Category Archives: SJSP Collaborative Planning – FAQ

The St. John and St. Paul Collaborative will be formally launched in the summer of 2015.  Following is a recently asked question and answer about the new Collaborative:

QUESTION 6.) Please discuss the process which will be used for selecting a Pastor for our Collaborative, and the role of the local Parish communities in that process.

Since we have now been selected as a Phase III Collaborative, Father Rafferty and Father Powers will send their letters of resignation in October 2014 to Cardinal Sean, to become effective in June 2015. St. John’s and St. Paul’s will be listed as “open” in the Officials section of The Pilot and any priest who wants to apply for the position of Pastor may do so. The Regional Bishop, the Vicar Forane, the Director of Clergy Personnel, and possibly a member of the Clergy Personnel Board, will come to a joint meeting of our Council and Staff members, to get their input regarding Pastor selection. The Clergy Personnel Board will then discuss the candidates and develop a list of names for Cardinal Sean’s consideration. Cardinal Sean will make his appointment, probably by mid-January of 2015.

More information can be found on the St. John’s web site  (St. John – St. Paul Collaborative News) and on the Archdiocese of Boston Pastoral Planning website (www.disciplesinmission.com)

The Inter Parish Collaborative Team welcomes your comments and feedback. Please email your questions or comments to: stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com  

The St. John and St. Paul parishes will, in the near future, be joined in a Collaborative under a plan developed by the Archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Planning. The St. John and St. Paul Parish Councils, along with Father Powers and Father Rafferty, have requested that our Collaborative be included in the upcoming Phase III of the Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Boston. The Archdiocese is scheduled to announce the parishes that will be included in Phase III before the fall of 2014, and the Collaboratives for those parishes will be formally launched in mid-2015.

Following is a recently asked question and answer about the new Collaborative:

QUESTION5) Once the St. John and St. Paul Collaborative is underway, how will the Collaborative be managed?

The Office of Pastoral Planning for the Archdiocese of Boston has designed the following leadership model to implement the Pastoral Plan:

More Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the St. John’s web site:  ST. JOHN-ST. PAUL COLLABORATIVE NEWS  In addition, the Archdiocese regularly updates a detailed website: www.disciplesinmission.com.

We welcome your comments and feedback.  Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to – stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com.

The St. John and St. Paul parishes will, in the near future, be joined in a Collaborative under a plan developed by the Archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Planning. The St. John and St. Paul Parish Councils, along with Father Powers and Father Rafferty, have requested that our Collaborative be included in the upcoming Phase III of the Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Boston. The Archdiocese is scheduled to announce the parishes that will be included in Phase III before the fall of 2014, and the Collaboratives for those parishes will be formally launched in mid-2015.

Following is a recently asked question and answer about the new Collaborative:

QUESTION 4:  Both St. John’s and St. Paul’s have schools. How will our Parish schools be impacted by the Collaborative? 

Parish schools will remain Parish schools. St. John’s School will remain St. John’s School and St. Paul’s School will remain St. Paul’s School. The principals of both schools will be members of our Collaborative’s Leadership Team*. Both School Boards will take part in training programs and members of both school communities will be represented in our Local Pastoral Plan.

*The Collaborative’s Leadership Team will be comprised of the following individuals: the Pastor, Parochial Vicar(s), Deacon(s), Finance & Operations Manager, Pastoral Associate, Director of Ministries, and School Principals.

More Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the St. John’s web site:  ST. JOHN-ST. PAUL COLLABORATIVE NEWS  In addition, the Archdiocese regularly updates a detailed website: www.disciplesinmission.com.

We welcome your comments and feedback.  Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to – stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com.

The St. John and St. Paul parishes will, in the near future, be joined in a Collaborative under a plan developed by the Archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Planning. The St. John and St. Paul Parish Councils, along with Father Powers and Father Rafferty, have requested that our Collaborative be included in the upcoming Phase III of the Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Boston. The Archdiocese is scheduled to announce the parishes that will be included in Phase III before the fall of 2014, and the Collaboratives for those parishes will be formally launched in mid-2015.

Following is a recently asked question and answer about the new Collaborative:

Question 3:  If St. John’s and St. Paul’s are forming a Collaborative, does this mean that one of the churches in Wellesley will be closing?

No! Both St. John’s and St. Paul’s will remain open, which is a key benefit of the new Pastoral Collaborative program. It is helpful to think of our two-parish Collaborative as an “affiliation of parishes” – not a new parish. St. John’s and St. Paul’s will each maintain its own identity – each with its own name, buildings,
canonical rights, bank accounts, books, financial assets, and financial obligations.

More Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the St. John’s web site:  ST. JOHN-ST. PAUL COLLABORATIVE NEWS  In addition, the Archdiocese regularly updates a detailed website: www.disciplesinmission.com.

We welcome your comments and feedback.  Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to – stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com.

The St. John and St. Paul parishes will, in the near future, be joined in a Collaborative under a plan developed by the Archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Planning. The St. John and St. Paul Parish Councils, along with Father Powers and Father Rafferty, have requested that our Collaborative be included in the upcoming Phase III of the Pastoral Plan for the Archdiocese of Boston. The Archdiocese is scheduled to announce the parishes that will be included in Phase III before the fall of 2014, and the Collaboratives for those parishes will be formally launched in mid-2015.

Following is a recently asked question and answer about the new Collaborative:

QUESTION 2: What can the St. John and St. Paul communities do now to prepare for the formal launch of the Collaborative? 

Preparations are already underway. Over a year ago, an Inter-Parish Committee comprised of parishioners from St. John and St. Paul was formed. This group has been meeting monthly to plan for the upcoming Collaborative, and is in communication with the Office of Pastoral Planning in the Archdiocese. Information regarding the Collaborative gets printed in both parishes’ weekly bulletins, and is always available on both websites under a Collaborative News tab. Members of the St. John’s and the St. Paul’s Parish Councils have attended and actively participated in one another’s Parish Council meetings. Additionally, many St. John’s and St. Paul’s parishioners have increasingly enjoyed the array of social, educational, and religious events at one another’s churches. Going forward, we will continue to provide up-to-date information on the
Collaborative in the bulletins and on the web sites as it becomes available. Additionally, we will host open meetings to provide timely, accurate information when our Collaborative is formally announced.

More Frequently Asked Questions can be found on the St. John’s web site – click ST. JOHN-ST. PAUL COLLABORATIVE NEWS under “Quick Links.”  In addition, the Archdiocese regularly updates a detailed website: www.disciplesinmission.com.

We welcome your comments and feedback.  Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to – stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com.

Question 20: I feel like I’ve probably missed some of the questions that have been published in this section of the Bulletin. Where can I learn more about Collaboratives?
All of the questions we’ve published so far can be found on the St. John’s web site – click
ST. JOHN-ST. PAUL COLLABORATIVE NEWS under “Quick Links.” In addition, the Archdiocese regularly updates a detailed website: www.disciplesinmission.com.

We welcome your comments and feedback.  Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to – stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com.

Question 19: Since Phase One is underway already, has the Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning Commission noted any challenges or surprises with these initial Collaboratives?

As we all know, change is rarely easy! Phase One Pastors have embraced major change: they left familiar  surroundings and started working with new staffs and parishioners. They are learning the culture of their new parishes while trying to keep up Mass schedules and levels of involvement with their parishioners. These Pastors have committed themselves to grow strong, intentional, and effective centers for the Archdiocese’s New Evangelization.  One area which posed some surprising false starts for the Collaboratives was IT. Getting the proper networking, internet, phone, and wiring in twelve Collaboratives up and running proved to be more complex than anticipated. Things are going more smoothly now; patience and persistence is paying off.

We welcome your comments and feedback. Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to: stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com 

For more information and to the view this entire series of “Frequently Asked Questions” please visit the St. John – St. Paul Collaborative News page on our website.

Question 17: Once our Collaborative is formed with St. Paul’s, is there a “blueprint” of how we’re supposed to operate?

Yes. After our Collaborative is formed and is up and running, the Pastor will appoint a team to write the Local Pastoral Plan for our Collaborative. The Plan will contain the details of how St. John’s and St. Paul’s will engage in the work of the New Evangelization (reaching out to Catholics who are not currently active in the Church and welcoming them back to the active practice of the faith). Our Local Pastoral Plan will contain the details of how we will run our programs, how we will promote vocations, and how we will engage in radical hospitality. The Local Pastoral Plan will also contain specific goals and how we will measure movement toward these goals. The Local Pastoral Plan will be different for each Collaborative and will be approved by the Archbishop.

We welcome your comments and feedback. Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to: stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com 

For more information and to the view this entire series of “Frequently Asked Questions” please visit the St. John – St. Paul Collaborative News page on our website.

Question 16. I’ve heard that when the Parish Collaboratives form, all the Pastors in that Collaborative Phase have to resign. Is this correct?
Yes. However, the Archbishop will appoint the best Pastor for the unique needs of each Collaborative. It may be the case that the best Pastor for a given Collaborative is one of the current Pastors or Administrators (interim Pastors), or it may be the case that the best choice is someone new, from another Parish altogether. In Phase One, which began in the summer of 2013, half of the twelve Collaboratives got a new Pastor, and the other half retained a Pastor from one of the Collaborating parishes.

We welcome your comments and feedback. Please email your questions or comments about Parish Collaboratives to: stjohn.stpaul@gmail.com