The Rebuilt Field Guide: Ten Steps for Getting Started
By Michael White and Tom Corcoran
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About this ebook
After publishing their groundbreaking book Rebuilt in 2013 about the rebirth of the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran were inundated with requests for help from other Catholic parishes about where to start. Subsequent books in the Rebuilt Parish series—Tools for Rebuilding, Rebuilding Youth Ministry, and Rebuilding Your Message—offer additional means to reach the end goal of making church matter and growing disciples by challenging the faithful and reaching the lost with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.
In the newest book in the Rebuilt Parish series, White and Corcoran lead you and your leadership team through assessment and goal-setting exercises and provide meeting templates that include prayer, scripture reflection, storytelling, and “rally cries” that become reminders of the change the team is striving toward. This workbook offers practical steps that will help your team set change in motion with tools including:
- A checklist that helps identify the real problems facing your parish and seven questions to help you prioritize them
- A seven-part exercise to help you decide which parish activities do not support your disciple-making mission and then make a plan to stop doing them
- A simple, focused demographic assessment to help you identify your own “Timonium Tim”
- A discussion and planning guide for moving toward great liturgical music
- Seven conversation starters to help your team set a course for dealing with the conflict that inevitably comes with change
Michael White
Fr. Michael White is a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, pastor of Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, and cofounder of Rebuilt—an organization designed to rebuild parishes for growth and health. White is the coauthor of the best-selling book Rebuilt—which narrates the story of Nativity’s rebirth—Tools for Rebuilding, Rebuilding Your Message, The Rebuilt Field Guide, and ChurchMoney. He is also coauthor of Seriously, God?; Rebuilt Faith; and the best-selling Messages series for Advent and Lent. During White’s tenure as pastor at Church of the Nativity, the church has almost tripled in weekend attendance. More importantly, commitment to the mission of the Church has grown, demonstrated by the significant increase in giving, service in ministry, and much evidence of genuine spiritual renewal. White earned his bachelor’s degree from Loyola University Maryland and his graduate degrees in sacred theology and ecclesiology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 2023, White and his lay associate, Tom Corcoran, were honored by Pope Francis with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Award for outstanding service to Church and Pope.
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The Rebuilt Field Guide - Michael White
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
Parts of this book are excerpted and adapted from Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter. Copyright © 2013 by Michael White and Tom Corcoran.
____________________________________
© 2016 by Michael White and Tom Corcoran.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Ave Maria Press, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.
Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.
www.avemariapress.com
Paperback: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-701-7
E-book: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-702-4
Cover and text design by Katherine J. Ross.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: White, Michael, 1958- author. | Corcoran, Tom, author. | White, Michael, 1958- author. Rebuilt.
Title: The rebuilt field guide : ten steps for getting started / Michael White and Tom Corcoran.
Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : Ave Maria Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016019602 (print) | LCCN 2016031713 (ebook) | ISBN 9781594717017 | ISBN 159471701X | ISBN 9781594717024 () | ISBN 1594717028 ()
Subjects: LCSH: Church renewal--Catholic Church.
Classification: LCC BX1746 .W4954 2016 (print) | LCC BX1746 (ebook) | DDC 253--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019602
contents
Before You Begin
How to Use This Guide
Be Honest About the Real Problems
Stop Doing Stuff—Absolutely Stop
Find Tim
Work Weekends
Fast and Pray for Music
Become a Church for the Unchurched
Make the Message Matter
Challenge Churchpeople
Expect Conflict
Lead Where You Serve
Conclusion: You Can Do This!
References and Resources
Before You Begin
The officers went through the camp
and issued these commands to the people:
"When you see the ark of the covenant . . . follow it,
that you may know the way." . . .
Joshua also said to the people, "Sanctify yourselves,
for tomorrow the Lord will perform wonders among you."
Joshua 3:2–5
This is a book about the local community church that Catholics call their parish. We’re two guys who have been working in a parish for a few years. That’s probably our essential qualification for writing this book. Actually, it’s our only qualification, and to tell you the truth, for a long time we weren’t even any good at it.
Rebuilt, xv
Rebuilt tells the story of what happened to us, what we learned, and what we now know about growing a healthy parish. It is all about the twin exercises of discipleship and evangelization, or what we have co me to call awakening the faithful, while also, and at the same time, reaching the lost—oh, and in the process, making church matter.
The formation, composition, and publication of the book were a challenging, surprising, and ultimately thrilling experience. All of it was unlikely and therefore unexpected. It was also life changing.
One of the things that changed markedly about our lives was the sudden interest we attracted and the new demands on our time. It quickly became commonplace for visitors from other parishes to show up at our church any time of the week and throughout the weekend. We actually started regularly assigning staff to be on visitor duty. There were plenty of calls and cards, letters, and e-mail too. Invitations to speak throughout the country and even further afield began arriving.
Basically, all the interest came down to the same thing: Tell us how to do it; tell us how to grow a healthy parish.
And that is something we very much wanted to do. The only problem was, despite our best intentions, we simply could not help everyone who reached out to us (and run our own parish at the same time).
In our second book, Tools for Rebuilding, we shared many practical tools to getting started in parish renewal when it comes to discipleship and evangelization. More recently, it occurred to us that a guide to rebuilding in the deep weeds of parish life might also be helpful. That’s where this book started taking shape.
In it, you will find very little that comes as news, perhaps nothing at all that you didn’t already know. We do not pretend to suggest there are many original insights here. In fact, it’s all rather simple and straightforward. We just want to share with you what works when it comes to evangelization and discipleship in our parish in Timonium, Maryland.
We’ll tell you exactly how we did and continue to do things here. Then, you apply or adapt what you think might work in your setting and, in the process, learn more about what actually does work for you. It matters not at all what kind of parish you have: big or small, urban or rural, affluent or struggling. To undertake these exercises, you don’t need any particular resources, additional staff, or budget, and you won’t have to hire a consultant. You really only need one thing: a team.
Rebuilding your parish is not a solitary effort. Ideally, it is a team exercise led by the pastor or parish pastoral leader. It also includes at least a few people who are willing to think creatively while speaking honestly about the problems and opportunities that really exist. The team must understand that there are no quick fixes