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 Patricia E. Clement, DMin, is
a catechetical leader from the
Catholic Diocese of Richmond,
Virginia. For over 25 years, she has
worked with teams in parishes, schools,
and campus ministries to discover creative
ways to incorporate faith formation into
every aspect of church life. Her e-mail address
is clement23236@juno.com. |
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“Death by Meeting” and Other Tools for Parish Planning
Sometimes the best Catholic resources can be found in the business sector. Such is the case for Patrick Lencioni, a
parishioner of San Francisco’s St. Isidore Parish, who is better known for his ability to train multinational executive
teams and CEOs. Patrick Lencioni is the author of several best-selling books on management and leadership,
including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Five Temptations of a CEO, and my personal favorite, Death by
Meeting (all available from Jossey-Bass). Lencioni begins each book with a page-turning fable about a corporate
team of talented individuals who are struggling with mediocrity, communications breakdowns, and lack of vision.
By page two, the reader is caught in the web of interoffice politics that can sabotage any organization, including
parish staffs and pastoral councils.
In my experience, it is nearly impossible to get any group to read a self-help book together. Lencioni changes
that. His fables are addictive. Like Jesus’ parables, you can see yourself in his stories, along with your co-workers,
parishioners, and all their talents and annoying habits.
And there’s more—the fables are followed by practical solutions. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, the story
takes up the first half of the book. The second half opens with a simple self-evaluation tool to help your team
identify its organizational weaknesses. The rest of the book describes, in simple detail, how to overcome these
weaknesses. His solutions are simple, easy-to-do changes that can be beneficial to any group, whether the liturgy
committee in your parish or the executive team for New York Life (one of his satisfied clients).
To learn more about Lencioni’s processes, go to www.tablegroup.com. |
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The Five Foundations of Parish Planning
Transform your parish into the dynamic Christ-centered people of faith that it was intended to be.
Patricia E. Clement
 Is your pastoral council a monthly exercise
in “death by meeting”? There has to
be a better way!
In this age of annual vision statements,
five-year plans, and thousandpage
church documents, it is easy for
parish leadership to lose direction. We distract ourselves with day-to-day operational
details and forget that parishes
exist for a very specific purpose.
It is time to get back to basics!
Let’s look at the first parish of 33
AD. Date: Pentecost. Place: Jerusalem.
Setting: Jesus’ disciples had just spent
nine days enclosed in a room, praying
and reflecting on the ministry of their
risen Lord (the first novena). Suddenly,
the Holy Spirit descends. Peter and the
others burst from the room and preach
the Good News to a gathered crowd.
Three thousand people are baptized that
day. The first parish is born.
Can you imagine? Instant parish of
3,000!
What was their pastoral plan?
“They devoted themselves to the
teaching of the apostles and to the communal
life, to the breaking of the bread
and to the prayers.... All who believed
had all things in common” (Acts 2:42-
44).
Did their pastoral plan work?
“Every day the Lord added to their
number” (Acts 2:47).
Today, in the United States alone,
there are 63 million Catholics in 19,000
parishes. I would call that pretty good
long-term pastoral planning!
Let’s take a look at that plan. They
devoted themselves to:
• the teaching of the apostles,
• community life,
• the breaking of the bread and prayers,
• sharing all things.
It is not just a coincidence that these
four components appear in most parishes’
foundational vision statements.
We are more familiar with them in
terms of “community, word, worship, and service”—the four foundations
referred to during the Second Vatican
Council (Decree on Bishops in the
Church). What is often missed, however,
is the fact that there is an additional
foundation, or cornerstone, which holds
the other four together.
The cornerstone
Take another look at 33 AD: before the
first parish was created, 3,000 people
heard the Good News, responded to
Jesus as their Savior, and were baptized.
A personal conversion to Jesus is the
cornerstone or primary foundation
upon which a parish can be built. Today
we have a term for this experience — evangelization.
Imagine if every decision in your
parish was based on these five foundations:
1. |
EVANELIZATION — we call each
other to a personal faith and relationship
with Jesus. |
2. |
COMMUNITY — we support our
faith in a parish that welcomes all
believers. |
3. |
WORSHIP — we celebrate that faith
through prayer, sacraments, and
the Eucharist. |
4. |
WORD — we grow in our understanding
of that faith through lifelong
learning. |
5. |
SERVICE — we live our faith by
serving God’s people at home and
beyond. |
Five foundations and five new meeting procedures
Now, picture your next pastoral council or staff meeting with these changes:
• |
Post the five foundations in a prominent
place in the meeting room. |
• |
Open the meeting by reviewing the
five foundations and stating that
your parish already has all the talent,
resources, and funds necessary
to carry out God’s work. |
• |
Invite everyone present at the
meeting to place your parish’s five
foundations ahead of their personal
agendas or the needs of their individual
committees and ministries. |
• |
Challenge everyone present to have
the courage to lovingly hold each
other accountable (even the pastor)
to applying these five foundations
within their ministries. |
• |
Insist that before any new proposal,
activity, or expenditure is approved,
it must be able to justify itself by
showing how it supports the first
foundation—evangelization, and at
least one of the other four foundational
principles. |
You will be surprised at how quickly
priorities become clear and how your
parish’s true mission—to help bring
about God’s kingdom—becomes much
more focused and intentional!
Try it out on these examples:
• |
The youth group wants to host a
car wash to raise funds for a multiparish
paintball competition. |
• |
The parish Knights of Columbus
have always served coffee and donuts
after Mass in the basement of the
education building. They claim it is
too much trouble to move this ministry
to the newly completed commons
area which is adjacent to the church. |
• |
The city’s homeless shelter is overcrowded
during the winter months
and asks area parishes to provide a
week of temporary shelter in their
church halls. This would require
moving or canceling Tuesday Night
Bingo. |
If you need additional examples,
just read your own church bulletin or
review the minutes from last month’s
finance council meeting.
Pay attention to intention
It is important to understand that a parish
does not have to abandon long-standing
traditions; it just has to reestablish
the priorities. If a youth group only hosts
fun activities, then it has lost its focus
and becomes just another social club.
On the other hand, if the youth group
intentionally uses a paintball activity as
a means to invite new youth to church,
and includes a prayer experience and a
component about the value of teamwork, then a simple social event has just been
elevated to a higher purpose.
Intentionality is the key. It is not
enough for a program’s director to be
able to justify an activity in relation to
the five foundations. Parish activities
should be designed in such a way that
all its participants can connect their actions
to the parish mission. St. Paul cautioned
us to always keep our eye on the
goal when we run the race. Consider it
more of an attitude adjustment than a
program change.
This single-minded vision can help
transform your parish into the dynamic
Christ-centered people of faith that it
was intended to be. You already have all
the talent, resources, and funds necessary
to make it possible. Just look to the
first parish in Acts 2, and reestablish
your foundational priorities. TPM
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