How one priest’s realization that something had to change helped set a Christchurch parish on a new course
Divine Renovation Communications
Fr. Simon Eccleton loved being a parish priest.
As a young priest, he worked hard to know his people. Most evenings, he would visit a different family for dinner. He spent time in the parish school each week. He worked carefully on his Sunday homilies, celebrated the liturgy faithfully, and gave particular attention to accompanying families through baptisms, weddings, and funerals.
But as the years passed, something began troubling him.
“As the years went by, there grew within my heart the awareness that I was presiding over a benignly declining community of faith. Everyone was of good will, but hearts weren’t being transformed by the gospel I was proclaiming. The people weren’t on fire for mission, and to be honest I also had a limited horizon. I wasn’t allowing the Lord to take the lead in the mission.”
Then one Sunday, the thought that had been growing quietly within him came out from the pulpit.
“One Sunday, during the homily, I heard myself say, ‘There is something wrong with the way we are doing things here in this parish’. I don’t know who was more shocked by that announcement – the parishioners or me. This was pure Holy Spirit inspiration. It was an uncomfortable moment, but a liberating point in my journey.”
The realization was not simply that his parish needed to change.
He did.
“I knew that as parish priest, I needed to be converted to a new way of shepherding the people under my pastoral care. It had to start with me.”
Finding another way to lead
Fr. Simon began reading Divine Renovation and eventually entered coaching, where conversations with a coach and other priests wrestling with similar questions helped turn his desire for change into practical action.
One of the first significant changes was how he led.
His former Parish Council consisted of good people, but Fr. Simon found himself spending considerable energy trying to keep competing interests together. The parish was searching for another way forward, but, as he puts it, “We were stuck squarely in maintenance mode.”
So, he began gathering a smaller group of parishioners who shared a desire for evangelization.
“We started to study together, to pray together and to dream together. In time, this grew into our first Senior Leadership Team (SLT). This was a seismic shift for me.”
Changing a leadership structure was one thing. Changing a parish culture was another.
Fr. Simon is candid that the process was slow and, for some parishioners, painful. Familiar ways of doing things carried a certain comfort, even when the parish itself was declining.
The parish began patiently communicating a new vision through articles in the Sunday newsletter, videos, homilies, and conversations with small groups. The goal was not to reject what had come before, but to help people imagine where God might now be leading them.
“At various moments we weren’t sure of the next steps we needed to take on this journey. But our dream of a new way of being parish [sic] was always before us…it was liberating and scary at the same time!”
A parish running out of room
Years later, there are tangible signs that something has changed.
In 2022, the parish’s Sunday Mass count stood at just over a thousand. Today, that increased by about 50%.
The parish recently added a seventh Sunday Mass, celebrated in Te Reo Māori. Fr. Simon says there is now little room to add further Masses to the weekend schedule, while the parish car park has also reached capacity. Plans are underway for a new 800-seat cathedral, with construction hoped to begin next year.
Financial giving has changed, too. In the six years since the amalgamation that formed the new Cathedral parish in Christchurch, its second collection at weekend Masses increased by nearly 87% over a five-year period.
Perhaps more telling are the people entering more deeply into the life of the Church.
In 2020, the parish recorded one catechumen and five candidates alongside 18 child baptisms. Already in 2026, the parish has recorded 12 catechumens and 11 candidates, in addition to 52 child baptisms.
Behind those numbers, however, Fr. Simon sees something deeper.
He sees conversion
“A big discovery for me was that all this work is absolutely and completely founded on the priest, SLT, admin staff and pastoral workers being receptive to a personal conversion to Christ and his Church. This must come first.”
That conviction has affected the spiritual life of the team itself: praying for one another, interceding immediately when someone asks for prayer, going to Confession and remaining attentive to their own need for God’s mercy.
“This is not that we should become superhuman spiritual warriors, but that we should know the wondrous mercy and compassion of God, so that our very lives should become a witness to the power of God to transform and restore us to life. We can only share what we have received.”
“Put on your seatbelt!”
Ask Fr. Simon what he would tell another priest looking at his own parish and wondering whether something needs to change, and his answer comes with the enthusiasm of someone who has lived the journey himself.
“Put on your seatbelt! You will come alive in a way which will surprise and delight you.”
For Fr. Simon, Divine Renovation has accompanied that journey through coaching, leadership formation, homily training, conferences, vision development, parish events and practical support. But his description of what has happened in Christchurch ultimately points beyond any particular model or organization.
“All that we have learned over these last ten years is that the renewal of the nature and function of parish life is designed to bring the Holy Spirit front and centre into our very reason for being. When the Holy Spirit captures our hearts, parish ministry becomes way bigger than anything the most talented of clergy can create for their people.”
Today, the parish Fr. Simon once described as “benignly declining” faces a very different challenge.
“The Lord is blessing us in ways that I couldn’t have imagined when we set out on this journey. I feel re-empowered for the mission that Jesus asks us to share in. Our parish has come alive in ways that humble me. Without exception, every Sunday new people come through the doors of our church seeking the truth, beauty and wonder of life in God.
“We are scrambling to keep up. We have never been more alive.”
