As I See It

by Fr. Vin

Where We Go from Here - II

Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus,
“Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town.
Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
As you go, make this proclamation:
‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”.

-- Today’s Gospel [Matthew, chapter 9]

Just as Jesus linked his instruction “what to do” with another about “what not to do,” we have to choose in our parish: What is the best investment of our time, energy, and money?  How can we carry out most effectively the mission Jesus gives us?   There are more good things than we can possibly do: which are the most important?  That’s why we set the priorities that I wrote about last week.

But ideas, visions, needs, hopes, and wishes aren’t the only way of thinking about priorities.  We all also set priorities with our checkbooks.  So it’s instructive to see just where our present “priorities” are in the way we’ve chosen up until now to spend our parish financial resources.  You can think about our parish activities in seven program areas (that provide various sorts of services), plus the central services that keep the buildings open, heated, insured, and the like.  Out of a total budget of about $2,300,000, just over $1 million goes to this overhead.  The other $1.3 million goes to services.  (In both cases salaries for the relevant staff are included.)

I think rather than looking at total budgets for each, it shows our implicit priorities better if we look at the amount of subsidy from general funds that each area receives.  (This is because some programs, like faith formation, Angel Care, and Kids of the Kingdom, have huge costs but offset them to some degree through tuition and fees.)  Looking just at the program area subsidies, here’s the percentage of total subsidy (in rank order) given to each:

1. Pastoral ministry (all activities of priests and deacons, Parish Office, baptism program, Pre-Cana, RCIA, family liturgy, individual pastoral care, and everything not included elsewhere): 36%;

2. Children’s faith formation (all Religious Education for children): 19%;

3. Music (all music at worship: Sundays, Holy Days, weddings, funerals, choir, etc.) 16%;

4. Liturgy (all costs other than music): 14%;

5. Parish Social Ministry: 14%;

6. Adult Faith Formation and Parish Engagement: 1%.

(Angel Care and Kids of the Kingdom are self-supporting and receive no subsidy.)

This is a broad-brush picture (some priests’ time could well be charged against liturgy, for example), but it gives us an outline to think about.  Of course it would be ideal if we could “grow the pie” and increase the support of ministries and programs without having to take money away from one thing if we want to give it to another.  I’d like to believe that we can broaden the base of support for our parish ministries by having more people engaged in parish life, and so willing to donate to fund them – but look at that present percentage for building engagement and bringing more people toward Christ.

We seem to be facing a choice: sacrifice some of what’s good in the present for the sake of building for the future, or stay with a present that’s going to pass away within a few years.  That’s a decision each of us has to bring to prayer and conversation.  More next week.  Until then, peace.