A Bonus April Article
A Review of "Solving the Parish Puzzle" by Christina Semmens
At first glance, I wouldn’t have thought Christina Semmens’ Solving the Parish Puzzle: One Person, One Disciple, One Leader at a Time was written for people like me: people who are new to the Catholic Church and have also not been appointed to a leadership position within their parish. But Semmens is quick to dispel such false assumptions, pointing out that: “As Christians, being a leader is an inherent part of our baptism into the life of Christ, where we are conformed to Him as priests, prophets, and kings. In this context, embracing our kingly role means accepting the call to leadership.” (p.17-18).
It is on the basis of this divine call to leadership that Semmens convicts, inspires, encourages and equips her readers to lean into God’s grace and live out the calling of God upon their lives, within the context of their local parish. First, she invites the reader to take stock of the current situation in their own parish (and heart) and to consider the vision of their parish. Then, she walks the reader through twelve good practices, or puzzle pieces as she calls them, her reader can implement, together with their fellow church members, to become a healthy and flourishing parish.
The 12 puzzle pieces she discusses, and offers practical suggestions for implementing, are:
evangelization
holistic formation
holistic CPR
pursuit of best practices
hospitality and invitation
interpersonal relationships
communication
coaching and leadership
strategic planning
time management
collaboration
assessment
She shows how each piece is needed to complete the whole puzzle, while pointing out that there is no set order in which a parish needs to lay the puzzle pieces for them to fit and complete the picture. What strikes me in all she shares is how beautiful it is when a whole parish knows and becomes actively involved in living out its vision, hand-in-hand, while also using their individual talents and charisms to strengthen each other and the Church.
Semmens also helps the reader see that a parish, and each individual member, can only truly flourish in this way, if they, both individually and corporately, (continue to) abide in Christ and follow His promptings and leading. So, within various puzzle pieces, she also gives the reader concrete examples of what this abiding can look like and how it can change the direction and/or actions that are taken. For example, within the puzzle piece of time management, she explains: “the most important thing I do every day is pray. Partially because I know that God is going to help me prioritize whatever is on my to-do list, and He also gives me a heads up if He has something urgent and important for my day that I hadn’t accounted for, like a call to a friend, or some other unexpected event, like maybe a flight change or a cancellation of an appointment. Time with God helps me determine what is truly the most important task for the day, or a project I hadn’t considered taking on.” (p.88).
What I particularly appreciated was Semmens’ focus on our need to both be known and get to know one another, in our parish communities. When she discusses, for example, the need for holistic CPR, Semmens points out how “many of those walking around in our parish communities. They may walk and exist in the parish space, but they’re like zombies. They haven’t been asked to utilize their particular gifts and talents in a way that brings them fully alive. Instead, they are plugged into holes as needed, even if it’s not the best fit for them, and the result is that they become the “walking dead” in our midst. In other words, they aren’t truly known and loved.” (p.44). She later gives the reader concrete examples of what it looks like to yield to the Holy Spirit’s leading and timing to truly be known and come to know and love each other in and through Christ.
In one such example, she shares about her fellow parish member, Evelyn, and how she repeatedly observed her leaving quickly after mass. One day, she managed to catch her and discovered the reason for Evelyn’s quick departure. She was rushing back home to take over the care of her elderly Mom, relieving the nurse who had been covering for her to attend mass. Even in this limited time she had to invest in parish life, Semmens observed that Evelyn was able to repeatedly connect in meaningful ways with the children present. This prompted Semmens to reach out to Evelyn and ask her if she would be interested in serving as a catechist.
Initially, Evelyn said no, pointing out that she had no theological training and insufficient time, because she was too busy caring for her Mom. However, a year after her Mom died, Semmens approached her again. This time, as Evelyn named her lack of theological training as a reason not to get involved, Semmens encouraged her to reach out anyway and offer her services. This prompted Evelyn to help out for half a year, before she discerned God was indeed calling her to become catechist. Now, she has been serving her local parish in this way for several years, loving what she does.
In this example, she shows how by actively connecting and engaging with one another, through the Holy Spirit’s leading, we can gently encourage each other to invest in the gifts and talents we have been given. This not only blesses our local community, but empowers us individually to become “fully alive” in Christ, as we begin doing what we were created and called to do.
What I was left wondering though, was how Evelyn herself was loved and supported by her parish through the illness and loss of her mother. Having gone through this with my own mother, I was so blessed by my parents’ Protestant church community (from various local churches), who rallied around us, bringing dinners, taking each of us out for short breaks to give us the space to share our burdens and be comforted and who simply showed up to sit with my Mum, even when she could no longer talk.
Likewise, after my mother’s death, my Anglican vicar’s wife became a sweet comfort to me, regularly visiting me and my girls with her family, as we shared our hearts, wept, laughed and prayed together. It made me wonder whether people at Semmens’ Catholic parish know each other beyond their “ministry” capacities and also break bread together in each others’ homes. For me, knowing and being known by each other looks like loving each other in these tangible ways. Perhaps God’s love met Evelyn in similar ways at her parish, but if so, I would have appreciated seeing that woven into the example given.
Something else I appreciated, though, was Semmens’ willingness to speak the truth in love. One example of this is when she talks about the distribution of funds within a parish community. She writes: “Often, people ask what a community’s priorities are and assume they align with its vision statement (if one exists). The reality, though, is that our priorities are reflected in where we spend our money and time. If you want to know a community’s true priorities, look at the budget and then at the activities happening in the community. If the physical (or fiscal) reality is not aligned with the vision, it becomes hollow, leading to a disconnect within the community.” (p.43).
However, Semmens is also quick to point out the need for individual humility, through an everpresent willingness to learn, heal and grow in grace. She invites us to become “comfortable with being uncomfortable” (p.51) and to consider that: “if we are to truly learn from others, we must first be on our own journey. We need to remain close to Jesus—rooted in prayer and regularly receiving His grace through the sacraments. It is His grace that strengthens us to do our best, grow in virtue, and deepen our faith, trusting that His plan will unfold. From that place, we can go beyond ourselves and help others do the same. This is what it means to be a leader.” (p.50).
Sometimes, Semmens shares tips and advice that I find less helpful or appropriate for the (small) parish I am a part of that includes many members, who are healing from (childhood) abuse, within religious settings. For example, for many of us in my parish, evangelisation isn’t something that is foreign to us or that we don’t feel we have a part to play in. Instead, it is something that has been unfolding (super)naturally in and through us, for many years, within the context of our own homes. In fact, we have come to recognize it as God’s sanctifying and healing grace at work in and through us. Yet, what Semmens helps even us, for whom evangelisation is more common, to see is that this evangelisation should also be unfolding in our interactions at church.
She points out that we each have a part to play in evangelizing and discipling each other. This fits so well with the reminder from Scripture that, here on earth, we all see but in part, a truth that should daily humble us and make us willing to receive and become Christ’s help, correction and re-direction of each other, as He continues to expose and heal each of our blind spots, through each other. To her credit, Semmens also reminds the reader that though the focus of each puzzle piece will remain the same, what each puzzle piece looks like in practice may differ greatly from one parish to another.
This made me reflect upon the ways in which my parish is already living out the puzzle pieces and where I have witnessed people reveal God’s love in ways not explicitly captured in the book. One thing that came to mind for invitation and hospitality was the huge garden that my parish lovingly tends through unpaid volunteers and the café and bookstore also manned through unpaid volunteers. Through the presence and faithful service of these volunteers many people are daily bathed in the beauty and love of God, both parish members and complete strangers who come from near and far to relax and unwind.
I also thought about my physically and intellectually disabled friend. He was the only one from my parish to ask after my birthday and show up unannounced on his bike (a bigger effort for him) with a card and gift. And not long after I started my new job, he showed up to ask me all about it. This is the same man I shared about earlier, when God asked me not to bemoan the lack of welcome at my parish, but to instead become the one to welcome others, who like myself sat alone. He was also the same man God prompted me through a homily to invite for Christmas and later take out, together with his little dog, for his birthday. It makes me smile now, seeing how God’s love multiplies in our midst, through our simple choices to obey His promptings.
Semmens’ book also reminded me of my Mum and how she invited a new family at church over for dinner, becoming really close friends with the mother over the years thereafter. Unlike others, my Mum didn’t see the size of her family (ten kids) as a hindrance, but an opportunity. Recently, I messaged this woman to thank her for repeatedly showing up at my mother’s bedside at the end. She explained just how special it was to have my Mum show up for her as a new immigrant from Germany, having recently buried her first husband and now marrying a Swiss man in New Zealand, who also had several children from a previous marriage.
Here, God could be seen in the details. I told her that she was such a sweet gift to my Mum too, redeeming the pain my Mum had borne in Germany, as a missionary. For, God took the hardship my mother bore (her struggle to communicate in a new language and the loss of her family’s support) and turned it into good, years later, as my mother was now able to converse in German with her new friend and empathize with the many struggles of life overseas, such as the culture shock and loss of family support.
Incidentally, it was also this woman, who would later pull me aside, in my mother’s final days on earth, to explicitly ask me how I was doing, drawing me in for a hug as the tears flowed down my face: here God used her own caregiving for her cancer-ridden husband at the end to give her eyes to see my need for love and comfort, as I cared for my dying Mum.
On the whole, there is plenty I find applicable, thought-provoking, memory-stirring and useful in Semmens’ book. As such, I would definitely encourage you not only to pick up a copy of the book for yourself, but also to share it with other members of your local parish. I could also foresee it becoming a blessing to other, both offline and online, Christian communities, even in just sparking discussion and stirring memories of good practices we have each witnessed that we might repeat and share in these communities we gather in. You can purchase a copy on Amazon, by clicking here: Solving the Parish Puzzle.
I plan to recommend Solving the Parish Puzzle: One Person, One Disciple, One Leader at a Time to others within my local church. Additionally, I plan to invite others to gather, together with me, to pray through its pages and respond in the way the Holy Spirit prompts us to do. I am excited to see what unfolds.