| Priests are to look after the spiritual needs of the parishes entrusted to them with the concern of caring parents who tend their families with love. Constitution on the Church #28 from Vatican II in Plain English |
| Dear Father, Welcome to the web site which supports you in your work as you do pastoral planning for your parish! We know you work in small, rural parishes, and most of you in clusters of small parishes. You carry a heavy load, to be honest. And even though we hope you have joy in your ministry, yours can be a lonely and difficult ministry. Thank you for everything you offer your parish. Chances are there's more talk in your diocese about linking, clustering, and closing small parishes. If that happens, you know very well that you'll be the "bringer of bad news." (In ancient Greece, they used to kill such messengers because they thought it made the bad news go away! Yikes! Let's pray that won't happen to you!) We hope you've read Dreams and Visions. This is a powerful guide to help you do pastoral planning in your parish. Pastoral planning is what will help you put lifelong faith formation on solid footing. Planning well will help you make it more than a "new trend." New trends come and go, but like the reform of the liturgy in the 1960s, the move to lifelong formation as the norm for Catholics is here to stay! To read the annotated table of contents for this book, which gives you a good flavor for what to expect when you read the whole thing, click here. Or to read the book's introduction, click here. Everyone of the excellent, helpful links mentioned in Dreams and Visions is found here. Father, even though you do work among several locations, everything we're talking about in Dreams and Visions can be applied to your setting. We do have a group of pastors who have volunteered to chat by telephone with you. A couple of them are in rural settings like yours. Click here to get to that list. Working with them, we've developed a set of principles for forming ministry groups among two or more parishes, along with a wonderful prayer service to use for that purpose. Click on either link above to get to these resources. If you are getting ready to do some pastoral planning for lifelong formation, we have just what you need: a FREE planning resource tool kit that you download from this web site and are free to reproduce as you need. It comes complete with worksheets for planning for each group of youth and adults in the parish, a step-by-step planning process, and a guide to "listening prayer" to be sure you're being led by the Spirit! Click here to get this resource. So once again, Father, thanks for everything you do for your parish. We're glad you're making use of this support web site, and please let us know if there are other ways in which we can help you! Good wishes for your ministry, Bill Huebsch and the Pastoral Planning Crew |
| Free and Private Telephone Chat If you'd like to make an appointment to chat directly and privately with Bill Huebsch about pastoral planning for your parish, send him an e-mail and set that up by clicking here. |
I'm the Pastor I work in small rural parishes. We don't have a staff. We don't have big buildings. We do have people of great heart and faith! |
| Have a Member of Our Team Visit Your Deanery or Region, or Cluster of Parishes, or both to help folks (1) understand this better (2) get excited about implementing it (3) agree to help. And also to meet with your (volunteer or paid) "staff" in order to help create the parish pastoral plan? If so, send us a message and let's talk dates and arrangements! Click here to get started. |
| Grad Courses for You or Your Volunteers There are grad courses being offered in two excellent Catholic Universities which provide complete background and practical solutions for anyone working in this emerging ministry today! Contact Diane Blair at Loyola University New Orleans. Or Brian Schmisek at the University of Dallas. Click above to send them a note of inquiry. Ask for the course called "Models of Catechesis" taught by Bill Huebsch. |
| Fathers, See below for resources designed especially for you! There one listed here specifically directed at pastors of multiple parishes! |
| A Powerful Resource There aren't too many resources for pastors working in clusters and rural areas, but we recently found a great one: Priestly Ministry in Multiple Parishes by Katarina Schuth who teaches at the St. Paul Seminary. It's available from Liturgical Press: 800.858.5450. |
| Resources offered on this site |
| Share your parish story! If you have been working with whole community or lifelong catechesis or faith formation and you have a story to tell, we want to hear it! Go to this page and send us your story! Give us the link to your parish web site at the same time, please. And thanks! |
| Pastoral Planning A step-by-step guide: Dreams & Visions: Pastoral Planning for Lifelong Faith Formation by Bill Huebsch A new book which includes a chapter outlining those all-important Planning Team Meetings. Sold in bundles to save you 20% New Book! Welcome the People! Ways to Gather & Nourish Adult Catholics by Jim Smith A parish team workshop-in-a-book. Helps you create the team you want for lifelong formation. Sold in bundles to save you 20%. New book! Good News Parish Leadership Trust-Building Guidelines, Tools, Ideas by Michael Papesh This rich resource helps you form your parish team with the very same pastoral theology in which we all believe. Sold in bundles to save you 20% Training How to teach your parish about lifelong formation including excellent PowerPoint presentations to download and use, complete with presentation notes. A series of FREE articles Reproduce these to put in your bulletin or to use for team & committee training. They're all in plain English! Into the Fields: Catechist & Ministry Formation Create a "religious community" with formation, prayer, & study right in the midst of your parish. This is the engine of lifelong faith formation, the foundation in your parish. Implementation How to start and sustain faith sharing throughout the parish using the Question of the Week With free prayer sheets and suggestions for training and use. A guide for using Growing Faith A powerful resource for doing adult faith formation in the parish. It's the Catechism in plain English! También es disponible en español. Communal Prayer for Parish Councils & other groups to accompany faith sharing. You can download and use these in 5 minutes! Rooted in the Second Vatican Council. Outlines for adult or intergenerational Faith Gatherings linked to your children's textbook series. Outlines for adult Bible Studies which are in plain English! Download each session and get all you need in one item. Complete plans for Parish Based Retreats in several practical scheduling formats. |