Serving God's People

Online Parish Surveys Begin on September 6th

Peter Burns — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:37:07 +0000

On Monday September 6 the parishes of Hernando, Pasco, Upper Pinellas, East and West Hillsborough Deaneries begin their first step in the Serving God’s People planning process by inviting the people in their faith communities to take a survey.

The survey covers different aspects of parish life including worship and prayer, evangelization, faith formation, service and outreach, and administration. Taking 12-14 minutes to complete, each parish will direct their people to a specific website link to take the survey.

For those who do not have internet access, or, are not comfortable working with a computer, they can get a hard copy version of the survey from their parish. Once they have completed the hard copy they can return it to their parish office.

The online links to the parish survey officially opens on September 6 and will close on October 11. All people high school age and up are encouraged to participate. Please know that you do not have to be registered to take the survey which is available in English and in Spanish.

Finally, if you are interested in taking the survey, please contact your parish. They have the link to the online survey as well as a hard copy version.

Samples of Drafted Communication Pieces for Parishes to Use

Peter Burns — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:03:08 +0000

Several parishes have requested that drafted samples of communication be made available for use with their faith communitees. This first set of communication samples (English) can be used in bulletins, parish websites, announcements after Mass, or other means in which the parish communicates to its parishioners and beyond. Versions in Spanish as well as additional drafts will be coming soon.

Slide Presentation Available

Peter Burns — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:13:41 +0000

The orientation process for Serving God’s People concluded on August 17th with 53 parishes participating and more than 400 people in total attendence. As promised, the slides used for the orientation are now available. For those attending the earlier orientations know that some new graphics have been added. Please feel free to use these slides in your parish as you plan your communication strategies and town hall meetings. (Slides – English) (Slides – Spanish)

Videos now available

Administrator — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:28:56 +0000

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.

For now, here’s the Introduction and Overview segment from Fr. Bob Morris and Deacon Rick Wells.

Parish Leadership Teams are Getting Started!

Peter Burns — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:12:26 +0000

As the diocesan initiative, Serving God’s People,moves its way forward into Hernando, Pasco, Upper Pinellas, East and West Hillsborough Deaneries this fall, more than 300 pastors, priests, and parish leaders from these deaneries have now been oriented and trained to introduce the planning process to their respective parishes. The purpose of this planning initiative is to assess the current reality and evaluate the use of resources and personnel throughout the diocese in an effort to improve the vitality of parish life as well as the quality of ministry provided at the local faith community level.

Already introduced more than a year ago in the Citrus and Lower Pinellas Deaneries, each parish is initially asked to to do three things:

1. Conduct a parish survey. This will be done online through an internet link. ”Hard copies” of the survey will be made available for those not able to access the online version (parish survey – hard copy version – English updated 9-2-10), (parish survey – hard copy – Spanish updated 9-2-10).

2. Complete a parish profile. This multi-page form pulls together information about the parish into one document (parish profile form-English updated 8-16-10).

3. Conduct at least 2 town hall meetings in order to provide feedback to the parish about the results of the survey as well as share the information collected in the parish profile.

In the weeks ahead following the completion of the tasks listed above, parishes will begin to work in cluster groups with their neighboring parishes. A cluster will be made up of three to five parishes that are located in the same general region of the diocese. The parishes within each cluster will take turns visiting each other for the purpose of helping the cluster parishes learn more about each other and their faith community.

Ultimately, it is from these cluster groups that the initial recommendations are drafted which will be reviewed by a Diocesan Commission appointed by the Bishop. These recommendations will include parish and ministry models and strategies that foster collaboration, enhance the vitality of the parish, and promote overall improved stewardship of resources.

Stay tuned for more information…

New Look for Serving God’s People Website

Administrator — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:23:11 +0000

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.

Updates to Serving God’s People Web Site

Administrator — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:55:47 +0000

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).

Diocesan Planning Process to be Initiated in 5 Deaneries This Fall

Peter Burns — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:26:38 +0000

Last year Citrus and Lower Pinellas Deaneries completed the first phase of the diocesan wide planning initiative, Serving God’s People. This initiative will result in the development of new parish and ministry strategies and structures to better serve the local faith communities. This fall the remaining 5 deaneries – Hernando, Pasco, East Hillsborough, West Hillsborough, and Upper Pinellas – will begin to work through the Serving God’s People initiative.

The reason why this diocesan-wide planning process is taking place is to primarily address the following realities:

Declining number of priests available to serve
Shifting in local demographics
Stewardship challenges of available resources

Basically, Serving God’s People begins the planning process with each participating parish doing three key activities:

Parish survey – invites people of the parish to provide their thoughts on various aspects of parish life
Parish profile – gathers information related to parish demographics, numbers of sacraments celebrated, students in religious formation and youth ministry, finances, parish ministries, staff, etc.
Town Hall meetings – provides a forum for sharing the information gathered, as well as opportunities for feedback and discussion related to the planning process

Each parish will summarize their findings and provide a report for their Parish Cluster Team to use for assessing and beginning the process for drafting preliminary recommendations. Each Parish Cluster Team will accomplish three tasks.

Parish visitations – provides a venue for parishes to get to know the other local parishes in the area
Identify strengths and opportunities within the parishes of their cluster Group collaborate initial thoughts based upon shared inforamtion and parish visits
Drafting of preliminary recommendations - offers a composit report to the diocesan commission

These preliminary recommendations will be given to a Diocesan Commission who will review the recommendations and dialogue with the local deaneries concerning the recommendations provided. It is in this dialogue that the final recommendations will be drafted and sent on to the Bishop and the Presbyteral Council for review and approval.

Once the recommendations are finalized, the decisions will be communicated to the diocese and a process for implementing the recommendations will be developed.

Presbyteral Council Receives Reports and Expands Process

Administrator — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:02:44 +0000

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

Deanery Pages Added to Website

Administrator — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:00:14 +0000

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.