Pastors and parish leaders will find in this section of the website the support needed to select, form and equip members of your parish to serve in the leadership ministries of Pastoral Council and Finance Council. The site includes a resource-rich toolkit for use in the primary pastoral planning roles of both charting the course for the parish into the future and of securing the means for the mission. This is a journey you take earnestly with your whole parish community, and we can accompany you every step along the way!
PARISH PASTORAL COUNCILS & PASTORAL PLANNING PROGRESS
Since 2012, when Bishop Bambera provided new Parish Pastoral Council Guidelines for the Diocese, Pastors and Councils have accomplished a great deal. Most have reinvigorated your Pastoral and Finance Councils and provided additional formation for these members. Many have re-engaged the parish community in some type of listening process, leading to the publication of a parish plan of goals and objectives for three or more years into the future. In order to accomplish these goals, parish committee structures have been strengthened or created and parishioners have been invited into more active involvement in carrying out the unique mission focus of each parish. Of course, for some parishes these processes were well established and have been in practice for many years.
Based on the direct involvement of members of the Office for Parish Life team and/or on reports which your parish has sent to our office, the chart below represents the percentage of parishes in each stage of these Council Development and Pastoral Planning initiatives. As you can see, by the end of 2018 we expect that nearly 80% of parishes will be either in an active implementation phase of their planning or they will have begun to evaluate and renew their plan for another multi-year cycle.
In addition to this information, 90% of parishes responded to Bishop Bambera’s 2017 invitation called “Fulfilling the Vision” – whereby specific target projects were chosen by each parish for more intensive investment over the past year. The Office for Parish Life provided Toolkits for each of these target project areas, and twenty workshops designed to help parish teams utilize each Toolkit. More than 50 parishes have participated in these Toolkit Workshops to date, and new workshops are being arranged for this coming fall. The Toolkits remain available to all parishes at this site: https://scrantontoolkits.weebly.com/, and Office for Parish Life Team members are always available to assist your parish in utilizing these materials.