Did You Know

The Gospel is not private, and the Church cannot be reduced to inward-facing maintenance of its own life. The Parish campus is a place of an interconnected ecology of prayer and worship, hospitality, advocacy, equipping, music, recovery, intergenerational relationships, neighborhood partnerships, theological education, and spiritual growth! In that kind of ecology, the church is not a vendor of religious goods and services. It becomes a ‘thin place’: an environment in which God’s grace circulates and flows through overlapping Divine and human connections! We sometimes imagine that meaningful mission always happens somewhere else, beyond the parish church itself, when in fact the parish church is one of the most important places of public ministry remaining in contemporary life. Sometimes the parish church is seen as a private place with a restricted membership rather than itself being a primary place of public mission on a universal (“Catholic”) scale! The Incarnation itself is an affirmation of ‘locality’. God does not merely send ideas into history but God inhabits a place, a body, a neighborhood, a people. JESUS comes from Nazareth. He lives among actual communities, eats in homes, and becomes recognizable through repeated relationships. Even the resurrected Christ remains marked by wounds. Christian faith is therefore never purely conceptual or placeless. It is embodied, located, and relational in the Parish church. Just being ‘located’ in the heart of the old Frytown area – the West End of Sierra Vista – means that here we create a spiritual ecology shaped by trust, accompaniment, hospitality, beauty, mutual responsibility, and shared life in Christ. Certainly the flow of people coming and going at all hours for Masses, Adoration, classes, ministry groups and meetings is beautiful to behold. But so also is the gathering of folks in recovery groups, concerts in Kino Hall, and the church, parents teaching kids to ride their bicycles around the campus, kids being taught how to drive in the parking lots, folks using the bus stop(our old coffee kiosk!), neighbors in need picking up some food items in the Gathering Room, and so much more! Church buildings themselves carry theological meaning in ways we often underestimate. The physical campus matters not simply because property is sacred in

itself, but because places shape trust, encounter, and belonging: a ‘home base’. A Parish campus communicates long before a sermon begins. Is it open or defensive? Closed or hospitable? Are children welcomed? Are disabled people considered? Is the property held as private possession OR as a resource entrusted to the wider community? These are not administrative questions but theological ones, because they reveal how a Parish community understands the Gospel.