Company’s Coming: A Spiritual Process for Creating More Welcoming Parishes

In April 2008 almost 1200 priests, deacons, vowed religious and lay ministers took part in a national summit to discuss the findings of the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project. This project identified one of the key marks of excellent parishes is that they are welcoming communities. At the same time, pastoral leaders surveyed by the same Emerging Models Project reported that this mark of excellence was the one at which they were least successful. As ever increasing numbers of parishes across the country are consolidated, the importance of practicing hospitality cannot be overemphasized. Drawing upon Scripture, current church documents, our rich faith tradition, and established change management principles, this book provides a practical, proven, spiritually based, how-to guide designed to support pastoral leaders in developing a comprehensive program for creating more welcoming parishes. Founded upon the mandate of the 2000 USCCB document, "Welcoming the Stranger Among Us," the process described in this book gives pastoral leaders a clear path towards establishing welcoming parish communities.