0.2 Love in Action – Reinforce from Phase 1
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.
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.