Try these online resources:
Amazing Parish offers a free pdf with a clear approach for developing a vision statement, strategic priorities, and next steps:
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Catholic Charities USA offers multiple resources for planning parish social ministries:
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These planning and visioning resources are in our diocesan library:
CLICK HERE to reserve.
8 Ways to Build Parish Community: a Practical Guide for Ministers and Parish Leaders. Anslinger, Leisa. Twenty Third Publications, 2018. Helping people feel connected—to each other, to the parish, and to God—is a major challenge for parish leaders. How do we build a stronger community, in which more and more people are growing in faith together? Based on her own extensive experience working with parishes and their leaders, Leisa Anslinger explores this vital question, offering eight simple, practical steps to energize and connect the entire parish.
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Fruitful Discipleship: Living the Mission of Jesus in the Church and the World. Weddell, Sherry A. Our Sunday Visitor, 2017.
As faith-filled Catholics, we are called to go out and spread the good news of the Gospel, build up the Church, and fuel its mission. We are supernaturally empowered by God to do this through the charisms we receive at Baptism. Learn about each charism, what they are, and how discipleship unleashes these powerful gifts to produce fruit that lasts. |
A Pastor's Toolbox 2: More Management Skills for Parish Leadership. Paul A. Holmes, Editor. Liturgical Press, 2017.
This follow-up volume provides all new information, insights, and practical tools that pastors need to handle the complexities of parish management in the twenty-first century. Sixteen contributors from across the country deliver key content that focuses on promoting excellence and best practices in the areas of management, finances, communications, and human resources development. A Pastor's Toolbox 2 provides: leadership tools for the pastor and his team; help for working with the parish's pastoral and finance councils; intercultural competence and complex pastoring situations; suggestions for time management and effective meetings; human resources, change management, and canon law; tools for parish stewardship, communications, and Catholic schools. |
20s / 30s Ministry: A Guide for Parishes. Lombardo, Nicholas E., Paulist Press, 2016.
Provides concrete and helpful directions for beginning a ministry to those in the 20s and 30s. Written by Fr. Nicholas Lombardo, OP, it captures many years of effective outreach by him and his associates. Chapter by chapter, tip by tip, Fr. Lombardo opens directions for parishes, lays out the options, and guides pastoral associates to the best choices. |
Great Catholic Parishes: A Living Mosaic. Simon, William E. Ave Maria Press, 2016.
Great Catholic Parishes looks at the success stories of 244 vibrant parishes to show what makes them great. The study found that all of the parishes shared four foundational practices that led to a profound sense of belonging within their parish communities and a deepening commitment to discipleship:
In Great Catholic Parishes, Simon shares personal stories, helpful ideas, strategic advice, and practical strategies, as well as anecdotes about lay ministry development initiatives and reworking religious education so that it is family focused and web-based. |
Catholic Cultures: How Parishes Can Respond to the Changing Face of Catholicism. Wittberg, Patricia. Liturgical Press, 2015.
From its earliest days, Christianity has been lived and proclaimed in the language and symbols of each receiving culture. Today, these cultures include the new ethnic groups moving into our parishes. They also include new generations of Catholic young adults, whose childhood experiences of their faith are very different from those of their elders. In Catholic Cultures, Sister Patricia Wittberg, SC, offers a view of Catholicism through the eyes of Catholics from these different cultures, so that we may all be challenged to grow in our reception of the Good News. This book is an ideal resource for parish ministers, educators, and parents struggling with how to evangelize and minister to unfamiliar cultures. It is also a tool for leaders trying to build a strong community made up of members who represent a variety of ethnic backgrounds and ages. |
The Gift of Administration: New Testament Foundations for the Vocation of Administrative Service. Senior, Donald. Liturgical Press, 2016.
Donald Senior, experienced administrator and noted biblical scholar, shows how the various functions of institutional administration are deeply rooted in the Scriptures and are a genuine expression of our call to discipleship. Leadership, mission statements and planning, finances and fund raising, personnel issues, communications, and public relations—all of these seemingly “secular” activities serve to build up the Body of Christ and deserve to be recognized as authentic Christian ministry. To see administrative service as a biblically rooted gift can help those involved in this way of life to find deeper and more satisfying spiritual meaning in what they do. |
Redeeming Administration: 12 Spiritual Habits for Catholic Leaders in Parishes, Schools, Religious Communities, and Other Institutions. Garrido, Ann M. Ave Maria Press, 2013.
Ann Garrido’s 2009 article in America magazine on the spirituality of administration in Catholic settings created a wave of demand in this successful academic administrator’s already full speaking schedule. Garrido admits that she sometimes finds administration draining, even boring, as it fractures her days into “tiny shards of time” that make it impossible to focus on “the big ideas.” And yet she has found spiritual gifts in her many years as a theologian, parish minister, and administrator in higher education. In Redeeming Administration, she reveals those gifts by examining twelve spiritual habits for Catholic leaders in parishes, schools, religious communities, and other institutions—presenting a saint who embodies each habit—and showing readers how to experience their administrative work as a crucial ministry of the Church. A brief prayer and questions for personal reflection, group conversation, or spiritual direction complete each chapter. Free downloads to accompany Redeeming Administration include a small-group guide and prayer resources. |
The Rebuilt Field Guide: Ten Steps for Getting Started. Michael White and Tom Corcoran. Ave Maria Press, 2016.
From the Rebuilt Parish series, this book can lead you and your leadership team through assessment and goal-setting exercises. There are meeting templates that include prayer, scripture reflection, storytelling, and “rally cries” that become reminders of the change the team is striving toward. This workbook offers practical steps that will help your team set change in motion with tools including:
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A Church on the Move: 52 Ways to Get Mission and Mercy in Motion. Paprocki, Joe. Loyola Press, 2016.
Offers 52 practical strategies for moving parishes forward, principally by focusing on the one thing the Church can offer that the world-at-large cannot: Jesus Christ. Each chapter begins with a quote from Pope Francis, and each helpful strategy falls within one of five key categories: how a Church on the move thinks, functions, worships, forms disciples, and engages the world. Every chapter takes an honest look at a particular problem in the Church before moving to a creative, redemptive, and achievable solution. GREAT FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN EVANGELIZATION! |
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