Thoughts from Grouping Meeting #4

The 4th grouping meeting was divided into two parts, each representing the two aspects of the Renew My Church process: structural renewal and spiritual renewal.

Spiritual Renewal

Each parish team was asked to complete a guided meditation called a parish renewal assessment. In completing this information, the teams were asked to reflect on their individual parish vis-a-vis the 5 core aspects of a vibrant parish:

• Culture of invitation
• Culture of belonging
• Culture of prayer & worship
• Culture of accompaniment
• Culture of empowering leaders for mission

In small groups containing members of each parish, we were encouraged to share which areas we felt that our parish was strongest in and which areas required the most investment of time and resources to grow. There was great interest from other parishes in our Fruitful Branch small Christian communities along with our Ministry Charter process. We gained some wisdom on growing a culture of invitation, learning the success that our neighbors have been having with the ALPHA program that is strongly supported by the Archdiocese. 

Structural Renewal

After the conversation about spiritual renewal, Immaculate Conception, St. Juliana, and St. Paul of the Cross left the meeting since they are currently not in discussions regarding the structural scenarios.

The second part of the meeting began with Fr. Derek Ho (Mary Seat of Wisdom) and myself making a short presentation to the group to share more about our parishes, demographics, strengths, and areas for growth. The presentation from Our Lady of Ransom seemed to be well-received. I think it got some people thinking of ways we could partner together for the future vitality of the Catholic Church in the O'Hare Neighborhood Grouping.

While the original plan was for us to spend more time developing concrete feedback to the different scenarios, questions were raised regarding the possibility of alternate scenarios. After some discussion, we closed the meeting with the action step that our facilitator would speak with the Archdiocese about the possibility of alternate scenarios. Since we didn't have the time to work on our feedback to the scenarios, we will most likely need to add an additional meeting to the process.

Gratitude

I want to offer a special word of gratitude to our Senior Leadership Team for doing such a great job representing our parish and investing far more time and work than they originally agreed to. The team has spent a lot of time compiling all of the feedback that our parishioners have given. It is an important way that we can make sure that anyone who wants to have a voice in this process can have a voice.

As we know, our parish is one voice out of the six parishes in our grouping. And even the combined feedback document is only a single, albeit important, piece of the puzzle that the Archdiocese looks at.

But regardless of where the Holy Spirit is leading our community, I am confident of the direction - and that is the direction of all of us becoming fruitful disciples proclaiming freedom in Christ.

In His Cross,

Fr. Matt