When Your Parish Lets You Down

Recently, I ran into a woman from my parish whom I had not seen in a long time.  I had previously heard how tragedy had struck her life – a difficult divorce followed a year or so later by the sudden death of her young adult son.

What I did not know was that, due to the interactions she had with a person on staff at our parish when burying her son, she left the parish and came close to leaving the faith altogether. Fortunately, she spoke with someone else she knew and trusted who suggested to her that she find another, more sympathetic parish.  She now worships there and has found a community that is helping her heal the wounds of her life.

As she told me her story, I was awash in feelings.  I ached for her, while simultaneously aching for my parish. I couldn’t believe the heartache she was enduring, or that my faith community had been complicit in that heartache. Initially I wanted to say to her “it’s really a great place, please give it another try.” Fortunately, I had the sense to hold my tongue and listen more attentively before I finally remarked “I’m so glad you found a place where you can thrive.”

I was on the parish staff for a number of years, and since then have worked with other pastors and parish staffs across the county. I have seen behind the curtain and appreciate how human our pastors and parish staffs are, and how hard it can be to continually measure up, not only to people’s expectations, but to the heart of the gospel.

People often expect their parish to be like a rock:

it has always been there and can be relied upon to always be just what they imagine it to be (which is different for different people). But in reality, a parish is less like a rock than it is like an organism – a living thing.

And like all organisms, a parish has its visible parts - its people, programs, on-line presence, and finances, as well as its invisible parts - the beliefs and doubts of its people, the human relationships that develop within the community, the care it takes with liturgies, its institutional memory, and its pastoral care.  In each parish, all these moving parts have their own strengths and weaknesses. Working together, however imperfectly, these traits make a parish a locus - a dwelling place for God in our midst.  But since that dwelling place abides within a human enterprise, no parish will ever completely get it all right. Only Jesus managed to be an uncompromising dwelling place of God, and even he was misunderstood.

Losing a friend to another parish community was a blow to the pride and trust I feel for my parish. She deserved better from us and has found better somewhere else.  Listening to her story, I am grateful that a parish isn’t like a rock that can be relied upon to always be the same. All human institutions, including my beloved parish, have clay feet and require continued transformation…part by part.