To me the church's problem would be a hundred times worse if you felt everyone has written the church off, they don't want to know, there just aren't people to turn to. But it's exactly the opposite: there are such people. We have to find a way in our organizational life to get out of their way, clear the path to find more of these people, and empower them.

It's not always going to cost money to turn a parish into a more welcoming parish. But it does take a willingness to change a lot of assumptions.

In the corporate world you get a report card every quarter and have to talk about it, whereas the church can drip, drip through bad trends for decades and decades.

To me the church's problem would be a hundred times worse if you felt everyone has written the church off, they don't want to know, there just aren't people to turn to. But it's exactly the opposite: there are such people. We have to find a way in our organizational life to get out of their way, clear the path to find more of these people, and empower them.

We need to become a more welcoming church, one that reaches out more to those who have walked away or who aren't very interested to begin with.

It all begins with acknowledging that we have some very profound challenges, and that we don't have easy answers at hand, things that we know will solve the problems. If people embrace those two facts, then the next steps are a little easier to fall into place.

Denial of numerous problems can happen in any organization, and I don't mean this as flip or negative as it's going to sound, but you see it a lot in corporate cultures right before they hit a wall. People tell themselves a story that it can turn around, it's going to turn around, we're doing all the right things, and then that story lasts until it's literally no longer sustainable or believable.