Love in Action

Love In Action Overview: Phase 2

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

Phase 2 of the Beacons of Light Pastoral Planning Pathway is centered on vision. In order for each Family of Parishes to best facilitate the creation of a vision for the Love in Action principle, each Family’s Love in Action coordinator/director and Transitional Team is asked to participate in a three-part program called Salt and Light. (For more information on identifying a Love in Action coordinator/director and building a Transitional Team, please refer to the Phase 1 modules.)

The Salt and Light series will help Love in Action leaders understand the foundations of charity, social justice and respect life ministries in the context of Catholic social teaching. These leaders will be connected to resources and guided to envision a Family-wide organizational structure for this critical work, which is derived from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ documents, Communities of Salt and Light: Reflections of the Social Mission of the Parish and Pastoral Plan for Pro-Life Activities.

Salt and Light will be offered once in each of the 12 deaneries, and every Family of Parishes within each deanery will be encouraged to send a Love in Action cohort to participate. Staff from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Department of Life, Human Dignity and Charity will facilitate the program for each deanery.

More information will be available in late summer of 2023.

0.1 Love in Action – Confirm Vision Assessment Complete

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

To prepare for Visio Day, it is beneficial to have an understanding of where your Family of Parishes stands in relation to each of the vision points in the Love in Action principle. Use the Family Vision Assessment Tool to isolate which vision points are strengths and which need attention as part of establishing a comprehensive vision for your Family of Parishes.

See the Vision Assessment Tool.

0.2 Love in Action – Reinforce from Phase 1

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

Leadership is the first phase of the Pastoral Planning Pathway. Having the right leaders in place is foundational to any successful initiative, and Beacons of Light is no exception. Love in Action leaders for your Family of Parishes are critical and even called for in Parameter 13:

“Competent and qualified staff are necessary to serve the Family of Parishes, especially in the areas of worship, Evangelization (including love in action) and administration. As is possible, staff will be unified to serve the entire Family.”

The first thing to do is to have your pastor appoint (or approve) someone to start pulling people together. This person could be a parish staff member or a key volunteer. What is important is that this person is someone who has demonstrated a concern for the Church’s work to promote life and dignity and who appreciates the need to have several representative voices involved in the work.

If your parish is in the position to hire a Love in Action director/coordinator, please see the sample job descriptions in the Materials tab in Phase 1 Love in Action, 1.1

Once you have identified your coordinator, we would love to know and meet him or her. Please enter his or her name in this form.

Name(Required)

First Name Last Name

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Parish Family(Required)

As your Family of Parishes progresses down the Pastoral Planning Pathway, ministries will become more and more unified in service to your Family of Parishes. One way of coordinating Love in Action is to form a Love in Action Team.

To ensure that your Love In Action Team is a good representation of your new Family, your coordinator should accomplish the following two things:

Make sure the team includes at least one staff member or parishioner from each parish in your Family.
Make certain that there is some diversity of ministries represented. For instance, if one or more member parishes have very active St. Vincent de Paul conferences, then at least one team member may want to be affiliated with that ministry. Similarly, if there is a Respect Life ministry, Mission Twinning, Care for Creation or other active ministry, then the coordinator should attempt to have such voices at the table. Note that the goal is not for the Transitional Team to reflect every ministry but to ensure that there is a general representation of the diversity of good works taking place across your new Family.

The work of your Love in Action Team will be to jump-start overall conversations, review inventories and imagine potential cooperation among the member parishes in your new Family. The team, whether through the coordinator or some other mechanism, should be prepared to report to your pastor and pastoral councils its efforts; however, it does not need to consider itself a permanent entity of your new Family structure. The ultimate structure that emerges, such as a Family-wide Love in Action commission, can be organized in later phases. Your Family of Parishes may or may not decide to include the same people in the permanent, coordinating structure. In the early phases of your new Family’s life, the point is to make sure that there is a core group of people ensuring that Love in Action ministries continue and are getting to know each other.

For Families with few Love in Action ministries, your Love in Action Team can be just a few people. For Families with greater infrastructure already in place, it is recommended that your team be capped at 12 people, so as to ensure productive discussions.

Please let us know the names and emails of your team members, and announce their names throughout your Family of Parishes.

Love in Action (LIA) Team Members

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Please enter a number from 1 to 12.

Enter between 1 and 12 team members.

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Member #2(Required)

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Member #3(Required)

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Member #4(Required)

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Member #5(Required)

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Member #6(Required)

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Member #7(Required)

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Member #8(Required)

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Member #9(Required)

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Member #10(Required)

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Member #11(Required)

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Member #12(Required)

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1.1 Love in Action – Visio Day

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

Visio Day provides an opportunity for your Family Leadership Team (FLT) to learn the importance of creating a vision for your Family of Parishes and how to best create, communicate and enact that vision within your Family. This one-day workshop will not create the final vision for your Family of Parishes but will jump-start that process and prepare you for the Family Visioning Process.

Some Families of Parishes participated in Visio Day early in 2023. We encourage all other Families, not engaged in the Catholic Leadership Institute’s Next Generation Parish process, to attend one of the two sessions scheduled for fall 2023.

Learn more.

1.2 Love in Action – Family Visioning

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

The Family Visioning Process follows Visio Day and is a comprehensive process to create a vision statement for your Family of Parishes. This process is designed to define your vision, build consensus around the vision with key leaders and assess the impacts of that vision for each Beacons principle within your Family.

Refer to Leadership 1.2 for details on the Family Visioning Process.

2.1 Love in Action – Formation of Associated Team Members

August 16, 2023 by Pathway Admin

To best form your Love In Action Team members, we recommend that they participate in a three-part program called “A Vision for Love in Action: Building Families of Salt and Light.”

This series will be offered once in each of the 12 deaneries, and every Family of Parishes within each deanery will be encouraged to send a Love in Action cohort to participate. Staff from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati Department of Life, Human Dignity and Charity will facilitate the program for each deanery.

See the Materials tab for a current flyer.

To schedule for your sub-deanery or for more information, contact Mary Anne Bressler at [email protected]

Parish Vitality Report | Fall 2023 Available Now!

Love in Action