2024 Parish Development Forum

Tuesday July 9, 2024 thru Thursday July 11

For Orthodox clergy and laity the Parish Development Forum provided an opportunity for discussion of timely topics and discovery of practices used by healthy, vibrant Orthodox parishes.

Co-sponsored by the Western Pennsylvania, Midwest, and Bulgarian Dioceses of the Orthodox Church in America, the 2024 Forum was held at the Woodside Event Center at Archangel Michael Orthodox Church, Broadview Hts., Ohio..

Forum Goals

 The goals for the 2024 Parish Development Forum were:

1. To Equip attendees to 'serve’ in the context of secular pressures

2. To Focus parishes on a longer view –“Project 2030”

3. To Explore the individual skills and abilities and "corporate" competencies needed for an Orthodox parish to flourish in the future.

The 2024 Forum focused on how secular impulses and assumptions are an absorbed part of our current culture – often unnoticed impacts of life in the secular age. These assumptions impact our parishes and each of us as persons.

We live in a culture that is unfriendly to Churches and Christians. Sunday belongs to anything but church. Religion and faith are, one option among many -- and an option that often seems out of synch with the world. Contemporary society makes religion seem burdensome, awkward, and outdated. Not cool.

What does it mean to live in a world that denies a reality of God?  Moreover what are the effects on church members?  And the efforts and ministries of parishes? We absorb a sense of minimalism toward the church. A feeling that we’re swimming upstream.

Yet in the midst of this we also appear to have our best opportunity to bring Americans to Christ through Orthodox Christianity. Many Orthodox parishes are seeing a surge of inquirers and new members. They regularly encounter people –old and young-- who want to explore existential questions.  They’re starving for meaning and authentic worship. 

So in light of these headwinds and cross pressures -- we need to:

• Strengthen ministry efforts to BE the Church.

• Rethink education, communication, and evangelization.

• Focus on a longer view and

• Identify the personal and “corporate” skills, talents and competencies needed for an Orthodox parish to flourish in ‘2030’ and beyond.

Overarching Forum Questions

1. How does our culture's emphasis on personal self-sufficiency and isolation from the transcendent inhabit our lives and basic outlook and limit our openness to the gospel?

2. How can understanding the world in which we're immersed help us to understand inquirers and multiple generations in our parishes?

3. What are the important trends – currently present and ‘around the corner’ – which Orthodox parishes in America will be facing in the next 5-10 years? What are the new headwinds?  What new parish strengths are needed in response?

4. Orthodoxy and Science: How do we counter the assumption that science explains everything as we encounter the secular world? Are science and Orthodox Christianity compatible –or at odds?

5. Parish Impact -How have evolving societal conditions shaped people's faith and participation in parish life, both before and after encountering the rise of the secular challenge?