Pope Benedict had a great, off-the-cuff answer to a question he received on his trip to England recently. He was asked what the Church could do to make herself a more credible and attractive institution.

Here is his answer:

What an amazing, humble answer - the kind of answer that gives you peace that God has put our Church in good hands. And it is definitely food for thought.

Some will take this answer to mean that it doesn’t matter how well our parishes are run, how organized our ministries are, or how effective our parish leadership is. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Our goals should not be more power and more people, but instead to be at the service of Another - to be servants. But good servants work at it. Good servants are as prepared, educated, efficient and effective as they can possibly be. We can’t claim to be good servants if we don’t invest time in being good at it. It is all tied up together. That means learning from each other, taking risks with new and better ideas, breaking conventions, overcoming fears and doing things that serve others instead of ourselves.

We don’t need to focus on making the Church attractive. We just need to focus on more effectively presenting Jesus Christ to the world. He is the most attractive thing there is.