All Things New (The Next Stage)
This past Lent, Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of St. Louis participated in the Disciple Maker Index Survey to gather data for the Strategic Plan, All Things New. According the data 75% of normal churchgoers participated. (94% for Holy Redeemer). That data has now been made available to myself, Laurie Medley, our parish secretary, and five parishioners who have agreed to work with me in this phase of the project. (Bob Zapf, Tim Tolle, Katie and John Mank and Claudia Perrault).
We will meet and evaluate the data for our parish as well as the Archdiocese as a whole and our smaller planning area. (Holy Redeemer is at the southeast edge of our planning area which extends up to University City and Creve Coeur and as far west as Kirkwood and Des Peres).
Basically we will be looking at our strengths as a parish and those areas that are opportunities for growth. (a nice way of saying “We’ve got to do better).
We will also look at these for the Archdiocese as a whole as well as our specific planning area. We will then give the Archdiocese feedback as to what we have gleaned from all of the data. This report is due on June 24.
This core group will then present all of our findings to the parish as a whole. I would like to use multiple fronts to pre- sent this material (bulletins, website, pul- pit talks and maybe even Flocknotes).
All of this should be presented to the parish by the end of July.
August of 2022 will be an important moment for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
On August 19, the first draft of the new strategic plan will be presented to the priests and the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council. Also during this month, we will offer a survey.
The survey will deal with our priorities for evangelization and outreach to the com- munity. We will then give the results of that survey to the Archdiocese by the end of August.
Moving forward, each parish will have two listening sessions for parishioners to respond to the first draft of the strategic plan. The listening sessions should be interesting. As I mentioned in my homily a couple of weeks ago, the Spirit has been poured out upon the whole church and so we need your input (not necessarily someone’s gripes or axe to grind). It will demand a lot from us, namely patience, a listening heart, humility and insight. Ever the optimist, I think that this moment could be a powerful one for all of us.
Then after all the listening, after all the discussion, after all the input, the Archbishop will make the final decision, which will happen on Pentecost Sunday in 2023.
And all will be well.
Father Kevin