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Hey! Where's my mission statement?
What good is all this talk about pastoral planning
if we don't start by writing mission statements?!

Well, maybe not... See below for more.

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
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"

Our shared mission

To help people deepen their communion with Christ
by offering them opportunities at the parish which give
rise to the possibility of ever more intimacy with him,
and to help people grow & sustain the excitement of
that conversion within their parish, through our
sacramental life and intentional formation opportunities
which lead to works of justice & charity, not on the
part of the parish as a whole, but on the part of
individual believers gathered in Christ’s name
and which also lead to a life of daily prayer
and to the desire on the part of believers to invite
others to deeper communion as well, which then
begins this circle again.

As the U.S. Bishops point out in Our Hearts Were Burning
Within Us (see below), “adult faith formation, by which people
consciously grow in the life of Christ through experience,
reflection, prayer, and study, must be the central task in the
catechetical enterprise” (italics are theirs). Such adult catechesis,
they go on to say, should become “the axis around which
revolves the catechesis of childhood and adolescence as well as
that of old age” (paragraph #5).

From the Bishops’ leadership expressed in this Statement, arises
a new resource and tool to assist in writing a pastoral plan for
your parish which helps implement this vision. Parish Vision
2009 provides a planning process and framework which is
completely adaptable to your own specific setting. We hope it
serves you well! It's available on this website, and it's
completely free. There is one version for smaller, rural,
clustered parishes, and another for medium and larger parishes.

This web site is loaded with other practical resources, and
recommendations. See below for links to the work of Mark
Fischer and the Conference on Pastoral Planning and Council
Development.

From the US Bishops
Who are the first teachers of the Church.

The planning which this web site helps you do is designed to assist you and your parish to do effective
lifelong faith formation. The purpose here is to help you implement the plan laid out by the US Bishops
for every parish in the church of the United States. This plan was spelled out in a key Statement,
published in 1999 for the new millennium, Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us.

This Statement and the Pastoral Plan it describes lead us to what the Bishops call “a new focus on adult
faith formation.”

Here's what the Bishops had to say, in part:

We, as the Catholic bishops of the United States, call the Church in our country to a renewed
commitment to adult faith formation, positioning it at the heart of our catechetical vision and practice.
We pledge to support adult faith formation without weakening our commitment to our other essential
educational ministries. This pastoral plan guides the implementation of this pledge and commitment.
Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, #6

Let us strengthen our commitment and intensify our efforts to help the adults in our communities be
touched and transformed by the life-giving message of Jesus, to explore its meaning, experience its power,
and live in its light as faithful adult disciples today. Let us do our part with creativity and vigor, our hearts
aflame with love to empower adults to know and live the message of Jesus. This is the Lord’s work. In the
power of the Spirit it will not fail but will bear lasting fruit for the life of the world.
Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, #183

Bishop Ray Lucker,
(pictured above)
used to tell his parish
leaders that they
shouldn't spend a lot of
time fussing over mission
statements.
"We all really share
the same mission,
don't we?"
he would ask.

"Instead,
let's spend our time
learning how to move from
that mission statement to
pastoral planning,
and let's be fully
committed to that!"

"Then let's implement the
pastoral plan as though
the salvation of the world
depended on it!"

Amen!

Click here to visit the web site of the Conference on Pastoral Planning and Council Development.
This organization serves Catholic dioceses and parishes around the nation
by providing professional links and training,
and by offering a forum for discussion of ideas related to these two ministries.

If you aren't a member yet, join today!
Note: this is an external link and will take you away from this web site.

Perhaps no one person has done more
to help create educational and formation material for parish leaders than Dr. Mark Fischer.

Mark is on the faculty of St. John Seminary in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,
and he teaches and speaks in plain English.
His work has helped keep alive the conversation about the role and place of parish pastoral councils
in today's U.S. Church.

Click here to visit a web site which Mark maintains for pastoral councils.
It is the single best resource for pastoral councils I have found.
Note: this is an external link and will take you away from this web site.

You can find some of Mark's books here.