DMI Update

(This article was originally published in the August 23, 2020 parish bulletin.)

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As you’ll recall, Nativity of Our Lord utilized the Disciple Maker Index (DMI) Survey back in February “for listening to the People of God.” Here at Nativity we generated over 1,100 responses, one of the highest response rates in the Archdiocese. Thank you for your great responsiveness!

The 75-question survey provided an opportunity for parishioners to reflect on two things: individual spiritual growth and engagement with the parish. The DMI provides the parish with a snapshot of the worshipping community, validates current parish priorities, and identifies common challenges, opportunities, and best practices.

As Archbishop Hebda stated in this week’s Catholic Spirit, this quantitative data — as well as input from the 2019-2020 Pre-Synod Prayer and Listening Events — directly led to his three areas of focus for the 2020 Archdiocesan Synod: 1) Forming parishes that are in the service of evangelization; 2) Forming missionary disciples who know Jesus’s love and respond to his call; and 3) Forming youth and young adults in and for a Church that is always young. What great goals indeed!

The information collected here at the parish will be of great value for Nativity. Our secretary, Tim Huberty — a 40-year marketing research veteran — coordinated the data collection process throughout February. Since the raw data was returned in June, Tim has spent many hours analyzing the information and customizing it to maximize relevancy.

We now have demographic information for a myriad of Nativity groups. We know where parish members stand on basic tenets of our Catholic faith from a series of “belief” statements to weighing in on the impact of liturgies. And we know how likely parishioners are to recommend Nativity parish and our school. (Can you guess?)

I have reviewed this information with Tim and am excited to begin sharing the specific findings with all of you.

We are currently scheduling presentations for Nativity leadership groups, beginning with our own Synod Ambassador Team, our parish staff, the Pastoral Council, and other key groups who can use this information to further define and more effectively implement their work.

After we’ve completed these small group presentations, we will be publishing the results for all parishioners to review and reflect upon.

In the meantime, contact the parish office if you have any questions, or if we can otherwise be of further assistance.

And may God bless your week.

Fr. Patrick Hipwell, Pastor