By: Fr. John Jasica
MISSION DICTATES STRUCTURE
At the end of June, I will be celebrating four years serving as the pastor of the Chatham Catholic Family of Parishes. It continues to be a great honour and privilege to lead and serve this amazing faith community and work with a wonderful, dedicated and committed staff.
The last four years have been extremely busy, exciting, challenging and hope-filled. Over these years we experienced the end of the pandemic, developed a new IGNITE THE MISSION pastoral plan, continued to rebuild in new and exciting ways from the pandemic, closed St. Agnes Parish and are continuing to move forward together shifting from maintenance to mission.
We recognize as a family of parishes and as a diocese that we can no longer maintain the status quo—in order for us to truly be a Church that witnesses the Good News, we must transmit the Gospel in different ways so that our culture and society may be disrupted with the love of Christ. In order for us to do this, we have embraced the mission to form disciples who reach out to all. This requires us to adapt our structures, ministries and approach. Our mission (goal) dictates the structure (how we get there).
SHEPHERDING A FAMILY OF PARISHES
The family of parishes model adopted by the diocese was established in an attempt to combat the continuing reduction of priests serving in our parishes while also encouraging parishes to work together for the sake of mission. One of the shortcomings of this model has been the fact that none of the parish structures changed. The work simply multiplied and staff have been stretched far too thin.
Being a pastor in a family of parishes has become more complicated and much more time consuming. There are families of parishes comprised of two, three, four, five, six and seven parishes/communities which includes multiple buildings facing many different challenges—aging buildings, reduced attendance, lack of finances, staff shortages, volunteer shortages and large distances between churches. Despite all of these difficulties, there is amazing work going on thanks to hard working clergy, staff and parishioners who have gone above and beyond to share the Gospel in our world today. Yet the current staff and pastoral team structures cannot be sustained in the long-run. The framework of the family of parishes needs to change for the sake of mission and to avoid the burn-out we are seeing. Our current model here in Chatham is not sustainable and is changing so that we can most effectively work together to be pilgrims of hope in our world.
SOMETHING NEW—SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM
One of the additions that we are introducing is the Chatham Catholic Senior Leadership Team (SLT). The role of the SLT is to support the pastor in the operation of the family of parishes by helping him to make and execute the best possible decisions. To this end, I have personally invited four people from our family of parishes to support me by providing a circle of trust-based accountability. This is not an advisory, representative, or oversight body, instead, it is an operating body, which means that each team member is actively involved in and responsible for making the day-to-day decisions that are needed to help us fulfill our mission to form disciples who reach out to all.
A couple of other families of parishes in our diocese have embraced this approach with great success. Our SLT has been meeting and getting to know one another over the last couple of months—and I must admit, I am truly thankful for their support, wisdom and commitment. Having an SLT is giving me the strength, energy, confidence and support I need to serve much more effectively and joyfully. It is helping me lead and serve better!!
I have decided to embrace this model for the following reasons:
- I need a small group of positive, committed, wise and trustworthy people that I can pray with and who can share the responsibility of leading the day to day mission of our family of parishes and support me in my ministry.
- With constant changes of associate pastors and the varying responsibilities of pastoral team members, a small consistent and invested group to assist the pastor is crucial and more effective.
- The SLT will be vital to have when there is a pastor change. It will help in succession planning, keeping the pastoral plan and mission of the family of parishes at the forefront and help new staff and pastor adapt to our family.
The role of Pastoral Council and Finance Committee of course will not change and will continue their leadership roles and assist me and the SLT in leading the family of parishes.
I am thankful to Colleen Keane, Maureen MacDonald, Jason Denys and Renée Culverwell for accepting the invitation to take on this leadership role in our family of parishes. Please keep them in your prayers!!
