A community of joyful disciples growing together and sharing Christ’s message.
Where did this proposed statement come from?
Suggestions of what was wished for, hoped for by the various communities making up the current parishes were gathered at the end of 2014. These were collated and common themes looked at by a small group from the Pastoral Area Transition Team (PATT).
Ideas behind the vision statement:
Using these common themes and particular expressions some things stood out to us: the desire for strong, supportive, faith-filled community life; the desire to grow and deepen the faith, hope and love of the members of the parish; the desire to grow in numbers; the desire to be outwardlyfocused (not just concerned about those in the church building) and mission-oriented.
From those themes came the references to community, to being disciples of Christ (listening to his word, following his ways), and to bringing his message to others. The expression ‘sharing Christ’s message’ is phrased as such to indicate that this is done in a way that is active, does not impose and is done through dialogue.
We have summarised various references to a having a strong, faithful, inclusive and diverse parish simply in the word ‘community’. One possibility was to define the parish as a ‘community of communities’ and while this is a possible definition we also felt that such a definition was also a way of working that could/would be part of making the new parish work. So we summarised the discussion by simply using the word ‘community’ to signify the strength and welcome that were being desired.
A particular point that struck us came from the children of Brooklyn who had indicated that they hoped for joyful experiences as members of the Church. The group formulating the vision statement heard that hope as reflecting the hopes of Pope Francis in his letter ‘Evangelii
Gaudium’ (The Joy of the Gospel) where he invites us to continually encounter the tenderness of Jesus “ which is always capable of restoring our joy” and enables us “to lift up our heads and to start anew” We felt the gospel couldn’t be truly shared unless we had experienced it as joy of Jesus’s life which “impels us onwards”, hence the reference to ‘joyful disciples’
From: The PATT vision-development sub-group.
Does this vision statement reflect your hopes and dreams for the new parish?
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