It seems Christian Music Makeover has competition….
Via titusonenine:
Father James McCaskill, 31, has agreed to take part in a new fly-on-the-wall documentary about his attempts to boost the congregation of St Mary Magdalene in the former mining community of Lundwood, near Barnsley.
Under the working title God Help Us, the cameras are already rolling, and even filmed the priest’s first service. The ailing congregation had already doubled to 17 — although that included his parents, visiting from North Carolina.
There’s more at yorkshiretoday.co.uk.
actually, I quite like the sound of that – it’s no a makeover show in that no-one is hanging around telling him what to do. It’s an observation on what needs to be done by the church to reach f-ed up areas.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t spin off into ‘How Clean Is Your Vestry’, ‘What Not To Pray’ or ‘Can’t Preach Won’t Preach’or ‘Heaven’s Kitchen’… :o|
steve
x
Yeah, I didn’t find it nearly so objectionable in concept, but was rather amused. Hence posting it without vitriolic comment… 🙂
My only problem with that is the success of this church sounds as though it will be judged by how large it gets. That seems troubling. In many was it’s as if the caricature of the mega-church is the goal of any ailing congregation.
You know that doesn’t bother me. Because extremely low numbers ARE the sign of an ailing church. Just because a goal of yours is to make you numbers grow doesn’t mean you are interested in a mega-church.
Being Catholic myself I have experienced how small numbers can hurt a parish. The priests are typically supported in large part from the parish gifts to the church (except in the case of a mission church). And Catholics also like to do works as we are often accused of being focused on. And larger numbers certainly help in that arena as well.