St. John the Evangelist Parish

Our parish is one of the few in the archdiocese to have a committee exclusively focused on the future. In the spring of 2008 Fr. Tom appointed a small group of men and women to spend as much time as possible looking ahead, at what our parish situation might be in five or ten years. The group has met monthly for the past 20 months and while we wish we could quicken the pace of our work, we feel we have made significant progress and we want to tell you what we have done and what our plans are for 2010.

There are six members of the planning group. We come from different experiences, in the church and in our personal and professional lives, and our opinions on many things vary. We are, however, in near-total agreement about the challenges that lie ahead: how to expand and enrich the spiritual health of our parish in the face of a precipitous decline in the number of priests and women religious.

Without a doubt few parishes in 2015 or 2020 will be functioning exactly as they are today. According to a recent report from the archdiocese, within five years there will be fewer priests available (266, at most) than parishes (287). Thus, big changes are coming and the more successful we are in getting ready for them the greater our chances of preserving all that is wonderful about St. John’s.

We have spent a lot of time, both individually and as a group, trying to learn more about what is happening in the church in America and how other dioceses (and parishes within them) have dealt with these major changes. The number of books, periodicals, websites and reports is growing constantly, as more and more individuals and groups in the church look to the future and search for ways of dealing with both the big, “strategic” issues and the particulars of managing the day-to-day affairs of parishes and tending to the spiritual needs of an ever-increasing population of Catholics.

While we have not become experts in any sense, we have become much more aware of the nature of the challenges and the available options. In the past year, we have met with several groups in our parish – the Pastoral Council, a joint meeting of Finance and Pastoral councils and parish staff and the people participating in the ARISE program. We would love to share what we have learned with more members of St. John’s, so please contact us to arrange either individual meetings or meetings with small groups, formal or informal. We are quite flexible and available! You can reach us by email (ppg@stjohnwellesley.org) or by phone (John Stewart – 617 969 0950).

We have been meeting recently with pastors of neighboring parishes in Wellesley and Newton. There are three goals to these sessions – to talk about the work of our planning group, to listen to their experiences in working with people who have come together from two or more parishes and to explore some of the broad issues associated with parish collaborations. We hope to expand these meetings to include informal groups of lay people and representatives from various parish organizations.

We have no broad or hidden agenda in undertaking these meetings. Our hope is simply to take advantage of our common interest in the future of the church, to enhance our understanding of all the possibilities for organizing our parishes and in a very basic sense to make ourselves totally receptive to move in whatever direction the Holy Spirit leads us.

In the next few weeks our group will expand. Fr. Tom will appoint several new members, enabling us to expand and accelerate our efforts and, most important, to begin to assist individuals and groups within the parish in looking specifically at the planning decisions that lie ahead.

The archdiocese of Boston was without a full-time pastoral planning person for several years. Happily, Father David Couturier was appointed director of the Office of Pastoral Planning almost a year ago and recently Joshua Phelps was added to the staff as associate director. They, along with people in every parish, have an enormous amount of work to do and for it to be successful a range of new and productive relationships must be created – between parishes and the archdiocese and among parishes in each of the 70 or so geographical collaboratives or groupings that have been designed for the 287 parishes. Our group has communicated with Father David and hopefully he will visit St. John’s in the next few months to tell all of us more about the strategic planning efforts his office is undertaking and of the tools and processes that will be available to parishes as we confront dramatic declines in the number of priests and the number of Catholics participating regularly in church activities.

Our prayer as we enter the new year and as we become more and more involved in this work is that all members of St. John’s will, first of all, consider very thoughtfully exactly how their lives as Catholics are strengthened by all that happens in our parish. In a very real sense, we depend on one another for both our individual spiritual vitality and our common strength as a worshiping community. To carry out the mission God has assigned to each of us we must be positive and enthusiastic in all we do, accepting the inevitable challenges to the “comfort levels” we as Catholics have always known and happily responding to calls for more and more lay people to assume responsibilities as leaders and workers in their parishes.

Finally, we are grateful for the confidence Fr. Tom and Sister Evelyn have expressed in us and we look forward to meeting with many of you in 2010, to share our common thoughts and to reflect on the amazing gifts God has given all of us as members of St. John the Evangelist Parish.

Rose Mary Donahue
Svea Fraser
Jerry Kehoe
Dan Kenslea
Mike Nilles
John Stewart

Advent and Christmas are days of hope and reflection in the church, an opportunity for each of us to step back and look at the strengths, weaknesses and direction of our spiritual journey. As part of this reflection, we might consider what we want, need and can contribute as members of St. John the Evangelist Parish and the faith community of Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston. While we strive as individuals to live closer and closer to God, we are not alone in our efforts. We depend on each other and on the church for the quality of our public worship and for a better understanding of who we are and how we can better fulfill God’s plan for us.

We live in challenging times. The pace of change throughout the church will accelerate in the next decade, at a rate that may be disturbing to some. Much of this change will result from the growing shortage of priests and religious women, the need for lay men and women to play a larger role in parish life, and the need for parishes to work together more collaboratively than in the past. We must believe that with these challenges the Holy Spirit is giving us the opportunity to renew and revitalize our pursuit of the essential goals of our Catholic faith.

A first step in preparing for the future is to review the good work we do at St. John’s, and to think not only about what else we might do, but how we might do things better. To this end, the Pastoral Planning Group invites you to share your thoughts on what the parish means to you, why you are a member, what for you is the most important aspect of being part of this faith community, what resources you think could be shared with other parishes, and any other thoughts you have on the future of St. John’s Parish.

You may contact the Planning Group at ppg@stjohnwellesley.org or by regular mail to the rectory, or leave a phone message at 617-969-0950 and a member of the Planning Group will call you back. In the early spring, we will organize a series of meetings, large and small, to share what has been heard and to gather further ideas about the future of the parish.

The Archdiocese of Boston is conducting a nationwide search for a new Director of Pastoral Planning. This person, together with a dedicated professional staff, will be responsible for designing the system to be used by individual parishes and groups of collaborating parishes in planning their future activities.

St. John’s Pastoral Planning Group members are: Rose Mary Donahue, Svea Fraser, Jerry Kehoe, Dan Kenslea, Mike Nilles and John Stewart

Recommended reading: From Maintenance to Mission: Evangelization and the Revitalization of the Parish (Paulist Press, 2005) The health of Catholic parishes is discussed in this wonderful book by Robert Rivers. Contact the Planning Group if you want to borrow this and other books on pastoral planning. See the parish website for further information.

Involved and concerned Catholics in forward-looking parishes and dioceses across the country are either responding to the huge challenges that lie ahead—in particular, the ongoing decline in the number of priests—or beginning the planning process. Some dioceses and their parishes have been very aggressive and successful in developing new approaches to pastoral organization and staffing. For examples of the planning efforts of other dioceses, please see the websites of Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Rochester and Richmond.

In May 2007, a Pastoral Planning Committee appointed by Cardinal O’Malley issued a pastoral planning report that lays out the challenges ahead for the church of Boston. This important document dramatically describes both the reality of the situation and the options available in responding. The report is available on the website of the Archdiocese of Boston (www.rcab.org).

The next major step in this process at the Archdiocesan level will be the selection of a new Archdiocesan Director of Pastoral Planning. This person will be given the jobs of developing a comprehensive framework for planning and overseeing the creation of the structure in which all parishes in the Boston Archdiocese will operate. Following the practice of other dioceses, a key feature of this new structure will be the grouping of parishes into collaboratives, which may eventually be the units to which priests will be assigned. There are obviously many important details to be considered and a number of critical decisions to be made at all levels of the Archdiocese.

Here at St. John’s, Father Tom and our Parish Pastoral Council created a committee called the Pastoral Planning Group to coordinate planning for the future of the parish. Essential tasks of the Pastoral Planning Group at this point are to raise awareness in the parish and to prepare the parish for the changes to come. We want to make sure that as this planning takes place within the Archdiocese and as various changes are implemented, the quality of parish life continues to flourish as together we search for closer relationships with God and ever more fruitful spiritual lives.

The Pastoral Planning Group will not be making decisions for the parish. Its role is to coordinate the planning work of many people and to facilitate the smooth flow of ideas and information, so that when decisions are made—by the pastor, Parish Pastoral and Finance Councils, and leaders of the various ministries of our parish—they will be based on solid reasoning and reflect the best views of the entire parish.

The Pastoral Planning Group welcomes your input and questions. Please feel free to leave a message at the rectory (781- St. John Pastoral Planning Group 235-0045) for any member of the group. Please also be on the lookout for Pastoral Planning Group page, coming soon to our parish website. Planning Group members are: Rosemary Donahue, Svea Fraser, Jerry Kehoe, Dan Kenslea, Mike Nilles and John Stewart.

Catholics throughout the country and indeed throughout the world are beginning to come to grips with the serious reality of a Church operating with fewer and fewer priests and religious women. This dramatic change is well underway and presents us with an opportunity to shape the direction of our parish community. The parish of the future will call for broader participation by parishioners and for significant leadership and ministerial roles by trained men and women, or “lay ecclesial ministers.”

With all of this in mind, Father Tom and the Parish Pastoral Council created a committee to coordinate planning for the future of our parish. The mission of this new Planning Group is to ensure that St. John’s is prepared, in terms of human and other resources, to respond to the new realities it will face in the next five to ten years and beyond.

The initial members of the Planning Group are Rose Mary Donahue, Svea Fraser, Jerry Kehoe, Dan Kenslea, Mike Nilles and John Stewart. They will work closely with members of the parish staff, the pastoral and finance councils, and members of our various parish ministries. As the Group’s agenda is defined more precisely there will be a need for more members, along with help from many others.

A top priority of the Planning Group is to keep members of the parish informed of all that is happening. Regular updates will be published in the parish bulletin and on the parish website, circulated through e-mail exchanges and discussed in small gatherings. Included will be information from the Archdiocese of Boston, recommended reading, links to documents being published and other newsworthy items that will help us become more knowledgeable as people in our archdiocese and throughout the country plan for the Church of the next generation.

God indeed is calling! From the decrees of the Second Vatican Council to numerous pronouncements of recent popes and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church has called on “ordinary” Catholics to become engaged in the day-to-day work of parishes.

In its 2000 year history Catholics have successfully faced many transitions and challenges by treating them as opportunities for growth and renewal. The best way to do this is by addressing the realities of the situation openly, honestly and creatively. As we consider the structure and practices that will best provide for our spiritual needs, as well as the organizational goals of the parish, we must be mindful of the profound and beautiful mission God has entrusted to each of us, confident that the Holy Spirit will continue to provide the guidance we need.