Those in the Church already know this, as most parishes are experiencing exponential growth. Our little mission has, until recently, had steady but somewhat plodding growth.
I mentioned previously that the word from friends who have "been there and done that" is that missions tend to plod along until a priest is assigned. We were pretty amazed at how much growth we had in 3 short years, but I have to say, the truth of that sentiment is beginning to hit home in a much more significant way. We were averaging somewhere in the high 20s to mid 30s in weekly attendance back when Father Seth arrived in January. The last three weeks we've averaged in the mid- to high-40s, including one week with a record 50 in attendance. This isn't mostly visitors or passers-by either. These are new folks interested in attending our little church. It feels like a "new normal." And it is wonderful.
But that's not all. We're also having turnover in the catechumenate and the inquirers. We received 6 new Orthodox Christians at Pascha, and we made 11 catechumens a few weeks ago, dropping our inquirers to about 3-4. As of today, we have more inquirers than we had before we made 11 inquirers into catechumens. Again, this is just over the course of a few weeks. There are now people at the mission whose names I have not yet learned, and we see new faces weekly. The communion line used to be so short we barely had time to sing a hymn before it was time for the choir to go up. We had a literal handful of communicant members each week. Now, it is quite long and communion takes a while. It is really incredible to observe.
Early on, John and I used to talk about how, at the time, we were "playing church," but we needed to get to the point where we began to look, sound, and act like an actual church. That started with Fr. Tom almost exactly a year ago, but back then we were in borrowed space, with a borrowed priest, and were only blessed to have liturgy every other week. We had people who, as a result, only came to church every other week. We'd have, at best, 25-30 people for liturgy, and then something in the teens or low twenties for Typica. Our services, including the liturgy, were not as well done due to space limitations and the fact that we did not have all of the liturgical items we needed. Our iconostasis was a set of roll-up banners we purchased for that purpose. It worked. It was good enough for what we needed at the time. But now, it's very different.
We now have an actual iconostasis and a reasonably full complement of liturgical implements. We have a weekly service schedule, and we're adding to it by having midweek services. We have a priest who is not only there for services, but has regular times for meetings and confession. We have added an inquirer's class to the catechism classes. We have a father and a head who anchors the parish in a way it wasn't able to be anchored before. Now, when new people show up, they're showing up to a church. And one without the prefix "quasi-" attached to it.
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| April, 2026, St. Patrick Orthodox Church |
This has a very real effect on people seeking the Church, and that, I believe, is why we are seeing more exponential growth. It was always there beyond the walls of our mission, and to a lesser extent within those walls, but people interested in the Orthodox Church were looking for a full expression of the Church's liturgical life. We still don't quite have that, but we're working towards it every day.
Others are, of course, experiencing the same growth in much greater numbers. One parish in Raleih reportedly had 85 new catechumens back in February, which brought their total back then to over 200 catechumens alone. A friend from our former parish, St. Basil Orthodox Church, told me they are about to expand the temple, but when they're done, it will already be full again. Obviously, larger and more metropolitan areas are going to have exponentially more growth than smaller towns like the one we're in. But seeing even a small part of it come to our little mission is a blessing and a joy. It is, after all, why we're here in the first place.
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