Over this summer, we have been sharing some details of the work our parish leadership team has been doing so that we may bring clarity of the purpose and mission of our church to everyone engaged in Holy Family Parish. This work revolved around six key clarity questions:
- Why do we exist?
- How do we behave?
- What do we do?
- How will we succeed?
- What is most important right now?
- Who does what?
We continue this information this week with a look at the final question:
QUESTION 6: WHO DOES WHAT?
The work that our Parish Leadership Team has been doing over the past year has greatly supported how we are putting our mission: love God, love others, make disciples, into action here at Holy Family Parish. Our learning through a variety of resources, and including our work with the Amazing Parish Association, has enabled us to clearly articulate those things that are most important to us, and which will help us all continue to move forward as a whole community of faith in living our mission.
First of all, we had to know where we were headed. Like taking a big trip, you need to know the destination before you make all the plans and preparations to get there. We then carefully looked at all that we offer here at our church, this brought clarity to what it means to BE Holy Family Parish. Then we identified our core values, those behaviours that not only are desirable, but which we also know if everyone was aware of them and tried to embody them, it would have a profound and meaningful impact on the life of our church. Those were to have hearts for service, selfless collaboration and sharing our faith. With so much going on all the time in our church, it was then very important to formulate an understanding of how we need to process decisions and planning so that all we do is in alignment with our mission. This led us to understand that by applying our spiritual lenses of: invitational environment, constant opportunities to grow in faith, and a focus on forming Catholic leaders to all of our decisions and plans we will be able to more closely stay true to living our mission here at Holy Family. And finally, our purpose in sharing this information with you is to ensure that we build clarity with our whole church and the broader community about who we are and how we are people of God.
The final question then, “Who does what?”, is about determining the teams, groups and individuals responsible for each part of our body of faith. As St. Paul told us, there is one body in Christ, and we are the many living parts of that body, and nothing about that body can function without all of the parts. Beginning with our parish leadership team, we process and plan various ideas and programs which are then shared with the people of our Parish Council. From there we will involve and share with the leaders of our ministries so that they may be empowered to bring the work of our mission to all they do within their ministries. We will invite all members of our parish to a clarity conference on Saturday, November 23 to participate in becoming more deeply aware of our direction. As the circles of impact continue wider and wider, we hope and pray that all members of our Holy Family parish will truly understand not only what our mission is about, but more importantly, that they will be able to embrace and make the identified core values and spiritual lenses a real part of their participation here in our parish, and in their daily lives. Please continue to pray for us, for our parish, and for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to bring all of us to the fruits of the mission given by Jesus, alive and well in Holy Family.
