Sefton Deaneries Launch
Parish Development Strategy
Yesterday marked the launch of the Parish Development Strategy across the three Deaneries in Sefton. There is a steering group managing the strategy each parish is represented by their priest and a lay representative. St George's is represented by Paul Symes who spoke at both Masses on Sunday.
He gave the following introduction to the strategy
Today we, in the 3 Sefton Deaneries, are launching a parish development strategy. This will be rolled out across the whole Diocese in the next three years. This is the way we are being invited to implement the recommendations in the Pastoral Plan. This invitation is being made not just to a small group of chosen people, it is being made to all of us because the voice, the input, the contribution of every one of the baptised really matters. As we continue to embed synodality in our Diocesan life we truly believe that God will guide us if we listen to the contribution made by all those who share the life of Christ through baptism. Fr Chris has asked me to represent the parish on the Family of Parishes Steering Group looking at the Parish Development Strategy.
The Parish development strategy will help us to be ready to hand on a healthy and sustainable church to future generations. This strategic development will make us more attentive to the 6 priorities of the Pastoral Plan and will, give us a renewed sense of mission.
Our Diocesan synod called for us to be bold and creative in shaping the future. This will inevitably involve change.
We know that we face a different future – within 10 years we will probably have less than 40 Diocesan priests to serve over 140 parishes. The numbers we have coming to Mass are nowhere near what it was, and we cannot financially sustain all the buildings that we are currently using. All of this makes us aware of the need to refresh the local church to live out its missionary purpose - to nurture disciples, evangelise and serve our communities.
Parishes, working in Family partnerships, need to support each other in the face of an increasingly fragmented and individualistic society. Our schools must be seen as an increasingly vital part of our mission. We have to acknowledge that our resources are declining in terms of volunteers, priests and Mass goers.
Over the next 4 months a detailed audit of the strengths and weaknesses of each of our parishes will be undertaken by a local steering group.
In St George’s we are starting the review stage and in the coming weeks there will be a Parish meeting to discuss where we are as a Parish. It is important that as many views are expressed as possible. We know not everyone will be available to attend the meeting so we will put the documentation on to the Parish web site and invite feedback via e mail.
It is important that we look at what is best for the future of the Parish together, we have all invested in the Parish by our attendance, by our giving and by helping in any way that we can. As a parish we need to ensure that the future generations can benefit from the parish the way we have, that they have the spiritual and pastoral support that is needed in the modern world. We can only guarantee this with planning now, so I ask you please take time where you can, to be part of this process.
For my part I will do my very best to keep you up to date with developments as they happen, primarily through the web site as I can put a lot more information on the website than I can in the newsletter. If you have any questions about this process, you can contact me via the web site contact page, I may not know the answer to your question, but if I don’t I will do my best to find out. If you are unsure how to access the web site, I have left some leaflets in both of the porches
At the end of this first phase, we will then all be invited to gather to look at what we can sustainably plan for and hope for in the future. This will lead to actual plans for local change.
You should have been given a leaflet as you arrived today containing more detail about the proposed process. The 3 Sefton Deaneries are piloting this, so we hope to learn from what we do, to help the roll out for the whole diocese. Thank you