News
May 14, 2006 — Planning for the Future of OLPH Parish
My Dear Parishioners,
I am very pleased to announce that in the fall of this year, with the support of our Parish Pastoral Council, we will be initiating a process to identify and articulate a pastoral vision for the future of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish.
A “visioning” process such as this is important to help us know where to focus our energy and resources as a community over the next few years. There are many things we could do as a parish; lots of groups we could begin; projects we could initiate; ministries we could set up. But before we invest time and energy in establishing anything in the parish we need to ask the question “why”. Given that we have limited resources including people, time and funding we need to have a clear reason for beginning anything. We need to have a vision and a sense of direction and then we need to establish whatever programs, projects or organization that will help us to realize our vision for the parish.
It is the hope of the Council that all parishioners will enter into this process and participate in the dialogue that will result in a clearly stated pastoral plan for the parish. We have engaged the service of Sr. Virginia Varley, a Sister of St. Joseph and a member of our parish community, to help facilitate the dialogue. Sr. Virginia has a great deal of experience as a group facilitator and has worked successfully with a number of other parishes who have engaged in a similar process.
What we would ask of those parishioners interested in participating in this process is a commitment to meet three times between September 2006 and June 2007. The first session would be in the fall of 2006. The second session would be in the early months of 2007 and the final session would be in the spring of 2007.
In order to make these gatherings community building events as well as “work” sessions we plan to have the first session take place around a meal. We will be sending invitations to all registered parishioners to come to a dinner to be held in the parish hall on a Saturday evening in the fall. There will be four such dinners in order to make room for as many parishioners as possible. You will be hearing more about these dinners in the very near future. The second session will also have its own unique flavour as will the final session in the spring.
I cannot emphasize enough how important this process will be in establishing a vision and a direction for the parish for the next number of years. Nor can I emphasize enough how important it is for us to have as many parishioners involved in the process as possible. We need those who have been here a long time as well as those families who have just arrived and everyone in between. It should be a most interesting and exciting process for us as a community.
This note is just to let you know that this project is in the works and that you should be expecting to hear more about it in the near future.
(signed by) Fr. Jim
May 2006