More and more coorporate America is looking to invest in communities. The headline post reads, "Invest in Communities to Advance Capitalism". Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz writes in a blog post for the Harvard Business Review. "As corporate citizens of the world, it is our responsibility - our duty - to serve the communities where we do business by helping to improve, for example, the quality of citizens' education, employment, health care, safety, and overall daily life, plus future prospects," ...Simply writing checks for charity projects doesn't cut it. "We must go deeper," he says." While on the face of things,... Continue reading

This week's Trenton Monitor has a great article highlighting a new approach to religious education at Resurrection Parish, Delran, NJ. Resurrection Parish is a merged parish formed from St. Casimir Parish in Riverside and Holy Name Parish in Delran. Fr. David Stachurski, OFM, Conv., Pastor and Pat Brooks, Religious Education Coordinator spearheaded an alternative approach to the classroom model of religious education that brings together families for faith formation. It is broader in its scope and offers opportunities for faith formation for people of all ages-- and is already bearing much fruit in their parish community. It’s a great example... Continue reading

I came across this gem of a mission statement in well done annual report brought to us by our Evangelical brethren at Granger Community Church. The report comes under the direction of Kem Meyer, wife, mother, author, conference speaker and communications director. There are a lot of good things, best practices in fact, to unpack and apply to our work in parish pastoral planning and communications that I'll be back on this one to revisit some other aspects of the report (check here for the full report). The first thing one notices is its visual design, its accessible and easy... Continue reading

Wait. What? Friends don’t invite friends to church. There, I said it again. And I believe, that for the majority of Catholics, it’s true. "People aren’t ashamed of Christ. People are ashamed of your church." (Ouch!) I came across this powerful idea while reading Church Marketing 101: Preparing Your Church for Greater Growth by Richard L Reising. Continue reading