Listening, feedback form foundation of Pastoral Planning process
By Rayanne M. Bennett
Secretary of Communications
What do you think should be the highest priorities for the Church over the next 10 years?
In the seven months since work began on the diocese's Pastoral Planning initiative, nearly 1,000 hours have been invested in listening sessions, working meetings and survey assessments. With the goal of developing a draft list of pastoral priorities that would serve as the basis for broader discussion, Terry A. Ginther, director of the recently-formed Office of Pastoral Planning, has sought input from several hundred individuals representing a cross-section of clergy, parish leaders and diocesan leaders.
And now it's time to hear from the entire Catholic community of the Diocese of Trenton. Every parishioner will have a chance to say how they think the Church can grow and respond to needs over the next few years.
With this introduction of Led By the Spirit, the Diocese's Pastoral Planning Initiative, every Catholic family across Burlington, Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean Counties is being asked to participate by
submitting feedback to specific questions. This section provides an overview of the Pastoral Planning process, an update of new developments, one or more key questions to answer each month in a survey and a report on the feedback that had been received in the previous month.
The feedback questions will also be printed in parish bulletins and in The Monitor, for those members of the Diocese who cannot access the Internet. (Feedback can then be submitted in writing and sent to: Terry Ginther, Director, Office of Pastoral Planning, Diocese of Trenton, 701 Lawrenceville Road, P.O. Box 5147, Trenton, NJ 08638-0147.)
In her early consultations, Ginther sat down with approximately 25 pastors; members of the diocese's Presbyteral Council, the Diocesan Pastoral Council and the directors and other leaders of the diocesan offices. In addition, written surveys were distributed to the deacons of the diocese. Emerging from that preliminary work is a list of seven challenges that will now be tested through the feedback coming in from parishioners.
The challenges listed answer the question – What do you think should be the highest priorities for the Church over the next 10 years?
The answers thus far cite Leadership, Living Your Faith, Sunday Eucharist, Growing in Faith, Youth and Young Adults, Committed to Charity and Justice, and Celebrating Cultural and Ethic Diversity.
"We're hoping that parishioners will share their hopes and dreams for the Church," Ginther said. "We're asking them to respond to those areas that have been identified as most important by the people we've spoken with thus far, and offer some of their own if they don't see them listed."
The listening and feedback phases of the Pastoral Planning process will extend through much of 2008.
"It is our goal to have a diocesan framework of a Pastoral Plan by mid-summer or early fall," Ginther noted. With that framework in place, the phase of pastoral planning in the parishes will begin and could extend for a number of years, she added.
When planning moves to the parish and regional levels, parishioners will have the ability to contribute to the process in person through one or more planning meetings. The Office of Pastoral Planning will be a resource to parishes working individually, in clusters or in deaneries as they seek to formulate a plan that adapts the diocesan framework to the unique realities in their local communities.
The local plans would give life to the more global initiatives by formulating specific measures to serve the mission. Some of the potential areas that could be addressed through this process would be the way that area parishes work together, and the development of more regionalized youth outreach and social justice programs.
Ginther is reluctant to speculate about how the Pastoral Planning process will impact the way that the diocese operates or any changes that would result at the local level.
"The ongoing discussion among diocesan leaders and parish leaders, along with the feedback that is being sought through the website will really determine the shape that this will take," she said.
"As the theme implies, we are being led by the Spirit, and that means we have to be open to the direction we receive through prayer and worship."
