Rebuilt Books

Rebuilt Faith
A Handbook for Skeptical Catholics

Are you concerned about empty pews and lackluster participation by families in parish life? Do you want to reverse a decades-long decline in church attendance?

Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran—authors of the bestselling book, Rebuilt—have the answer: Make it all about Jesus. In Rebuilt Faith, you will learn that rebuilding and renewing faith starts with a nagging feeling that we want something more—more connectedness, more community, and more purpose. That’s the spark that leads to a flame that burns brightly around Jesus, the foundation of living and growing in faith.

Rebuilt Faith is broken down into forty days, each of which includes a quotation from a saint, a reflection, questions to ponder, a prayer, and a scripture verse. The authors organize these forty days around five steps that build on a different aspect of Catholicism and are meant to be repeated:

• serve—serve others and develop a servant’s heart;
• give—giving reflects the character of God;
• engage in Christian community—we need friends of faith to become more like Jesus;
• practice prayer and the sacraments—by praying consistently and continually taking part in the sacraments, parishioners will better connect with God; and
• share the faith—having a heart for people who do not know Jesus and helping them in their faith journey will strengthen individual faith.

White and Corcoran have watched thousands of people in their parish in Timonium, Maryland, take the five steps of this book and grow from seeing God primarily as an abstract idea into knowing him as a deeply loved partner who provides a far greater sense of purpose for living than they had ever known before.

The forty-day structure of Rebuilt Faith is perfect for use by parishes, book clubs, and individuals during Lent.

Seriously, God?

A friend’s child dies; a parent gets a cancer diagnosis; your spouse loses their job. Sometimes life and God’s plan don’t make sense and we end up feeling hurt and angry.

In Seriously, God?, Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran explore the denial, doubt, and betrayal we experience when we face hardship, pain, and grief, and they encourage us to lean into our feelings and to take each circumstance as a chance to learn more about God.

Drawing on personal anecdotes and stories from their parish, White and Corcoran—authors of the bestselling and award-winning book, Rebuilt—share important lessons, including:

• Even the heroes of the Bible—such as Abraham, Moses, David, and the apostles—experienced situations that caused them to misunderstand God.
• There is joy in knowing we will forever be getting to know God.
• Even though life often doesn’t make sense, we shouldn’t assume God doesn’t make sense.

For anyone who has battled suffering, walked away from faith under the pressure of crushing doubt, never felt safe giving faith a chance, or cared about someone who struggles with these realities, this book treats the problems of suffering and evil not as an argument to be overcome but as an invitation to a deeper faith.

Each chapter relies on biblical stories that provide a wonderful introduction to scripture to those who are not familiar with the Bible and a fresh perspective to those who are. Each chapter also includes questions for self-reflection and discussion. A free parish small-group guide and videos from the authors are available online.

This is a perfect book to give as a gift to friends or family members who are grieving, those struggling with doubts about their faith, or those who are new to faith.

Rebuilt:

Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter.

by Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran.

Foreward by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan

Drawing on the wisdom gleaned from thriving mega-churches and innovative business leaders while anchoring their vision in the Eucharistic center of Catholic faith, Fr. Michael White and lay associate Tom Corcoran present the compelling and inspiring story to how they brought their parish back to life.

Rebuilt: Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter is a story of stopping everything and changing focus. When their parish reached a breaking point, White and Corcoran asked themselves how they could make the Church matter to the unchurched, and they realized the answer was at the heart of the Gospel. Their faithful response not only tripled their weekend Mass attendance, but also yielded increased giving, flourishing ministries, and a vibrant, solidly Catholic spiritual revival. White and Corcoran invite all Catholic leaders to share the vision, borrow their strategies, and rebuild their own parishes. They offer a wealth of guidance for anyone with the courage to hear them.

View Rebuilt Chapter Resources here.

Rebuilt Field Guide:  Ten Steps for Getting Started

You know your Catholic parish needs to change its focus, but you’re not sure where or how to begin. In The Rebuilt Field Guide, best selling, award-winning authors Rev. Michael White and Tom Corcoran walk you through ten essential steps for getting started with your church’s reawakening.

After publishing their groundbreaking book Rebuilt in 2013 about the rebirth of the Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran were inundated with requests for help from other Catholic parishes about where to start. Subsequent books in the Rebuilt Parish series—Tools for Rebuilding, Rebuilding Youth Ministry, and Rebuilding Your Message—offer additional means to reach the end goal of making church matter and growing disciples by challenging the faithful and reaching the lost with the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.

In a new book in the Rebuilt Parish series, White and Corcoran lead you and your leadership team through assessment and goal-setting exercises and provide meeting templates that include prayer, scripture reflection, storytelling, and “rally cries” that become reminders of the change the team is striving toward.

This workbook offers practical steps that will help your team set change in motion with tools including:

• A checklist that helps identify the real problems facing your parish and seven questions to help you prioritize them
• A seven-part exercise to help you decide which parish activities do not support your disciple-making mission and then help form plans to stop doing them
• A simple, focused demographic assessment to help you identify your own “Timonium Tim”
• A discussion and planning guide for moving towards changing parish culture. Seven conversation starters to help your team set a course for dealing with the conflict that inevitably comes with change

The exercises are adapted from those used at Church of the Nativity and correlate to the chapters of Rebuilt. The book will show you how to stop everything you are doing, rethink your purpose, and focus your attention on discipleship and evangelization.

Tools for Rebuilding

Fr. Michael White and Tom Corcoran know that the fundamental work of the Church is to evangelize—to introduce people to Christ and make them disciples. Still, they’re the first to admit: “the difficulty comes when we reach down into the details and get to work.” In their barn-burning first book, Rebuilt, White and Corcoran shared their story and vision of building better Catholic parishes. In their best selling second book, Tools for Rebuilding, they lay out seventy-five proven tactics for getting the job done.

In Tools for Rebuilding: 75 Really, Really Practical Ways to Make Your Parish Better, White and Corcoran share foundational tactics that helped to rejuvenate their parish. Their candid, hands-on advice gives a clear way forward—one that will make church matter to the people in the pews and that anyone working in parish ministry can implement.

Principles/tactics include:

• Get the Right People on the Bus
• Christmas Is Over, So Throw Out the Dead Poinsettias
• Stop Advertising (Other People’s Stuff) in Your Bulletin
• Don’t Let the Insiders Take All the Good Seats
• Just Because It’s Slow Doesn’t Mean It’s Holy
• When It Comes to First Communion, Just Surrender
• Funerals Are Scud Missiles
• Preach the Announcements
• Start Getting Rid of Fundraisers
• Everything Takes Longer (Than You Think)
• Pastor, It’s Not All About You
• Stop Trying to Make People Go to Church and Make Church Matter

Rebuilding Your Message

Michael White and Tom Corcoran sparked a firestorm in 2013 with their first book, Rebuilt, the story of how they brought their parish back to life. In Rebuilding Your Message, the award-winning authors now share their carefully honed communication practices to help priests, staff, volunteers, and parishioners better proclaim the irresistible and life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ at every level.

A parish doesn’t just communicate its mission from the pulpit. Teaching and preaching also happen in classes and small groups, in bulletins, on the church website and social media, and through volunteers who welcome visitors through its doors. In Rebuilding Your Message, Michael White and Tom Corcoran—also authors of the bestselling book Tools for Rebuilding—share dozens of strategies to help Catholic parishes establish and sustain excellent communications.

White and Corcoran believe that every parishioner should be engaged in communicating the Good News of Jesus Christ. The authors push Catholics beyond the status quo with practical help for creating a welcoming church, offering relevant homilies, improving parish communications at every level.

Features & Benefits:

• Rebuilt and its sequel, Tools for Rebuilding, have together sold more than 50,000 copies.
• Award-winning authors have the support and praise of Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, Cardinal Dolan of New York, Cardinal O’Malley of Boston, and many other Church leaders across a wide spectrum of Catholic life.
• White and Corcoran maintain an active speaking schedule that has taken them to diocese across the United States and around the world.
• The Rebuilt podcast and rebuiltparish.com continue to share their stories and advice.

Church Money

Money is always a touchy subject in Catholic churches: Pastors don’t want to ask for it and parishioners don’t want to hear about it. But it takes money to run a thriving parish.

In ChurchMoney, Michael White and Tom Corcoran—award-winning authors of the Rebuilt Parish series—share stories of success and failure.

They tell us what they learned to meet the real financial challenges of their mission. They offer the practical wisdom and inspiration you need to tackle the thorny matter of raising money in your Catholic parish.

White and Corcoran know from twenty years leading Church of the Nativity in Timonium, Maryland, that it’s no fun working in a parish struggling to pay the bills. Without money, you can’t hire staff to provide the programs you want to offer. You constantly have to beg parishioners to give. You grow frustrated and angry when they fail to respond. In light of the new financial challenges parishes are facing in the Covid-19 crisis, this book is a must read.

Does this sound familiar?

In ChurchMoney: Rebuilding the Way We Fund Our Mission you will learn the basic skills you need to discover that true success in raising funds comes from the incredibly freeing approach that connects giving to discipleship.

White and Corcoran share lessons learned, facts discovered, habits formed, and great ideas they’ve implemented from some of the most successful and vibrant churches in the United States. ChurchMoney offers a field-tested and proven plan for raising money in parishes. It’s readily adaptable, firmly rooted in the reality of leading a Catholic parish, based on the Bible, and finessed with the best advice of communication professionals.

You will read stories of embarrassing failure and exhilarating success in tripling a budget and running three extraordinarily successful capital campaigns over a ten-year period including their most recent campaign leading to the construction of $16 million sanctuary built debt free. They have increased staff fourfold and significantly raised salaries and increased staff benefits while expanding mission outreach both locally and internationally.