Co-responsibility: Pastors, staffs, and parishioners share responsibility for bringing all relevant perspectives to the process of discernment, according to their proper roles and gifts.
C4.1 Culture Retreat
Given a baseline understanding of ecclesial culture in the Culture Kickoff, a Family of Parishes Leadership Team is now ready to further understand their current ecclesial culture, define a desired ecclesial culture, and choose tools and techniques to begin to manage the Family of Parishes ecclesial culture in that desired direction.
The power of ecclesial culture is that it endures, sustaining people through the changes in their lives. The downside of ecclesial culture is that it may be preserving bad habits or attitudes that resist making positive changes. Ecclesial culture, therefore, is something that changes slowly over time. The Culture Retreat will introduce Family Leadership to changes they can make to their own ecclesial culture that will then be caught, over time, by the lay leadership and from there, on to the parishioners.
Beacons of Light is geared toward pursuing our God-given mission of sharing the Gospel throughout our archdiocese. Moving our parishes and parishioners into intentional, missionary discipleship is primarily a spiritual change that must be fueled by the Holy Spirit. While it might be possible to teach these leadership techniques and tools in a series of simple workshops, a retreat format is better suited to facilitating the heartfelt discussion and discernment necessary to sincerely embark on the effort of changing our ecclesial culture.
The Culture Retreat will be a two-day, overnight event grounded in prayer and worship. Family Leadership Teams will utilize the Beacons of Light Leadership Culture assessment tool to facilitate discussion of the current ecclesial culture in their Family of Parishes. Facilitators will assist in the process of defining a set of core values which support the desired ecclesial culture. Family Leadership teams will consider how to integrate these new core values into culture management techniques for leadership development, team collaboration, hiring, performance management, and collaboration with lay leadership.
The Culture Retreat will be offered on a variety of days and locations which can be viewed here.