The Resource for this week is a book as well as all the resources that have sprung up around the original book such as workbooks, conferences, podcasts and apps for your phone.  The original book that started it all is Divine Renovation: From Maintenance to a Missional Parish by Fr. James Mallon.  The book traces Fr. Mallon's efforts to transform the parishes he was assigned in Halifax.  Through his stories, and the successes and failures, we can learn to ask questions about the parish culture, and how we can cultivate a culture where parishes become vibrant communities that feed and form disciples in love with Jesus Christ and his Church.  Fr. Mallon is first to tell you that no two parishes are alike, and what worked at St. Benedicts may not work at your parish, but the book does help you to ask questions about what is and isn't working and what might be some steps you can take to help form intentional disciples who will move your parish from maintenance to mission.

Since the book came out in 2014, it has created a whole ecosphere (as successful, inspiring books often do).  There is now a guidebook - a step by stem manual or workbook to help you parish leadership team to create a vision, and assist parishes to implement that vision across the ministries. The guidebook is filled with lots of information, ideas and examples as well as ways to assess what is and isn't working for your parish.

There is also a divine renovation website with news and blogposts and resources at divinerenovation.net.  Part of this site is membership based, but there is a great deal of free material as well, such as the Divine Renovation podcast and blog.  There is also a Divine Renovation App  both for iOS and Android.  Just search for Divine Renovation in iTunes or the PlayStore.

The latest books in the Divine Renovation ecosphere are the Divine Renovation Group Reading Guide(six sessions for leading a small group to unpack the original book), Divine Renovation Apprentice: Learning to Lead a Disciple Making Parish  and most recently Unlocking Your Parish: Making Disciples, Raising up Leaders with Alpha.  I have not yet read these two books, but will post a review once I do.

Lastly, Fr. Mallon was the keynote speaker at the last New Evangelization Summit.  His talk was Evangelization when you are not in a leadership position: 10 things to impact the shift.   I will post my notes about that in a future blog post.