The parish is the heartbeat of the Catholic Church and the heartbeat of our work at The Vigil Project. Through an encounter with beauty, music is a primary means of engaging parishioners in an active life of prayer and evangelization. We are here to come alongside your community to pray, help inspire excellence in music-making, and together enter into an encounter with Jesus Christ through music.
LET'S LOOK AT THE PROBLEM
50% of Catholics in any parish are dissatisfied with the music (Pew Research)
74% of Catholics select a parish based on music (US Catholic Survey)
Only 3% of musicians feel supported in their role (WorshipLeader research)
Let’s address this right away as well: you are likely already wondering, “Where does The Vigil Project fall in the spectrum of Catholic music for the Mass?” Right away, we want to share that we teach faithfully from the liturgical documents of the Catholic Church, connecting them to the unbroken tradition of the church’s vision for music within and outside of the liturgy. This means:
- We can walk with you in building a sacred music program, incorporating chant, stable hymnody, and antiphons
- We also understand the modern artist’s heart and desire to create. We can help create space for modern music in the life of the parish. Sometimes that’s the Mass, and often it’s the life of devotion.
- At the core of our mission is helping Catholics pray with music. We can help address the pastoral dimension of a parish music program, guiding parishioners and music ministers into a deeper desire for beauty and a holistic incorporation of musical prayer in their lives beyond the liturgy. (i.e., let’s look beyond the one hour of Sunday Mass!)
OUR APPROACH
We work with diocese worship offices as well as pastor-music director teams to spark long-term shifts in Catholic music, both within the liturgy and within the cultural life of the parish and home.
Phase 1: Immersion & Vision
We want to understand your community, the pastoral vision for music, and how we can work together to get there. Beginning with pastoral meetings, we will evaluate, survey, and talk with key leaders in your parish’s music ministry. We come alongside you to pray and discern what obstacles stand between your music ministry today and what the Lord is calling it to be tomorrow.
Deliverables:
- Pastoral meetings
- Key leader meetings
- Trust-building meetings with music ministers
- Parish-wide survey on music
- Written report and recommendations for next steps
Phase 2: Accompaniment
We don’t believe that “changing the hymnal” is the best or only solution for a parish music ministry transition. We target key areas of growth for your unique music ministry, from growth in musical skill or liturgical knowledge to helping musicians discern musical selections for each moment of the life of faith. We come to your parish or diocese for a curated three-day retreat: a chance for your musicians to pause, grow in relationship and begin to work toward a pastoral vision that brings you closer, over time, to what the liturgical documents offer as a vision.
Deliverables:
- 3-day retreat with our team and your music ministry
- Setting the pastoral vision, laying a spiritual foundation, and beginning to strive for excellence together
Phase 3: Implementation
Following our in-person retreat weekend, we work with you to provide short-term guidance for targeted progress. We answer questions that come up in real-time for pastors and musicians as they begin to implement the skills and knowledge gained on retreat together.
- Resources to develop parishioner understanding of music
- Follow-up resources for retreatants
- Real-time question and answer as you implement
Phase 4: Reiterate & Culture Build
We often return to parishes and dioceses for additional three day retreats, first to help reiterate the vision cast earlier in the process (especially for new musicians or people who missed it the first time), but also to help establish a culture where the musicians themselves become ambassadors and leaders.
- 3-day retreat with our team and your music ministry
- Additional resources
FREE 1-HOUR EXPLORATORY CALL
Have questions about music ministry? Not sure where to start?
We’re happy to help, whether you decide to partner with us or not! Over the course of a FREE one-hour call, we’ll pray with you and explore together what’s going on in your parish’s music ministry. You can use this time to seek advice or ask specific questions, or we can simply guide you through an exercise in evaluating music in your parish.
MEET ANDREW
Get to know one of our coaches, Andrew Goldstein:
Andrew Goldstein is a husband, father of five daughters and a Catholic musician. He spent over ten years as a church music director, and now as a member of The Vigil Project helps musicians and pastors revive sacred music, pave a highway for devotional music, reclaim song in the home, and discover the riches of the Liturgy of the Hours. As a lecturer and educator, he is regarded for his balanced and integrated approach to Catholic music, offering achievable approaches to implementing excellent music in even the smallest of parish contexts.
He is the co-founder of Seattle’s eclectic chamber music series: Emerald City Music, and for over fifteen years has worked across the United States and Europe as a consultant to orchestras, opera houses, and music venues. Most notably, Andrew worked closely with GRAMMY-awardwinning cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han as their Artistic Administrator, planning major projects like Korea’s Chamber Music Today and California’s Music@Menlo. His efforts in reviving classical music have been recognized by The New York Times, The Seattle Times, New Music USA, and has been featured in Oxford University Press’s The Savvy Musician 2.0, a standard textbook for collegiate arts management studies.
A musician himself, Andrew sings professionally with the Saint Hildegard Project and was a founding member of Vox Olympia. He co-directs the youth schola at St. Thomas More Academy in South Bend, IN. He holds a Bachelor of Music from The Hartt School at the University of Hartford and a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University.
His writing has appeared in Word on Fire’s Evangelization & Culture Journal and the Huffington Post. Alongside author David Clayton, Andrew is co-author of Word on Fire’s Musica Domestica (Fall 2026), a two-volume book of hymns, chants, psalms and folk songs presented to revive a culture of music and prayer in the home.
Andrew Goldstein Social Media Links
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goldsteina/
Substack: https://substack.com/@catholicmusician
Website: https://www.catholicandrew.com/