The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic- Part 1

By Matthew Kelly

While this book is addressed to Roman Catholics it is just as applicable to all the faithful. Every pastor would profit from reading this book. I know of one Catholic Pastor who is requiring his entire staff to study and discuss these concepts and I suspect that he will set up classes the introduce these practices to his congregation. Even I am considering how I might share this with my family and friends.

Most everyone is familiar with the Pareto Principle. It states that roughly 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of causes. In other words, 80 percent of your business is produced by 20 percent of your customers. The author, familiar with this principle, begins the book with the question. “Does this apply to other aspects of life?” In other words, what percent of the people of the parish donate 80 percent of the money and what percent of the people donate 80 percent of the time to parish ministries?

After an investigation he found that 6.8 percent of the people donate 80 percent of the money to the parish. Further, 6.4 percent of the people contribute 80 percent of the hours to the Church. In addition, he found that there was an 84 percent overlap between the two. It is worse than the underlying principle of the 80/20 rule. Here roughly 7 percent do it all. While it may not at first appear so, this is actually good news.

The Catholic Church around the world every single day feeds more people, houses more people, clothes more people, cares for more sick, visits more prisoners and educates more students than any other institution on the planet and they do most of it with only 7 percent of those who are Catholic. Look at how much room there is to grow.

Look at what could happen if it could be raised from 7% to 14% or 21%. What could we do if we found a way to double the involvement and contributions from today over the next seven years? That is just one percent for each of the next seven years. For a parish with 100 families that is just an increase of only one per year. These are pretty modest goals, surely attainable.

The only question is how we do that. If only there was a way to determine what those seven percent had in common and that the ninety-three percent was lacking. Well,…… this is just what the author has researched. Want to know what the four signs of a dynamic catholic would include. I do not wish to give away the ending. You must read the book and then we will talk about it.