September 25, 2009
From the Bishop: Diocesan strategic planning process
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It has come to my attention that there is some concern throughout the diocese about what the Strategic Planning Process means to parishioners both personally and as members of parishes.
In recent days I have searched for an image to concisely describe the strategic planning process for those who may be experiencing some anxiety about it. I believe I have found one if we liken the planning process to a wheat harvest. It is very scriptural as we are daily nourished by the “Gift of Finest Wheat” at the Eucharistic Table.
Once the grain is ripe, harvesters enter the field, cut and gather the grain into sheaves. The gatherers transport the sheaves to the thresher. The thresher separates the grain from the chaff. The chaff is blown away as the whole grain remains. The grain is prepared for use. Some may be ground to flour for bread or left whole depending upon the intent of the user. Note that it is the user that decides its use. It is neither the harvester, the gatherer, the thresher nor the processor that decides the “recipe” for a desired product.
The strategic planning effort follows the same pattern. Gatherers, the discernment team members, collect information from across the diocese in different ways: personal interviews, focus groups, town hall meetings or a questionnaire on the Internet. The “gatherers” bundle their information and conjointly with the planning team “thresh” the information for processing. The resulting information will be sorted into issues that are local, regional or diocesan. This part of the effort should be concluded by April or May 2010.
As you can see, this process will result in issue identification. How we deal with these issues will be another process. You, too, will be involved in issue resolution.
In my letter to you in July, I presented to you a time-line for the unfolding of the strategic planning process. In this letter I want to give you an update. August is past and September is almost history as well. We are progressing successfully in keeping to our schedule.
- August Develop Project Plan: COMPLETED
- September Data Gathering Techniques determined: Gatherers are
- identified. COMPLETED
- Oct. and Nov. Gatherers reap data from the Faithful and Parish and Diocesan
- Groups UNDERWAY
- Personal Interviews of 100 members of the diocese [In process]
- Focus Groups of Parish and Diocesan Leadership [In process]
- Open Town Hall Meetings [In process]
- Anonymous questionnaire on the Internet at www.evansville-diocese.org/plan [In process]
Your involvement in the Focus Groups, Town Hall meetings and Internet questionnaire is critical to the success of this process. I want to hear from as many people as possible. Your concerns and comments will be extremely valuable in shaping the future of our diocese.
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December
- Gatherers and Planning Team “thresh” the harvested data to be processed into issues
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Jan. and Feb.
- The Planning and Discernment Teams, the “processors,” refine the issues to be addressed in a strategic plan for parish, deanery, region and diocese.
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March
- Develop processes to implement strategic planning for parish, deanery, region and diocese
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April
- Finalize, communicate, processes for implementation of plans
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May-June 2010 and for three to five years
- Implement plans to energize parish life in the Catholic Diocese of Evansville
Brothers and Sisters, this effort is an opportunity for renewal of our faith. It is a time to re-energize our parishes. I leave you with some questions that I, as your bishop, find most troubling to me. These are adult issues, but they involve children who will be affected as parents lead them.
- Why is it that in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Evansville only 43 percent of our members regularly attend Holy Mass on weekends while a Commandment of the Church requires that all members do? Why is it that so many Catholic marriages fail?
- Why is it that we have a shortage of priests since families are the source of all vocations? It cannot be poverty, because it was historically from poverty that so many responded to God’s call to religious life and priesthood and from which our parishes arose!
- Why is it that parents, the first teachers of all our children, do not choose Catholic Schools as the best choice to assist them in passing on the faith to their children? Or, why are children in Catholic Schools scarce at weekend Masses? Why is it so difficult to have consistent and regular attendance of children in public schools attending religious education programs?
- How is it that parents have allowed the sacred space of the parish church to be replaced by the gymnasium, football and soccer field?
It is a time for us to let loose of “the way it used to be.” We must recognize that we can be in charge of change or change will take charge of us. Change imposed by outside forces removes freedom of choice! Join me and choose to engage wholeheartedly in ways to energize the life of families and parishes. That is what our strategic planning effort is about!
May St. Theodore Guerin, S.P. and Bishop Simon Bruté, Servant of God, intercede for us in all our efforts to proclaim Jesus to all!
Faithfully yours in Christ,
+ Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger