| Dreams and Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation The Introduction Read the Dreams & Visions Blog: Bill's story "from the road." |
Did you ever know someone with dreams and visions for the church? There are many
people who have them, and I’ll bet you’re one! If so, you take your place alongside women
and men of all kinds whose dreams and visions have been shaping the church for centuries.
Pope John XXIII had dreams and visions for the church. They were taken up and given lofty
expression at the Second Vatican Council. His dreams led others to dream with him, and after
him, both Popes Paul VI and John Paul II had visions as well. The popes, of course, are only
servants of the church, the People of God. And the People of God have dreams and
visions, too. You’ll be reading about all of these dreamers in this book.
This book is a guide to help you move in the direction of the dreams and visions which you
have for your parish, but the writer here doesn’t ever promise that you will actually get there!
As you will see in this book, the process of turning dreams and visions into specific programs
and processes, a task known in the church as pastoral planning, never actually comes to an
end.
Good or Great?
In the introduction to his powerful book, Good to Great, (New York: HarperCollins, 2001) Jim
Collins wrote, “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have
so little that becomes great.”
He’s so correct! And for Catholic parishes, this is a powerful wake up call. The church is filled
with “good” parishes: The liturgies are planned. The education programs use a nice looking
book. Some of the people take an active role in parish leadership and ministry. The collections
pay the bills, for the most part. People can get their children baptized without too much
hassle. The second grade students receive their first communions as they do every year.
Couples getting married go through their routine of meetings. Lent comes and Easter follows,
and sometime around Pentecost, things slow down for summer. It’s a “good” parish.
But can we really afford to dwell forever in the doldrums of being only good? The world is
bigger than that in every direction, more challenging and more dynamic! And it needs the
message we have to bring! We have, after all, the secret of the Reign of God, and we need to
be more than merely “good” to announce that. We need to move toward becoming
great!
Setting the church on fire!
In a great parish, the liturgy will not only be planned, but a team of leaders will also plan how
to increase from mediocre to fantastic both (1) the level of participation and (2) the sense of
welcome.
In a great parish, the education process will not only use a good textbook, but over time, a
team of leaders will plan ways to provide faith formation for all members, including adults,
using the textbook as a springboard.
In a great parish, not only will there be some people actively involved, but a team of leaders
will plan ways to gradually engage more and more people in parish life, by lighting a fire in
people’s hearts through encounters with Christ.
In a great parish, not only will the collections pay the bills, but a team of leaders will gradually
see collections rise to the point where the parish is able to afford more, not only for itself but
also for the whole community.
In a great parish, not only will children and young people celebrate the sacraments, or couples
prepare to marry, but a team of leaders will plan how to place those preparing for sacraments
in the context of the whole community, and the catechumenate will be the inspiration and
empowerment behind it all!
In a great parish, catechists and teachers will be in on-going formation, creating a spiritual
community at the hearts of our schools and parishes.
And here’s the Core Work to be done: in a great parish, a team of leaders will gradually
build up a process by which members have either (1) an initial encounter with Christ and his
life-changing presence or (2) deeper communion with him, through retreats and encounters.
In a great parish, people will have a way through which that conversion can be sustained for
life, through Faith Gatherings and other means. Little by little in a great parish, a fire will be lit!
Little by little, a team of leaders will help move the parish forward, not merely to repeat this
year what we did last, but also to lead in a consistent direction over a long period of time,
building momentum gradually until one day, a few years from now, everyone will stop and look
back and say to themselves, “Gosh, we’re really a great parish, aren’t we?”
Great parishes aren’t built by lurching off after the latest pastoral trends!
They aren’t built in one or two or three years. They aren’t built by entrepreneurial Pastors who
fight the chancery and do their own thing. Even if that looks good for a while, in the end when
that Pastor is gone, the parish will suffer implosion. It takes a lot of effort and a team of
modest yet driven leaders to shift from being good to being on the road to greatness, as Jim
Collins reminds us in his book.
There is no one plan, or one action, or one program to adopt that can make a parish great.
But there is a direction, and that direction is set by the church itself, as you will read in these
pages.
So rather than suggest big new programs to implement, Dreams and Visions suggests
moving in the constant direction of lifelong faith formation by establishing a pattern of growth,
step-by-step, little by little. Dreams and Visions suggests a strong plan of formation for the
whole community, but it also cautions you not to run off into several directions at once. The
Core Work (the Hedgehog Concept in Jim Collin’s book) is quite simple and we keep returning
to it in this book constantly. It’s the concept which comes to us from the popes and bishops,
but also directly from the Gospel, and from the spiritual insight of almost everyone! And that
Core Work, of course, is the center point of Dreams and Visions.
Every single dimension of pastoral planning suggested here leads always to and from this
core: to help people experience an initial encounter with Christ, or to grow into deeper
communion with God, or to turn one’s heart toward Christ, or to go through a conversion, or
to be part of the “new evangelization” described by John Paul II. However you name it, there is
one central vision here: Help people deepen their communion with Christ and you will
light a fire in your parish! That is the dream and vision of this book.
Through discipline and consistency, we will gradually build up our good parishes into great
ones by growing the number of people who are on fire with this love of Christ and each other!
Once the momentum begins, the movement will sustain itself. All the parish leaders have to do
is stoke the fire and keep out of the way!
We sometimes settle for so little as parish workers and members! We’re willing to accept the
modest goal of balancing a budget or not making anyone angry in the parish! What is that
about? It’s about safety and security. But growing the parish requires risk, danger, and
maybe even our very lives! It requires us to go out on a limb. It requires us to do what Pope
John XXIII did when he was inspired to call Vatican II. The idea of a council, he later said,
appeared to him “like a flash of heavenly light.” He trusted that flash, and in his own modest
yet determined way he changed the course of history and all our lives. (Clearly he was a Level
5 Leader as described by Collins in Good to Great.)
A Flash of Heavenly Light
We as a church can do so much more to announce the Reign of God! We Catholics have a
true heart for the poor; we love the liturgical flow of the year; we believe in defending the
rejected and the forgotten (in fact, bills that come before the US Congress to do that are
known as “Catholic bills!”); we’re big enough to embrace everyone, and boy, do we know how
to bury the dead! There’s just nothing quite like a Catholic funeral!
And yet, so many pastoral staff people in these “good parishes” complain that attendance is
dropping among the young, that collections are too low to meet the demands, that it’s harder
and harder to recruit volunteers, that we have lost our moral voice in the culture, that we’re
busy arguing over the language of our rituals while the world is marching to war! We’re not
working at our Core Work: helping folks meet Christ. We’re distracted by politics, rubrics, or
our own fears.
Now the task is upon us. Don’t settle for being merely a good parish. Don’t pass from one
year to the next repeating the same pleas for engagement on the part of your members. Don’
t sit back and wait for the ones coming after you to do this. Dreams and Visions provides a
road map toward a new horizon, one that is promised to us by Christ, in the Spirit. Step
forward now and move your parish from being good to being truly great!
Bill Huebsch
Pine City, Minnesota
March, 2007
people who have them, and I’ll bet you’re one! If so, you take your place alongside women
and men of all kinds whose dreams and visions have been shaping the church for centuries.
Pope John XXIII had dreams and visions for the church. They were taken up and given lofty
expression at the Second Vatican Council. His dreams led others to dream with him, and after
him, both Popes Paul VI and John Paul II had visions as well. The popes, of course, are only
servants of the church, the People of God. And the People of God have dreams and
visions, too. You’ll be reading about all of these dreamers in this book.
This book is a guide to help you move in the direction of the dreams and visions which you
have for your parish, but the writer here doesn’t ever promise that you will actually get there!
As you will see in this book, the process of turning dreams and visions into specific programs
and processes, a task known in the church as pastoral planning, never actually comes to an
end.
Good or Great?
In the introduction to his powerful book, Good to Great, (New York: HarperCollins, 2001) Jim
Collins wrote, “Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have
so little that becomes great.”
He’s so correct! And for Catholic parishes, this is a powerful wake up call. The church is filled
with “good” parishes: The liturgies are planned. The education programs use a nice looking
book. Some of the people take an active role in parish leadership and ministry. The collections
pay the bills, for the most part. People can get their children baptized without too much
hassle. The second grade students receive their first communions as they do every year.
Couples getting married go through their routine of meetings. Lent comes and Easter follows,
and sometime around Pentecost, things slow down for summer. It’s a “good” parish.
But can we really afford to dwell forever in the doldrums of being only good? The world is
bigger than that in every direction, more challenging and more dynamic! And it needs the
message we have to bring! We have, after all, the secret of the Reign of God, and we need to
be more than merely “good” to announce that. We need to move toward becoming
great!
Setting the church on fire!
In a great parish, the liturgy will not only be planned, but a team of leaders will also plan how
to increase from mediocre to fantastic both (1) the level of participation and (2) the sense of
welcome.
In a great parish, the education process will not only use a good textbook, but over time, a
team of leaders will plan ways to provide faith formation for all members, including adults,
using the textbook as a springboard.
In a great parish, not only will there be some people actively involved, but a team of leaders
will plan ways to gradually engage more and more people in parish life, by lighting a fire in
people’s hearts through encounters with Christ.
In a great parish, not only will the collections pay the bills, but a team of leaders will gradually
see collections rise to the point where the parish is able to afford more, not only for itself but
also for the whole community.
In a great parish, not only will children and young people celebrate the sacraments, or couples
prepare to marry, but a team of leaders will plan how to place those preparing for sacraments
in the context of the whole community, and the catechumenate will be the inspiration and
empowerment behind it all!
In a great parish, catechists and teachers will be in on-going formation, creating a spiritual
community at the hearts of our schools and parishes.
And here’s the Core Work to be done: in a great parish, a team of leaders will gradually
build up a process by which members have either (1) an initial encounter with Christ and his
life-changing presence or (2) deeper communion with him, through retreats and encounters.
In a great parish, people will have a way through which that conversion can be sustained for
life, through Faith Gatherings and other means. Little by little in a great parish, a fire will be lit!
Little by little, a team of leaders will help move the parish forward, not merely to repeat this
year what we did last, but also to lead in a consistent direction over a long period of time,
building momentum gradually until one day, a few years from now, everyone will stop and look
back and say to themselves, “Gosh, we’re really a great parish, aren’t we?”
Great parishes aren’t built by lurching off after the latest pastoral trends!
They aren’t built in one or two or three years. They aren’t built by entrepreneurial Pastors who
fight the chancery and do their own thing. Even if that looks good for a while, in the end when
that Pastor is gone, the parish will suffer implosion. It takes a lot of effort and a team of
modest yet driven leaders to shift from being good to being on the road to greatness, as Jim
Collins reminds us in his book.
There is no one plan, or one action, or one program to adopt that can make a parish great.
But there is a direction, and that direction is set by the church itself, as you will read in these
pages.
So rather than suggest big new programs to implement, Dreams and Visions suggests
moving in the constant direction of lifelong faith formation by establishing a pattern of growth,
step-by-step, little by little. Dreams and Visions suggests a strong plan of formation for the
whole community, but it also cautions you not to run off into several directions at once. The
Core Work (the Hedgehog Concept in Jim Collin’s book) is quite simple and we keep returning
to it in this book constantly. It’s the concept which comes to us from the popes and bishops,
but also directly from the Gospel, and from the spiritual insight of almost everyone! And that
Core Work, of course, is the center point of Dreams and Visions.
Every single dimension of pastoral planning suggested here leads always to and from this
core: to help people experience an initial encounter with Christ, or to grow into deeper
communion with God, or to turn one’s heart toward Christ, or to go through a conversion, or
to be part of the “new evangelization” described by John Paul II. However you name it, there is
one central vision here: Help people deepen their communion with Christ and you will
light a fire in your parish! That is the dream and vision of this book.
Through discipline and consistency, we will gradually build up our good parishes into great
ones by growing the number of people who are on fire with this love of Christ and each other!
Once the momentum begins, the movement will sustain itself. All the parish leaders have to do
is stoke the fire and keep out of the way!
We sometimes settle for so little as parish workers and members! We’re willing to accept the
modest goal of balancing a budget or not making anyone angry in the parish! What is that
about? It’s about safety and security. But growing the parish requires risk, danger, and
maybe even our very lives! It requires us to go out on a limb. It requires us to do what Pope
John XXIII did when he was inspired to call Vatican II. The idea of a council, he later said,
appeared to him “like a flash of heavenly light.” He trusted that flash, and in his own modest
yet determined way he changed the course of history and all our lives. (Clearly he was a Level
5 Leader as described by Collins in Good to Great.)
A Flash of Heavenly Light
We as a church can do so much more to announce the Reign of God! We Catholics have a
true heart for the poor; we love the liturgical flow of the year; we believe in defending the
rejected and the forgotten (in fact, bills that come before the US Congress to do that are
known as “Catholic bills!”); we’re big enough to embrace everyone, and boy, do we know how
to bury the dead! There’s just nothing quite like a Catholic funeral!
And yet, so many pastoral staff people in these “good parishes” complain that attendance is
dropping among the young, that collections are too low to meet the demands, that it’s harder
and harder to recruit volunteers, that we have lost our moral voice in the culture, that we’re
busy arguing over the language of our rituals while the world is marching to war! We’re not
working at our Core Work: helping folks meet Christ. We’re distracted by politics, rubrics, or
our own fears.
Now the task is upon us. Don’t settle for being merely a good parish. Don’t pass from one
year to the next repeating the same pleas for engagement on the part of your members. Don’
t sit back and wait for the ones coming after you to do this. Dreams and Visions provides a
road map toward a new horizon, one that is promised to us by Christ, in the Spirit. Step
forward now and move your parish from being good to being truly great!
Bill Huebsch
Pine City, Minnesota
March, 2007
| Resources offered on this site |
| Pastoral Planning A step-by-step guide: Dreams & Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation A new book which includes a chapter outlining those all-important Planning Team Meetings. Training How to teach your parish about lifelong formation including excellent PowerPoint presentations to download and use, complete with presentation notes. Implementation How to state and sustain faith sharing throughout the parish using the Question of the Week With free prayer sheets. Prayer Services to accompany faith sharing. You can download and use these in 5 minutes! Outlines for adult or intergenerational Faith Gatherings linked to your children's textbook series. Outlines for adult Bible Studies which are in plain English! Download each session and get all you need in one item. Complete plans for Parish Based Retreats in several practical scheduling formats. Background Material All the current books you need to better understand lifelong formation, plus free articles you can download, copy, and use. Vatican II Lots of strong resources to help you teach about the Council. We are approaching the 50th Anniversary of the date on which John XXIII called Vatican II: Jan 25, 1959. |
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