Catholic Music Consulting

Collaborating with parishes to achieve excellence
in liturgical and devotional music.

80% OF CATHOLICS

say music is an important part of their experience of the Mass…

Music invites an evangelistic encounter with Jesus Christ in the Mass. Yet music is a common factor in people leaving a parish.

The Vigil Project’s mission is to expand the conversation around Catholic music to every moment of the Catholic journey, flowing from the Mass into the day-to-day devotional life of Catholics. Many parishes attempt to cram the full musical expression of the Church into one hour on Sunday mornings, leaving a music ministry overextended and parishioners battling over their musical preferences.

We help parishes rebuild excellence in their worship to restore a sense of unity in their music. We come alongside pastors in their unique context to help them discern how best to build a local culture of devotion and refine their parish’s sacred music to meet the visions cast by the Second Vatican Council. From offering practical musical training to guiding a renewal of prayer, we’re ready to journey in relationship with your music ministry.

The next round of cohort and consulting begins on January 20, 2025. Up to ten pastors kick off the pastoral cohort on Zoom that week, and up to three parishes will begin their consultations with The Vigil Project in the final week of January. Get in touch (or click below) to learn more today.

COMMON QUESTIONS FROM PASTORS:

The parish is the heartbeat of the Catholic Church and the heartbeat of our work. While every parish is unique, we encounter many similar challenges and questions from pastors around the world. Here are some real questions we often hear:

  • How do I steer the talent that already exists in the parish? Do we have a talent problem or a training problem within our music ministry?

  • How do I make changes to encourage the Church’s vision for music and pastorally guide parishioners who are used to music “the way it’s always been”?

  • I feel like I’m not on the same page with my music director. What can we do to help achieve a shared vision for liturgical music?

  • Our parish seems to battle about which genre of music fits at Mass. We’re stuck and cannot please everyone.

  • How do we build a culture of devotion at the parish? They come for Sunday morning Mass, but I’m not sure they’ll come again during the week to pray.

  • I want to change the music at Mass, but I don’t know where to start, or how to build a long-term repertoire for the future.

PARISH CONSULTING APPROACH

As a pastor, you feel far out of your depth in reviving music at your parish. Perhaps the music has been the same for a long time, or the choir is dwindling in numbers and ability as the core membership ages. Maybe you’ve sensed a deficit in the lyrical and theological quality of music in your hymnal. Or perhaps you tried making a change and received a deluge of complaints. This is where we – at The Vigil Project – thrive: we love working with pastors to implement a vision for liturigcal music, help musicians and parishioners through uncomfortable feelings about a musical shift in the Mass, and develop locally the skills to select and execute truly beautiful, authentically Catholic liturgical music.

Phase 1: Immerse

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: Shift

We don’t use a “by the book” mentality in serving parishes. 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. We come to your parish for a curated three-day retreat: a chance for your music ministry to pause, grow in relationship and begin to work toward a pastoral vision for your parish’s music.

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

  • Resources to develop parishioner understanding of music

  • Follow-up resources for retreatants

Phase 3: Implement

Following our in-person retreat weekend, we work with you to provide short-term resources for targeted growth and healing, and a long-term strategy for your music ministry. We’ll help establish effective leadership, develop training resources, and set the course for a music ministry that prays well and serves skillfully.


Deliverables:

  • Regular strategic meetings with pastor and key music ministers

  • Written music ministry plan to guide the next year of ministry

  • Online & in-person training and resources tailored to the needs of your music ministry’s continued learning and spiritual growth

  • Online comunity access to engage with parishes and musicians around the globe

PASTORAL COHORT APPROACH

Perhaps, as a pastor, you desire a change in your liturgical music, yet you sense (and have heard from others) that the issue is too complex to handle well. Maybe you feel ill-equipped in knowledge of what the church says on music, or don’t know how to communicate well with your musicians. At The Vigil Project, we often encounter and work with priests in these very same scenarios. Over six months, we’ll spend time journeying with a small cohort of pastors (limited to just 10) to train them on the Church’s vision for music, give them confidence in communicating with musicians, help solve real-life scenarios they experience with their music ministers, and develop a grounded local vision for the music ministry with actionable steps to implement it over time.

For six months, we visit your parish to execute an intensive shift in the parish’s music ministry. Through three phases, we identify core and complex issues affecting the music ministry, develop a pastoral vision and plan, host a weekend-long retreat to pour into the musicians, and provide intensive training to the musicians, pastor, and key volunteers. Weekly calls with music leaders and the pastor creates a culture of strong communication, love of the liturgy, and desire for beauty in liturgical music. Included with this process is:

  • Weekly Zoom call with The Vigil Project

  • Hear from other pastors with similar music ministry situations

  • Full access to our online Catholic musician training platform

  • Ability to add targeted workshops to train musicians in key skills.

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.

OUR CREDENTIALS

The parish is the heartbeat of the Catholic Church and the heartbeat of our work as we’ve served over 400 parishes in recent years. We regularly host Catholic Musician Retreats and regional workshops, and lead a college-level formation residency at Christ the King at SLU Baton Rouge. We are music presenters and music programming consultants for the National Eucharistic Congress in 2024. Explore the organizations we’ve served and partnered with below:

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  •  Focus Conferences

  • Exodus 90 Men’s Summit

  • Legatus Summit

  • Hallow Summit

  • National Eucharistic Congress

  • Fullness of Truth Conferences 

  • NFCYM Conferences 

  • Abbey Youth Festival 

  • Abbey Faith and Music Festival

  • Southwest Youth Conference 

  • Flourish Ecumenical Conference

  • NPM Conference

  • March for Life

  • Life Teen Events

  • Archdiocese of New Orleans 

  • Archdiocese of Mobile

  • Archdiocese of Chicago

  • Archdiocese of Indianapolis

  • Archdiocese of Seattle

  • Archdiocese of Modena

  • Archdiocese of Vienna  

  • Diocese of Venice

  • Diocese of Raleigh

  • Diocese of Lake Charles

  • Diocese of El Paso

  • Diocese of Winona-Rochester

  • Diocese of Syracuse

  • Diocese of Fargo

  • Theology of the Body Institute  

  • Worship Academy Vienna

  • Catholic Music Initiative (CMI)

  • Source & Summit

  • The Word Among Us

  • The Hagios Study

  • Franciscan University of Steubenville

  • Ave Maria University

  • Loyola University of New Orleans

  • St. Francis University

  • EWTN

  • Salt & Light

  • Shalom World

 

TESTIMONIALS

“Their voices are anointed, there is no doubt that the Lord works through every single note they play and sing. TVP is truly an example of service and love with a versatile style.”
— Marthamaria Morales, Eucharistic Congress, Diocese of Venice Florida
“I have worked closely with The Vigil Project, and we have planned multiple True Presence Nights that were offered across the Archdiocese of New Orleans. I was the presider and witnessed firsthand the value these events brought to our community, especially after the impacts of Covid-19 and being separated from our communities for so long. These events have been a tremendous blessing to the parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, and I believe they will be to yours as well. ”
— Archbishop Aymond, Archdiocese of New Orleans

 MORE ABOUT OUR TEAM

  • We are a collective of truly Catholic liturgical and devotional musicians

  • We hold to the orthodox teachings of the Church and are well-versed in liturgical documents on music

  • Our staff have decades of experience touring as devotional musicians, as well as serving in myriad leadership roles in parishes

  • We don’t promote any one genre of Catholic music; rather we promote excellence and beauty as the pillars of our work, and help parishes become musical discerners of the moment,

  • We are versed in many styles of music, including: praise & worship, sacred hymnody, gregorian chant, instrumental music, and more.

  • Our network extends to musicians and experts with specialized skills on key topics, making it easy to pull in support for each parish’s unique needs.

Let’s work together

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