We make plans to helps us turn dreams into realities.
A house plan, for example, helps us build a house. Often the plan will go through many revisions before we finally decide on what we want and what we can afford. Even as we build our house we might change the plan here and there. Similarly, a financial plan helps us manage our money. In all good planning we look at what we have got, and we consider what we want to do, and we try to set practical, achievable goals.
Our diocesan pastoral plan will begin with our dream for the church we want to be. Our pastoral works include parish ministries, school ministries, social ministries, and a range of other chaplaincies and spiritual and religious ministries. A pastoral plan will need to take into account all the resources and all the needs of a diocese, as well as the needs of the wider world.
The business world has made something of an art of strategic planning – though not always with great success – and there are some lessons we can learn from their successes and failures.
The first important factor in successful planning is that there is general agreement on our vision and our mission and our goals: in other words, agreement on where we want to get to and how we are going to get there. Secondly, as much as possible, everyone concerned needs to be included in the discussions. Thirdly, if a planning process is to be successful, all the people involved need to have access to relevant information. Fourthly, there needs to be enthusiasm about what can be a long and sometimes frustrating process. Above all else, finally, people need to be able to participate, and people should feel engaged and supported.
So, during our pastoral planning process in 2010 there will be a considerable amount of information and opinion being gathered and communicated, and there will be many opportunities for everybody in the Diocese to participate in discussions and decisions. In the first six months of the year we will be holding many consultations: some will be with the existing organisations and groupings in the Diocese, and others with selected groups of peoples. From July to September there will be ‘plenary’ meetings to finalise our goals and to develop practical action lines to achieve these goals.
There will never be 100% agreement on some questions, yet at those points we may still need to make well-informed and respectful decisions. At these times we may need to go back to our basic vision and remind ourselves what it is that we want to achieve.
In all of this we should have confidence that the Holy Spirit will be with us. Whatever we do must be grounded in the mission of the Catholic Church and must be attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, during the planning process in 2010 we should work together as a community of Christ’s faithful, drawing on all our diversity of gifts and interests, and nourished and inspired in our sharing of the Eucharist at Mass.