June 25, 2023
The Call to Preach and LiveJesus is counselling the disciples to be bold and trusting in the message they are to preach and to live. Don’t let others intimidate you as you proclaim what the Holy Spirit prompts you to announce. This is food for thought as we begin the work of revitalizing our parish so that it welcomes and serves every generation. Because of our different experiences, backgrounds, and ages, we all see our environment uniquely. As each generation interacts with the others, we find ourselves wired differently from each other. It needs to be understood, when looking at the survey reports, that there are various perspectives on the same questions. Each of these perspectives matters! Each of them has to also be fully respected! There will be parts of the picture we painted from our DMI answers we like and some that we won’t. In order for us to move forward, we have to be “spiritually mature and lacking in nothing” of what Christ requires to be true missionary disciples of Him.

The following are the names of the reports from Catholic Leadership Institute (CLI) and a brief description of each:

SECTION: Custom and Context

• Demographics – Lists the demographic data about parishioners who have taken the DMI
• Strengths and Opportunities – Questions for which your parish had the strongest positive and negative results based on strongly agree or high frequency
• Benchmarks – Selects a question to benchmark with other parishes
• Cross Tabulation – Discovers comparisons between frequency agreement and demographic questions
• Key Leader Perspective – Additional insights from parishioners who report being heavily involved in the life of the parish

SECTION: Beliefs, Effectiveness, and Drivers for Big Outcomes

• Key Drivers – Questions that are statistically significant with respect to a parishioner’s likelihood to recommend the parish, say the parish is helping them grow spiritually, and frequency with which they are sharing their faith
• Belief in Core Catholic Teaching – Questions related to parishioners’ degree of belief in core teachings of the faith
• Effectiveness of Parish Support - Questions related to how well the parish supports parishioners personally and spiritually

SECTION: Four Factors of a Thriving Parish

• Leadership Indicators - Questions most directly related to parish leadership
• Sunday Experience – Questions directly related to the Sunday experience
• Spiritual Practices – Questions related to the faith practices of your people
• Missionary impulse - Questions related to the missionary discipleship practices of your people