ACST Catholic Introduces Revolutionary Service to Assess Parish Ministry and Parishioner Discipleship

Florence, SC, May 7, 2024 — ACST Catholic, a leading provider of technology solutions for Catholic parishes and dioceses, has launched The Discipleship Indicator, a powerful new service that enables Catholic parishes to build or strengthen ministries to help form intentional disciples. This innovative resource has been developed to serve parishes in forming and activating disciples for evangelization.

Developed by a team of industry experts, this service combines a unique survey instrument with expert facilitation to help parish leaders measure ministry effectiveness and understand where parishioners are on their journey as disciples. At the same time, it will enable respondents to self-evaluate their walk with Christ and consider where they would like to go next with the help of the parish. Unlike other church survey tools, The Discipleship Indicator features only 20 questions, allowing users a brief and simplified experience.

"At ACST Catholic, we understand the importance of helping parishes create meaningful experiences and opportunities for an encounter with Christ," said Terry Poplava, General Manager of ACST Catholic. "But unless parishes understand the current state of the spiritual health of their community, it can be a challenge to know what ministries to change or prioritize. The Discipleship Indicator is a powerful service to understand more than participation by asking parishioners for prayerful reflection on their personal faith, along with how well the parish is equipping them for discipleship."

The Discipleship Indicator reveals key indicators of an individual’s level of discipleship in brief, easy-to-answer questions covering topics such as personal faith, challenges, parish experiences, and aspirations for spiritual growth. The responses provide critical insights for parish leadership: 

Is our parish changing lives?
Is our parish enabling a personal relationship with Christ?
Are we helping equip our parishioners to deepen their faith?
Are we seeing growth in missionary discipleship?

As church attendance decreases, fewer Catholics celebrate the sacraments, and parish size shrinks, it has become even more important to understand where people are on their spiritual journey and address specific parish needs through customized outreach. Insights from parishioner reflection can equip leadership to re-engage with parishioners by addressing specific needs in areas like prayer, stewardship, service, catechesis, Mass, and the sacraments. 

“The data collected from The Discipleship Indicator allows parishes to evaluate the state of their ministries to fulfill the call to make missionary disciples and encourage each member to actively embrace their role in advancing the mission of the Church,” Poplava said. “ACST Catholic offers customized support each step of the way to churches using The Discipleship Indicator to ensure a robust picture of insights and observations.”