| Step
# 1:
Reading the Pastoral Plan
Read through the Diocesan Pastoral
Plan, Following in the Footsteps of Christ, carefully,
in a reflective and prayerful spirit, being open to
what the Holy Spirit is asking you and your parish.
Some ideas for a fruitful reading:
1. Plan
a reading and discussion session to be led by the Pastor,
inviting parochial vicars, deacons, religious and laity,
such as the members of the pastoral council, Directors
of Religious Education, RCIA coordinators, catechists,
representative parishioners, and others.
2. Propose
the document as topic of reflection for the different
groups that meet in your parish: women’s or men’s
groups, youth groups, Knights of Columbus, etc.
3. Invite
parishioners to read the entire document on the website:
www.footstepsofchrist.org. Ask them to share their ideas
with those responsible for the parish’s ministries
and to send their comments and suggestions/questions
to the Office for Pastoral Services of the Diocese.
4. Going
through the document, keep in mind questions such as:
“Where are we now as a parish?” “Where
does God want us to go?” Remain mindful that the
ultimate goal of the Pastoral Plan -- and of the whole
Christian life -- is nothing other than an ongoing personal
conversion to Jesus Christ and a deepening of personal
holiness.
5.
During the discussion session, you can use the materials
offered by the Office for Pastoral Services, such as
the video and the brochure, to help parishioners better
understand the Pastoral Plan and become involved with
it.
Step
# 2:
Identifying Your Goals
Once your team is familiar with
the document and the five priorities of the Plan, choose
at least one goal for each of the priorities that you
would like to implement in your parish.
Some ideas on how to discern the goals for your parish:
* When
you go through the goals for each priority, you will
realize that all of them are important and that many
of them are presently being fulfilled in your parish.
Through the Pastoral Plan, you will have the opportunity
to enhance your ministry in each of the five priorities.
* Choosing
one goal in each priority will help to focus and accomplish
and measure progress. It doesn’t mean that the
parish won’t be addressing other areas, but simply
that the parish will concentrate on one specific initiative
in that priority.
For example,
in the priority of Liturgy, there are nine different
overall goals to review. Evaluate what your parish is
already doing well and think about what requires more
attention. Once you have a clear perspective, choose
some areas for focus.
Consider the
following scenario:
Perhaps your parish has a strong and active Bible Study
group that promotes the knowledge of Sacred Scripture
throughout the parish. However, it could be that many
of your parishioners do not have devotion to or a solid
understanding of the Eucharist. If this were the case,
your parish could offer more opportunities for the parishioners
to grow in love and reverence of the Real Presence of
the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist.
Do the same process with each of the
other four priorities: Cultivating Family & Life,
Inspiring Youth, Enhancing Adult Formation and being
Active in Charity.
Step
# 3:
Developing Strategies
Develop strategies and tactics to accomplish
your goals. The strategies that move a parish toward
accomplishing its goals are your action steps. Without
strategies, the goals do not become actionable. This
is a fundamental step for the implementation of the
plan.
How to implement
strategies:
1. Review the parish strategies
and see which one(s) applies to your goal. For example,
consider the priority of Enhancing Adult Formation.
Suppose you have chosen the goal, “Creating avenues
to awaken the need to learn the faith among adults.”
When you review parish strategies, you may decide to
offer seminars or discussion groups that educate parishioners
on how to live their faith in today’s world. Your
team can identify topics that respond to parishioners’
needs and interests.
2. The parish strategies
suggested in the Pastoral Plan are very general. This
enables your parish to develop your own specific strategies
according to your possibilities, resources and capabilities.
3. Once your team is focused
on one or more strategies within a priority, you will
bring them to life by setting measurable expectations
over time: 3, 9, 12 months (you decide whatever evaluation
period is most adequate for the specific strategy).
Decide What, How, Who, When. Articulate your strategies
in as much detail as possible.
Example:
- Start a study group on the new Catholic Catechism
for Adults, issued by the USCCB, every first Saturday
of the month.
- Organize interactive sessions in the parish twice
a year (September and April), inviting parents of children
in religious education on topics pertaining to parenting
and teaching virtues in today’s world.
For a study group based on the Catholic Catechism for
Adults, your measurable expectations can be as follows:
- In 3 months, you will have the organization of the
study group done: speakers, location, and advertising
organized.
- In 9 months, you have already started the study groups.
You will have at least 15 adults in the course who have
learned more about their faith and might be willing
to volunteer as catechist or in some other ministry
in the parish.
4. Foster
cooperative and mutually reinforcing relationships within
the parish staff and all the different ministries. Effective
strategies bring together several strengths.
Example:
- If your goal in the priority of “Inspiring Youth”
is to create a vibrant youth group in your parish, you
will want to involve the youth minister, parents, the
DRE, the social outreach group, etc. All support the
youth initiatives as they become involved in the life
of the parish.
5. It’s
very important to be realistic and concrete. Be sure
that you have identified the outcomes you would like
to see.
6. Make sure that you review
the diocesan strategies so that you can know how the
diocese can support you and how you can collaborate
with the diocese.
Step
# 4:
Enabling Infrastructure and Organization
Create the infrastructure needed to
accomplish the goals. Without the needed organization
and resources, the strategies will not be accomplished.
Points to be
considered in creating the needed infrastructure:
1. Lead people in prayer
for the evangelizing initiatives of the Pastoral Plan.
2. Recognize that resources
can be of different types: people, facilities, funds,
etc.
3. Designate
a Parish Pastoral Plan committee that will assist the
pastor in the implementation of the Plan and that will
promote commitment in the parish community. (You don’t
need to duplicate efforts - this can be drawn from your
pastoral council or any other groups that helps in evangelization
– DRE, RCIA coordinator, Youth Minister, etc.)
This group will have the mission of helping to keep
focus, monitor progress and build community.
4. Make
a “to do” list for every strategy. Review
what resources your parish already has, what you need
and how to obtain them. Make sure there is a person
responsible to fulfill each task.
5. Use
this as an opportunity to build on existing programs
and initiatives in your parish, in other nearby parishes
or in the diocese. Consider how to enhance the resources
that you have, review other existing resources and how
you can adapt those to your own situation.
Step
# 5:
Follow-Up, Ongoing Evaluation and Communication
1. Schedule
a sufficient number of meetings to ensure that people
understand the priorities, strategies and action steps
and are committed to bringing them to life.
2. Review
progress according to desired results that have been
foreseen in the strategies.
3. Issue
regular communications to the parish community on the
Plan and its goals and progress. Include news about
the Pastoral Plan in the bulletin periodically. The
Diocese will also publish news and progress in Fairfield
County Catholic.
4.
Remember that it’s important to be flexible and
open to the new challenges to which the Holy Spirit
is guiding us.
The most important point is to
be firmly anchored in the Lord Jesus, knowing that the
fruits of our efforts are not ours, but God’s.
We entrust our evangelization efforts to Mary and ask
her always for her maternal and loving intercession
that we truly live as servants of the Lord, open to
the grace to fulfill God’s plan in every circumstance
of our life.
The following forms are designed to
help your planning, guiding you through the different
steps. These forms are simply tools; feel free to adapt
them to your own pastoral situation (you can download
the forms at www.footstepsofchrist.org).
The diocese wants to serve and enable your parish to
implement this Plan and build ongoing communication.
When you finish your planning, please
send the parish strategies you have selected for the
year to the Office for Pastoral Services (Every year,
please do the same as soon as you finish your planning).
This information will be very helpful as it will assist
us in supporting, tracking, and measuring the initiatives
that are happening around the Diocese.
By knowing which strategies were chosen
in each parish, we will be able to promote networking
between the different parishes. Contact the Office for
Pastoral Services if you need any assistance in the
implementation of this plan in your parish.
E-mail us at pastoralplan@diobpt.org
or call the Office for Pastoral Services at (203)
416-1440. |
