check the balance and see how much we could afford to contribute. And yes, I did call the diocese on that guy. *
You will know how much weight one thing has with your family, and how much weight another has. And you wil lthink up other things to add, I’m sure.
 
Loren_1of6 said:
My family will be moving to a diiferent part of the country in a few months. Naturally, we will need to find a Church home in the new place. The city we will be moving to has four Catholic parishes, plus the one on the base and several in nearby small towns.

I would like to have an idea of which parish we want to join before we get there, so we don’t spend time parish-hopping. I could start a conversation by mail, email, or phone with these parishes to find out about them, but am unsure of all the questions to ask. So what are the things you would like to know about a parish before you decide to join it?

Also, I know that you can tell a lot by the things that people omit from the conversation. What topics would you specifically question if the other party doesn’t bring it up?

Thank in advance.
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I wish you well! I, too, am moving in a few months to the south…and what my husband and I have been doing is looking at the community website…and locating churches near to where we are considering moving. What did we do before the internet?:confused: 🙂

The strange thing…or maybe it’s not strange, I dunno…there is only one Catholic church in the area we are moving…the rest are Baptist. I know that the south typically has more Baptists than Catholics, but with the influx of people moving to Florida each year…I would have thought there’d be more Catholics. I visited there last month, house hunting, etc…and this Catholic church is HUGE. I just hope there’s ‘room’ for my daughter to be an altar server…she is devoted to that within our parish…and there’s ‘room’ for me to be an EEM. I come from a smaller parish…I was hoping to find a smaller one, but looks like this is the only one for miles.

My advice to you is to check out those in the surrounding area online…or send away for the community newsletter. I hope things go well for you!🙂
 
I recommend going to the parish closest to your house.

If it does not meet all of your expectations as the ideal place to worship, be thankful for another day where you are still on earth and do your darndest to make it better.
 
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