It has been almost a year since I wrote to you about Next Generation Parish, an initiative that the Catholic Leadership Institute is introducing to 15 select parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.  You may recall that CLI is a 25-year old national apostolate that provides training and formation for the purpose of creating more vibrant communities rooted in Jesus Christ.  It was founded and is still headquartered here in our archdiocese but has worked with (arch)dioceses throughout the country.  We accepted CLI’s invitation to engage in this four-year process to bring a new vibrancy to our parish as a community of faith fully alive, each of us growing in our close relationship with Jesus, the Son of God who leads us back to our heavenly Father through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  This four-year endeavor involves the following steps (we have completed the first step and have begun the second):

Part 1: Awareness.  Over the course of this first year, we have explored our current reality as a parish and gained insight into the discipleship opportunities unique to our parish.

Part 2: Envision.  Based on this insight, we are beginning to create a vision for the future for our parish and discern strategies to make this vision a reality.

Part 3: Invitation.  Through a series of faith-sharing and skill-building sessions, we as a parish will be invited to embrace a missionary impulse to go out and bring others to know Jesus.

Part 4: Commissioning.  As we implement our parish pastoral plan, we as a parish will foster unity in shared discipleship of Jesus Christ and commit to maintaining a community of faith that is vibrant and healthy.

In the spring of 2018, our parish participated in a survey to help us get a better understanding of the life of our parish: the Disciple Makers Index (DMI).  The results of this survey helped shape the Parish Pastoral Plan that our Parish Council introduced in December of that same year.  The first step that we took after we reviewed the results of the DMI was to establish an Evangelization Team.  Under the unflagging leadership of one of our parishioners, Laura Kerr, our ETeam has made great strides in making evangelization a guiding light for our parish.

In October of 2019, I joined 15 pastors from parishes throughout the archdiocese that CLI had invited at a meeting where we were introduced to this new initiative in our archdiocese: The Next Generation Parish.  Since our parish was due to develop its third five-year pastoral plan since I arrived in 2011 and CLI was offering such helpful professional assistance, I thought it was a good idea so I presented this initiative to our Parish Pastoral Council.  They agreed that this was a good idea so we engaged CLI to begin the process.  The coronavirus pandemic forced us to postpone the beginning of this exciting endeavor until last September.  Since then, however, our Parish Pastoral Council, along with Laura Kerr, our Evangelization Coordinator, and Stephanie Twohig, who became our parish Youth Minister in 2014 as a result of our 2012 Parish Pastoral Plan, have been meeting monthly, under the excellent leadership of Tom Lenz (a facilitator for CLI), to examine our current situation as a parish and gain insight into the discipleship opportunities unique to our parish.  Reviewing the results of our DMI, as well as the March 2021 site visit by Lori Tedjeske (a CLI consultant), we have discovered that our parishioners think that we enjoy strong leadership, a very strong sense of community, an excellent school, and a very generous spirit, both financially and in support of one another.  A large percentage of our parishioners understand and believe the basic tenets of our faith.  On the other hand, a large percentage of our adult parishioners want more opportunities to grow in their faith and feel ill-equipped to share their faith.  Many of the active parishioners desire more participation from the large number of inactive parishioners and ways to make them feel welcome.

Based on our findings, we have begun to develop a set of priorities that will provide more opportunities for our adult parishioners to grow in their faith and learn how to share their faith with others, as well as finding new ways to engage our parishioners – both the active and the inactive – more in parish life and ministry.  Once we have developed these priorities, the Parish Pastoral Council will pass them on to an implementation team who, under the continued guidance of CLI, will move the parish to “embrace a missionary impulse to go out and bring others to know Jesus;” this is part three of the process, as you will note above.

As the coronavirus pandemic begins to ebb and we regain normalcy in our lives, I think this is a providential moment for our parish to carefully examine how we can not only bounce back to where we were pre-pandemic but, indeed, bounce forward to become an even more vibrant parish community.  In his apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis called on parishes to be “capable of self-renewal and adaptivity, living in the midst of the homes of her sons and daughters.”   My hope is for us to be ever more firmly grounded in the Church’s wisdom and be present in our parishioner’s everyday lives.  Our parish can be central for those who are seeking Jesus in their lives, and for those who are sent out to proclaim him to the world right here in our neighborhood.  I also hope that, as a parish, we will cultivate a community that knows it is part of the larger Body of Christ.  The Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, as described so succinctly by the Second Vatican Council and which so many of our parishioners have longed for as they attended Mass virtually, will become even more of a priority.  Our parish will support each of us in deepening our faith in Jesus, and our parish will spur among our members a boundless hope for the potential that exists in those who don’t yet know or follow the Lord

As we continue this endeavor as a parish, I will keep you informed as to what is happening and how you can be involved.  For now, I ask you to continue to keep the Parish Pastoral Council in your prayers.  I also ask that you join me in ensuring that the Eucharist is the center of our community, that we are nurtured and willing to proclaim the gospel as missionary disciples, and that we are living our call to corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  Let’s continue to work together to make sure our parish is an ever-brighter beacon of hope for all those who are searching for Jesus.