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.
Two Families of Parishes Leadership teams have already experienced the Culture Definition Retreat. Follow up a month later with both teams cited many positive outcomes:
Father Brian Phelps, pastor of Our Lady of Light Family of Parishes and Dean of the Emmanuel deanery shared: “The culture retreat helped my Family Leadership Team to have deeper discussions about the culture of our team. Working with the liaisons that weren’t assigned to us was very beneficial. Their presence guided conversations that we may not have gone too deep into, especially on conflict, accountability, and healthy team culture … This retreat helped me to pray more about putting out into the deep and trusting in God’s grace and have a new sense of hope in the darkness. This retreat also helped us hone our core values to a place where our staff can begin to live them out first to roll them out more to the parishioners.”
Cathy Magness, Pathway Lead for Mother of God Family of Parishes shared “To have an intentionally scheduled, focused couple of days as a team, away from distractions and interruptions was priceless. Even though we initially balked at taking 2 full days away, we all agreed it was worthwhile.” Since the retreat, they have revised their leadership meeting timing and agenda and are reaping the benefits of improved communication.
The Culture Retreat will be offered on a variety of days and locations which can be viewed here.