The Pierce Deanery Pastoral Planning Process continues with the Pierce Deanery Leader Convocation on January 28, 2016 at St. Charles Borromeo Parish, Tacoma, Wa.
Exploring Collaboration
The Pierce Deanery has asked each parish to invite 8 – 10 parish leaders to participate in conversations with their peers from other parishes about how parish communities can partner and work collaboratively in preparation for the likelihood that our Pierce Deanery will continue to be assigned fewer priests and pastors in the coming years.
Looking Beyond the One-Pastor-One-Parish Model
A bulletin insert on Pastoral Planning in the Archdiocese of Seattle notes, “we must look beyond the one-pastor-one-parish leadership model for our parish communities.” A more recent bulletin insert includes Potential Parish Models— looking at the question of “What is the best way to create ‘an environment for hearing God’s word’ throughout our deanery, the local church in Pierce County?”
Rather than have a solution imposed from the top down, Archbishop Sartain is encouraging parishes to work together to develop solutions from the bottom up. Pope Francis describes it this way: “The parish is not an outdated institution; precisely because it possesses great flexibility, it can assume quite different contours depending on the openness and missionary creativity of the pastor and the community.” These are interesting times for us as we explore and discover where God is leading our Church.
Parish Leaders are Part of the Planning Process
We are in the process of confirming the 8-10 St. Pat’s parishioners from our existing parish and school councils and commissions to participate in the Pierce Deanery Leader Convocation.
