Programs: Dynamic catholic executes the parish book program to make it possible for parishes and dioceses to distribute life-changing catholic books to parishioners during christmas and easter mass. Books are offered at $1-$2 per copy in order to provide a cost-efficient way to spread the new evangelization. Over 5,000 parishes have participated in this program, and we have distributed more than 20 million books. In 2017, over 3. 5 million individuals received a book or cd. The parish book program acts as a catalyst to increase attendance and weekly offerings at parishes. We have found that parishes that have participated three years consecutively have seen a 9. 1% increase in mass attendance and a 10. 4% increase in sunday collections. The parish book program will continue to encourage people to become the best-versions-of-themselves as new and past parishes participate in the initiative. As a supplement to the parish book program, we assembled a team of parish champions - volunteers in parishes across the country - who are re-energizing their parishes with our free programs and resources. In 2017, we added 500 new parish champions bringing us to a total of 1,150 parish champions. In 2017, they helped us distribute over 500,000 books and cds to individuals after masses throughout the year. We have received countless stories of the tremendous impact these resources have had on parishioners. The parish champions have also helped introduce best lent ever and best advent ever to thousands of new individuals, teach, lead, serve to hundreds of new schools, and the better together marriage preparation inventory to hundreds of couples.
at dynamic catholic, we are committed to re-energizing the catholic church through the development of world-class resources that inspire catholics to rediscover the genius of catholicism. To that end, we are developing learning systems for ten quintessentially catholic moments. In 2014, dynamic catholic released decision point, our first catholic moments program. By 2017, decision point was being used in over half of the parishes in america. We continued our best lent ever and best advent ever programs, increasing our participation for best lent ever from over 475,000 in 2016 to over 615,000 in 2017 and for best advent ever from over 327,000 in 2016 to over 450,000 in 2017. Since the release of our better together marriage preparation inventory in october of 2016, we have had well over 4,000 couples utilize the inventory to prepare for or strengthen their marriage. In 2017 we released our blessed first reconciliation program and by the end of the year over 2,500 parishes were using the program in some way and more than 1,000 were using it as their primary program. Development of blessed first communion was largely completed by the end of 2017 and program materials began shipping to parishes and individuals. We also made major strides towards the release of our better together marriage preparation experience slated for the fourth quarter of 2018.
89% of catholics describe an event or experience as the trigger of their new spiritual commitment. At dynamic catholic, we are passionate about creating and delivering life-changing events and pilgrimages that help people to see their lives and faith in a whole new way. In 2017, 345 people traveled with dynamic catholic to one of our four pilgrimage destinations. Over 40,000 people attended a dynamic catholic event.
the mission of christ renews his parish (crhp) is to bring renewal to parishes through an overnight two-day retreat. This retreat fosters a trigger moment that sparks participants deeper into their faith journey and parish life. It creates a powerful experience to help individuals understand what may be missing in their lives and what to do about it. This program has been used in over 1,400 parishes, impacting hundreds of thousands of individuals. Over the next decade, we plan to bring to crhp to thousands more parishes. During 2017, we made substantial progress on our main objectives to update, professionalize, and distribute crhp in a more effective way. We want to help parishes easily implement and sustain crhp, and we are excited for what the future holds. In 2017, we rebranded crhp as "welcome and launched a pilot in 175 parishes throughout the country. We worked closely with 21 parishes who had never used crhp before and over 150 parishes who had already been using crhp to introduce the updated program and materials. The pilot will wrap up in 2018 setting the stage for a nation-wide launch.