Divine Renovation: An Interview with Fr Mallon Part 1
Summary
TLDRPeter Herbeck from Renewal Ministries interviews Father James Mallon, the pastor of St. Benedict's Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They discuss the transformation of parishes from maintenance-focused to mission-oriented, emphasizing the need for a new model that combines theology with actionable steps. Father Mallon shares insights from his book, 'Divine Renovation,' detailing his journey in revitalizing his parish by embracing a missionary identity, fostering personal encounters with Jesus, and utilizing evangelistic tools like Alpha to create cultural shifts within the church.
Takeaways
- 📚 Father James Mallon authored the book 'Divine Renovation: Bringing your parish from maintenance to mission,' focusing on transforming parishes from maintenance-focused to mission-driven.
- 🏠 St. Benedict's parish in Halifax is a model of a dynamic, missionary parish that embraces the new evangelization.
- ⚖️ The book 'Divine Renovation' is about 50% theology and 50% practical models, aiming to bridge the gap between strong theological foundations and effective pastoral practice.
- 🔄 The primary challenge Father Mallon identifies is the need for a shift from a maintenance mindset to a mission-oriented approach in parishes.
- 🛠️ He emphasizes the importance of having both a solid theological foundation and a practical model for parish renewal.
- 🧩 A key issue in many parishes is an identity crisis, where the true missionary nature of the Church is often forgotten.
- 🚀 Father Mallon advocates for a cultural shift within parishes, where making disciples and equipping them for ministry becomes the central focus.
- 🌍 The Great Commission, particularly the task to 'make disciples,' is highlighted as the primary mission of the Church.
- 💬 He stresses that evangelization should lead to the creation of disciples who are then transformed into apostles or missionary disciples.
- 🔥 Vision and passion are crucial for parish leaders, and Father Mallon believes that understanding the Church's missionary identity is the first step towards effective parish renewal.
Q & A
Who is being interviewed in the transcript, and what is his role?
-Father James Mallon, the pastor of St. Benedict's Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is being interviewed.
What is the main topic of the interview?
-The interview focuses on Father James Mallon's book, 'Divine Renovation: Bringing Your Parish from Maintenance to Mission,' and the concept of transforming a parish to be more mission-focused.
What is the fundamental problem in the Church, according to Father Mallon?
-Father Mallon believes that the fundamental problem in the Church is an identity crisis, where the Church has forgotten its missionary nature.
What does Father Mallon mean by 'maintenance to mission'?
-'Maintenance to mission' refers to shifting a parish's focus from merely maintaining the status quo to actively engaging in evangelization and making disciples.
What does Father Mallon identify as the main task of the Church?
-The main task of the Church, according to Father Mallon, is to make disciples, as emphasized in the Great Commission.
What challenges does Father Mallon mention about changing a parish's culture?
-Father Mallon discusses the challenge of pushback when introducing changes, as many parishioners resist altering the status quo despite agreeing on the need for improvement.
What tool has St. Benedict's Parish used as their primary evangelistic tool?
-St. Benedict's Parish has used Alpha as their primary evangelistic tool to introduce people to the person of Jesus.
How does Father Mallon describe the role of vision in leading a parish?
-Father Mallon describes vision as a view of the future that generates passion. A leader must have a clear, exciting vision to effectively lead a parish.
What does Father Mallon say about the connection between identity and mission?
-Father Mallon states that understanding the Church's identity as missionary is crucial to defining its mission and that knowing who we are helps determine where we need to go.
How does Father Mallon view the relationship between making disciples and transforming a parish?
-Father Mallon believes that making disciples is essential for transforming a parish's culture. As more people encounter Jesus and become disciples, the parish culture begins to shift towards mission.
Outlines
📚 Introduction and Overview of Father James Mallon's Work
Peter Herbeck introduces Father James Mallon, a pastor known for his dynamic work at St. Benedict's Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Father James authored the book 'Divine Renovation: Bringing Your Parish from Maintenance to Mission,' which is the focus of the interview. The conversation explores the motivations behind the book, stemming from Father James' experiences and challenges as a parish priest. He discusses the need for a model of a renewed parish, emphasizing the importance of combining theology with practical application. Father James reflects on his journey towards creating a vibrant, mission-focused parish and the ongoing challenges they face in achieving their goals.
🔍 The Great Commission and the Church's True Mission
Father James discusses the Great Commission's role in shaping the Church's mission. He explains that while parishes excel in 'going,' 'baptizing,' and 'teaching,' they often fall short in 'making disciples,' which is the core of the Commission. A disciple, according to Father James, is someone who has encountered Jesus and chosen to follow Him. The conversation highlights the Church's need to shift from a maintenance mindset to one focused on evangelization and discipleship, with an emphasis on creating missionary disciples who actively engage with their faith and the broader world.
⚙️ Implementing Change at St. Benedict's Parish
Father James recounts the challenges he faced when he first arrived at St. Benedict's Parish, which had recently undergone significant structural changes. Despite the congregation's hope for stability, Father James introduced a vision for a deeper transformation, emphasizing the need to move beyond simply maintaining the parish to actively reversing decline through mission-oriented activities. He discusses the resistance to change that often arises when parishes attempt to shift focus from inward maintenance to outward mission, revealing underlying issues in the Church's identity and purpose.
🎯 The Importance of Vision and Identity in Parish Renewal
Father James reflects on the critical role of vision and identity in leading a parish towards renewal. He emphasizes that a clear sense of purpose and direction is essential for any leader who wants to inspire and guide their community. This vision must be deeply rooted in the parish's identity, which in turn dictates the direction of its mission. Father James shares that understanding who they are as a Church allows them to evaluate what a healthy parish should look like and where it should be headed, setting the foundation for future growth and transformation.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Divine Renovation
💡Missionary Church
💡Identity Crisis
💡Great Commission
💡Discipleship
💡Evangelization
💡Cultural Shift
💡Alpha Program
💡Lay Involvement
💡Vision Casting
Highlights
Father James Mallon discusses the importance of shifting from a maintenance-focused parish to a mission-focused one, emphasizing the need for a renewed model of parish life.
The book 'Divine Renovation: Bringing Your Parish from Maintenance to Mission' is a blend of 50% theology and 50% practical model, aiming to help parishes live out their mission more effectively.
Father Mallon shares his personal struggle with the lack of a renewed parish model, which led him to explore and implement changes at St. Benedict's parish.
The fundamental problem within the Church is identified as an identity crisis, where the Church has forgotten its missionary nature.
Father Mallon emphasizes that the Church doesn't just have a mission; it is mission, reflecting the core of its apostolic identity.
A key focus of the mission is to make disciples, not just to baptize and teach, as per the Great Commission.
Father Mallon highlights the need for parishes to be outward-focused, reaching the unchurched and not just serving those in the pews.
Father Mallon stresses that evangelization is complete when a person becomes a disciple, and further, a disciple must become a missionary.
Pope Francis's concept of a 'missionary disciple' is highlighted as central to the identity of every baptized Catholic.
The initial resistance to change in parishes is discussed, where people often desire a more dynamic Church but resist the personal changes required to achieve it.
Father Mallon recounts the challenges of inheriting a newly consolidated parish and the need to move beyond cosmetic changes to deep, mission-driven transformation.
The importance of a clear vision for parish renewal is emphasized, with the role of the pastor being crucial in casting this vision.
The use of Alpha as a primary evangelistic tool in St. Benedict's parish is cited as a key method for introducing people to Jesus and fostering personal encounters with Him.
Father Mallon explains that a cultural shift within the parish is necessary to make living the faith in a mission-focused way the norm.
Testimonies and personal stories are used within the parish to normalize the idea that Jesus changes lives, fostering a culture of evangelization.
Father Mallon describes the process of gaining momentum for change in the parish as more people come to know Jesus personally, leading to a critical mass of transformation.
Transcripts
Welcome! My name is Peter Herbeck. I'm here from Renewal Ministries and I have got
the great pleasure to be able to bring to you an interview I've wanted to do for a long time with
Father James Mallon. Father James is the pastor of St. Benedict's parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia
a very dynamic parish, I think, a new Pentecost, new evangelization, kind of parish that really
is living that call and Father is the author of a book I think is very very important and the
reason mainly we're doing this, called Divine Renovation: Bringing your parish from maintenance to mission.
Divine Renovation: Bringing your parish from maintenance to mission
Now this is the older cover behind us is going to be the new cover.
but you know in this series of shows we're going to do, we're going to do five 15-minute programs
that are dealing with five key themes from the book that you put your finger on
that you'd like to communicate that's really what I want to do is draw out of you what's in here for our listeners
and so I want to ask first, why did you write the book?
Well I think it really comes out of my own passion as a parish priest
I've been a parish priest for about 15 years, been a priest for 18 years, and just really struggling
with the with the lack of a model of a renewed parish. You know we have a amazing theology but often,
to truly live out the faith, most Catholics have to go to the movements to find
discipleship, authentic community, evangelization.
Often perishes our centres of, well, I hate to say, but often mediocrity and minimalism.
You know? In my own life, when I was young, when I first came alive in my faith,
I basically went to my parish to receive communion, that was about it. Everything else I found outside.
And I've always been haunted by that sense of: Why is it like this? It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be this way.
And so for most of my ministry life I've been
looking outwards, looking at other churches, trying to learn from other churches, implementing things,
making my own set of mistakes, and I think I'm always convinced we need to have a theology and a model for everything you do.
often we have great theology but no model and sometimes we have models that don't have a good theology
so you need both and the book basically is about 50% theology and 50% proposing a model
and right now, we're trying to live this out in my present parish, St. Benedict Parish,
I don't think we're there yet, we're the journey from maintenance to mission.
It's amazing what God has done and it's incredibly exciting and it's just, I feel like I've got to pinch myself.
But I'm still well aware that we've got a ways to go. We're not perfect by far.
We continue often to learn by the mistakes we make
I think one of the reasons I'm so excited about it is I had the privilege of visiting your parish a couple of times actually.
I was engaged in a parish mission there and I was, I'm deeply impressed from how you've gone from
point A to point B, from point B to point C. You've got a huge engagement of lay people up and down
and this stuff is really happening. It's like a real sign of hope and I know at the beginning of
this series I know one things we want to touch on was the the problem the fundamental issue of
identity. Why don't you share with us what you think about it. I think there's a lot of evaluations that talk about different
crises within the church and my own conviction is that the number one crisis is an identity crisis
because it's not simply about, you know, best practices or what we should do.
What we do is always rooted in our sense of who we are, even in the Ministry of Jesus, you know, the key turning
points in his ministry both in his beginning of his public ministry the Transfiguration were
moments where he had his identity affirmed you know within his human nature so it's it's we
I think the fundamental problem is an identity crisis we've forgotten who we are. See we
are a Missionary Church that's the original meaning of apostolic we were a Missionary
Church we don't we don't have a mission we are mission it's not so much that the Church
of Jesus Christ as a mission is that the mission of Jesus Christ has a church we are missionary by
nature but oftentimes if we look at what we do in parishes we get the sense that well mission, that is, "to go"
because the word "missio" means to go, is something that we might eventually
get to at some point we we kind of know we're supposed to do that but we might eventually get
get to it so rather than be missionary often in our parishes we become maintenance focused and
that is that we're content to maintain the flock and that sometimes our best parishes
they're maintaining the flock in and that's no easy thing by the way to maintain the flock is a very challenging thing.
In a broad way it's part of the church's evangelistic mission and the broad term
how people understand that oftentimes is the church's overall mission but there's something
more precise when you talk about mission what you mean by that. Well it means I think you know going back
to the Great Commission you know like how do we how do we find out what's it all about what's
the purpose and and this often will cut through a lot of the conversations we have you know to have
a clear purpose and someone once said that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing but
what is the main thing because in in the life of a parish there can be so many things going on so
much busyness so many requests for time and energy and events and and with we've only got limited
energy and time and the question is what is the main thing are we so lost in busyness that we've
forgotten the main thing? Well I believe we just simply have to turn to the Great Commission and
you see the Great Commission four tasks does the task to "go", to "make", to "baptize", and to "teach" and
as in with any sentence there's always a finite verb which is the the grammatical center of any
sentence and in with the Great Commission in the original language the three of the verbs are
participles so they're in a sense conditional on the finite verb and so arguably one of these tasks
to go make baptized and teach is the heart the grammatical heart of the sentence and therefore I
think the theological heart and it's it's the it's the verb "to make" actually in the original language
make disciples this is a word in Greek we don't have one word in in in English or Latin but it's
"make disciples" and so Jesus basically says, "go make disciples and and baptize them and teach them"
but what are we do if you look at what we do we're often we've been good at "going" we're very good at
"baptizing" we're good at sacraments and liturgy and we're fairly good at "teaching" we have catechetical programs
but our frustrations in ministry we get frustrated because in spite of our going or
baptized or teaching we haven't made disciples and what is what is a disciple a disciple who is
one who has who has encountered the Lord who has grown in that personal relationship with
the Lord who's made a decision to follow him to surrender his or her life to him and has within
that person there's been awakened a hunger and a desire because if you don't care you don't care
that you don't know and often we in the Church will attack a problem of people not caring as if
it's just a question of them not knowing so we we say here, learn this information we we
use catechesis where we should be we should be seeking to evangelize people and so,
I really believe evangelization is complete when a person has become a disciple but then the disciple
must become an apostle it's not enough to make a disciple decide the word disciple means someone
who who learns but the disciple must become an apostle or a missionary and as one of the terms
Pope Francis uses is a missionary disciple. Yeah, he actually says he underlines that a number time
he said I'm not just saying disciple you are a missionary disciple and then he says at another
point in Evangelii Gaudium he said, "I am a mission in this world that's why I exist" and
he said, every baptized Catholic every Catholic has to come to the point where they're
literally converted, have a new way of thinking about themselves that I'm literally I exist for
mission for the mission to the king And so this is the central this is the main thing that we've
got to keep the main thing and that we've got to make disciples and and then equip them bring them
to maturity and while we're doing that equip them for ministry so they can live out their mission
within the world that's the primary task of the church and that means not just reaching people
in the pews it's not just you know you know Jesus didn't say go and be disciples he said go and make
disciples and he didn't say go make disciples of people who are in your pews he said go to
all nations and make disciples so we've got to be outward focused to reach the unchurched and
I think that when we realize that truly accept the fact that this is our fundamental identity and if
we live by that identity is going to change a lot of things within a parish.
And how did you... when you first started at St. Benedict's what was the condition of the church you were facing
and how did you begin to implement this? Well I inherited a church that had gone through a great
change because our previous bishop had seen the need for for changing the infrastructure of our
diocese and he had said in different regions okay in this pair in this area we need one parish but
he let the local parishes decide what they were going to do with their buildings and so in this
one particular area under the leadership of the previous pastor there was a decision made
to close and sell the three buildings which were all like half a mile or a mile away from from each
each other and to consolidate these route those resources and and to have one church building and
so that was a very difficult process and within two and a half months of the new building being
opened I arrived as pastor before the first ministry year began and people were breathing this
great sigh of relief they were thinking oh finally all the change is over thanks thanks be to God no
more change and I arrived and basically said well guess what the change thus far has been cosmetic
as difficult as it's been it's been cosmetic because I said what's to stop the decline that
has necessitated the amalgamation closure of our churches from continuing to undermine what we're
doing if all we do is come into this building and do everything the same as we've always done before.
Because we've been basically managing decline we've been maintaining and it's declining and
we have no way of turning the tide as it were we just keep shrinking and creating different
situations because of that steady decline. That's right and so it was basically about coming in
and presenting a vision for something different you know like naming the the challenge the issue
without you know demoralizing people or without blaming the people in the past because you know
blaming put pointing the finger is never that great and there's always three fingers pointing
back at ourselves when you point one you know the point is that I don't think anyone could have
could have guessed about the kind of accelerated social change in the last 50 years and the fact
that in all and all avenues of life human beings we generally stick to what we know we stick to the
methods of the past we we we're like we go forward to like when you row a boat you go forward while
you're looking backwards and and it's the same in the church and still to this day in spite of
these massive changes for the most part in our parishes we still employ pastoral models that are
based on the presumptions of 50 years ago and of course there's been a incredible paradigm
shift if you if you will and so I came into the parish trying to identify these things and try to
awaken in a kind of a desire for within people to change here's the challenge if you present if you
ask people do you want a church this missionary that's helped reverses yeah yes your father want
to church this more loving want to churches more welcoming more joyful that's able to reach out
to the poor a church that is evangelizing seeing life transformed everyone
wants the change but no one wants to change and as soon as you begin to change something that's
when the proverbial fan will hit the wall because people say well wait a minute wait a minute and
that's where we have revealed to us one of the primary problems with the church is that it rather
than being a church that is outward focused and exists for the sake of the other our communities
are often revealed to be kind of social clubs where all of this is really about me and it's
for me and you know I love your idea of change but but don't inconvenience me don't challenge me and
and so whenever you clarify purpose when you if a parish is able to regain its sense of identity and
succeed in making the main thing the main thing it will mean actually beginning to change things
and and that will eventually introduce pushback. Yeah and I think from your experience and
having spoken with you and just written the book that the change didn't come just because you were
so persuasive about change that the change agent is bringing people to encounter Jesus in a new way.
Say a little bit more about that we just got a few minutes left in this segment I think
that's that's where identity comes from that's the key. There's no other other way this is how
a disciple is made is by encountering Jesus, coming into relationship with Jesus, and making a decision
to be his his disciple. I think all of that needs to happen and the more that that happens the more
it grows within a parish and what we're really looking for here we're going to talk about this
I think in a later segment is is cultural shift and that means redefining everything that you
you presume to be the norm presume to be to be not normative and in many of our churches that
kind of way of living the faith is not normative and so the first the first consequence of grasping
this identity change means that that the the primary task before is then is changing that
culture and for many parishes means getting a sense of momentum moving on this now that
momentum is created when more and more people come to know Jesus in a personal way and and we
began to use testimonies presented in writing in a person to begin to normalize the fact that yeah
Jesus wants to change lives and this is what it's all about and then you hit that critical mass of
so many people and we've used the tool of Alpha as our primary evangelistic tool and it's been an incredible blessing.
Provide that place of encounter introduction to the person of Jesus now a lot of the people who are listening
this are hopefully pastors and people who are involved in leading parishes and the like I just
like to ask as we close this section when you began did you have a real clear picture in mind
you had the vision already and everything was there and it was all clear or was it it was a
real struggle for you to be able to lay hold of it and to be willing to face the opposition how did
it work for you when you began just on a personal level. Yeah I think it begins very much in in the
heart of the pastor I mean as the primary role of a leader I think is is the cast vision and vision
is has been defined as a vision of the future that produces passion in us. I think we're going to
talk a bit more about the central role of vision but if if you're going to lead something vision
is about where we're going and it's going to be something that makes you incredibly excited and
passionate if you don't know where you're going if you're not excited about it unfortunately you're
probably not going to lead anything. And so really what comes together when you come to understand
who you are when you find out your cen- Lay hold of your identity when you know who you are you're going
to know about where you're supposed to go those two things are really connected you can begin
to evaluate what's a healthy parish what are we supposed to look like we can only do that if we
know where we're supposed to go and who we are and so that's really the starting point that's where
right now we'll build on this but anyway father I think you've hit the nail on the head thanks
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