Our Protestant Friends

I'm Pastor of a Protestant Church
Welcome! We all face the same challenges!

Believers
everywhere
still long...for
all Christians
to live
together in
peace. We
long to live
together as
one family,
with the
whole word
as our
peaceful
dwelling
place, united
in one visible
Church. Only
then will the
truth of the
Gospel shine
forth clearly!
Decree on Ecumenism

#1
from Vatican II in
Plain English

Dear Pastor,

Welcome! We're glad to see you here! Whether or not you're Catholic, I'm
sure you face the same complicated challenges as everyone else. Thank you
for everything you offer your congregation. The church absolutely depends on
leadership from people like you. In fact, we need more of you!

We know that many Christians today simply are no longer fully engaged
with their churches. There are many reasons for that, but all of them point to a
huge need, which is for each congregation to develop a pastoral plan which

Provides an avenue of return for those who want to but don't know how
Strengthens the remaining church community so they'll have something to
come home to
Offers ways for everyone to deepen their communion with Christ
Which has the effect of lighting a fire in the church!
And this fire is what we know will

increase the number of church volunteers
increase the weekend collections
make the church a happier, more energetic place overall
insure that our children, youth, and young adults will see a lively church
community and be attracted to it for life
and most importantly, be more effective in announcing the Reign of God to a
world hurting from war, poverty, disease, and abuse.

So you see, it's no small thing we're doing! As Pastor, or as a
Congregational Leader, the role you play is essential in establishing a pastoral
plan for more effective lifelong learning. To help you, this web site is loaded with
resources. First of all, if you're just getting started as a church and you don't
mind sorting through resources with a slightly Catholic edge to them, begin here
.

If you are ready to train, inform, and share all this with the whole church, click
here for PowerPoint presentations and other materials. These resources come
to you as Word or PowerPoint documents, which you can adjust and adapt to
your particular church's terminology and categories.

If you're ready to start implementing a pastoral plan for lifelong faith formation,
check out these resources. Click on any underlined item below to see the
resources we offer:

Ready-to-use prayer services based on:

the hopeful outcomes of Vatican II
and the inspiration of Pope John XXI II

C omplete plans for congregation -bas ed retreats in a variety of schedule formats
and in both English and Spanish. These retreats can be adapted for use in any
Christian church because they're based only on the dying and rising of Christ.
Fully developed plans for adult faith gatherings in your church, including the
handouts.
Resources to help you start and sustain the Question of the Week. These faith
sharing questions are based on the Sunday readings.
Free articles which you can reproduce to help folks understand lifelong faith
formation in all its dimensions
Training materials for your use in the parish, including ready-to-use PowerPoint
presentations. These materials help you as a leader to share the vision of what
lifelong faith formation can do for your church!

This is also the web site which supports the powerful new book, Dreams and
Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation. Every link
mentioned in that text is found here.

So once again, thanks for everything you do for your congregation. Let's keep
praying and working for the day that we might all be one! We're glad you're
making use of this support web site, and please let us know if there are other
ways in which we can help you!

Good wishes for your ministry,

Bill Huebsch
and the Pastoral Planning Crew

Resources offered
on this site

Share
your
church's
story!

If you have
been working
with whole
community or
lifelong
catechesis or
faith
formation
and you have
a story to
tell, we want
to hear it! Go
to this page
and send us
your story!
Give us the
link to your
congregation
web site at
the same
time, please.

And thanks!

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
B ible 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.

Take me:
to the
H ome P age

to the
Resource
Center

to
"Getting
Started"