We are pleased to announce that the first of our video segments from the Parish Leadership Team Orientation sessions held at the Bethany Center is now available.  Over the course of the next several days, keep checking back as we make videos of the entire orientation session available online.  You can view them by clicking on the “Videos” tab in the menu or see our most recent video by clicking on the link in the box to the right. Read the rest of this entry »

To emphasize more fully that this pastoral planning process has the people of God at heart, we have updated our banner to show some of God’s people in prayer as well as the crosses of “old” St. Anne and “new” St. Anne to emphasize that we are looking toward the future of our local church in the Diocese of St. Petersburg.  As always, thank you for your interest and participation in our pastoral planning initiative as we continue to strive to do the best we can in Serving God’s People.

We made some changes to the Serving God’s People website today.  We reorganized the Overview and Resources under the “Resources Binder” menu so that it will better reflect the resource binder distributed to the parish teams.  We also added some PDF files that you can download and print as handouts from the binder.

Also there is a draft of the survey for the Upper Pinellas, East and West Hillsborough, Pasco, and Hernando deaneries.  You can sample the draft online survey or look at the paper one (Resource Binder > Resources).

In the January 2010 meeting of the Presbyteral Council the following took place related to Bishop Lynch’s initiative, Serving God’s People:

• The final reports with recommendations from the Citrus and Lower Pinellas Deaneries were shared with the Presbyteral Council
• The Council decided not to move forward with any decisions and recommendations from these two deaneries until the other five deaneries have completed the planning process
• The Council decided to have the remaining five deaneries go through the process at the same time – a time frame is being drafted with the intent of beginning the initiative in the five deaneries this year

We have added pages which provide more detailed information on the Serving God’s People process in each of the deaneries.  You can visit those pages by using the “Deaneries” menu on the website.

As a businessman, Tom Roberge learned long ago that it pays to study the competition and emulate what works.

Although it’s not competition or business, the Cathedral of St. Jude parishioner takes that perspective along during his visits to other parishes as part of the Deanery Planning Process. He enjoys seeing how his “neighbor” parishes work, learning about their ministries, and Read the rest of this entry »

Launched in the fall of 2008, the Deanery Planning Process was prompted in light of anticipated shortages of priests, shifting demographics and the challenges of accessing and utilizing resources. This diocese sees it as a means to better position deaneries to serve the faith community.

The diocese is divided into seven deaneries: Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, East Hillsborough, West Hillsborough, Upper Pinellas and Lower Pinellas. Deanery Planning is being piloted in the parishes of lower Pinellas and Citrus. Eventually, all deaneries will participate.

Deanery planning started when each parish underwent a self assessment. Through a survey, parishioners provided Read the rest of this entry »

This essay was published on the CNS (Catholic News Service) website by a pastor of a merged parish in Albany, NY. The essay acknowledges that it’s not an easy process, but it also shows very well how two parish faith communities can become one in a way that everyone benefits.

In our diocese, merging is just one of several possibilities that the Pastoral Planning teams at the parish, deanery, and diocesan levels are considering as they work to plan for the future of our local Church.

Here’s a link to the essay. http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/year-for-priests-keys-to-a-successful-parish-merger/

On September 30, the Citrus Deanery planning committee met and discussed the reports submitted by each of the Citrus deanery parishes as part of the Pastoral Planning Process.  The deanery team will formulate recommendations for the Diocesan Committee to review.

Here are some photos from that meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pastoral Planning process is resuming work after a brief summer recess.  For those of you just joining us, and for those of you who have been involved before, welcome to the new website for the Pastoral Planning process.  We are launching this resource titled Our Faith, Our Future to help ease any anxiety that you may be feeling about this process.  We also are looking forward to sharing more information with you about how the process works and what is happening.

We will be doing this in the form of feature articles, like you would read in a magazine or newspaper; blog posts; interviews with parishoners who are participating in their parish’s planning process and maybe some folks from the Pastoral Center offices as well.

For now, welcome to the new website, and please keep coming back as we add more new information.