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Report on the Parish Listening Meeting - Monday 26 September 2011
The meeting was opened in prayer led by Father Joseph Gunn, who then handed over to Mrs Cecilia Whitehorn a professional facilitator.
There was a review of the key parochial concerns which rose out of the first Parish Listening Evening which was held on Thursday 3rd February 2011:
Parish Community
· How can we be a community spread between three individual church sites
· The role of a Parish Pastoral Council
· Encourage more lay involvement of all ages
· By what means should we reach out to the wider population of Bangor
· Relationship with the wider diocese
· Catholic Education
o The importance of our parish schools
o How best to include children who do not attend Catholic schools
Parishioner Participation
· The role of women in the parish
· Encourage greater attendance of men at Mass
· Housebound, elderly & sick
· 15 – 40 age group
· Family & Marriage
o Role of parents in religious education
o Support single parents
· How do we reach out to the lapsed
Faith & Worship
· Re-evangelisation & Faith Formation
· Help people understand that they share the responsibility to develop their own faith
· Eucharist as the centre of faith and parish life
· The need for a personal relationship with Jesus and a living faith
· Mass & Confession
o How do we encourage more regular all age attendance at Mass
o The balance between the number of Masses and the number of priests
o Encourage singing
o Ministers of the Word
· Devotions, Missions, Adoration & Confession
· Promote our local Christian Heritage and the Bangor Saints
For the purposes of the meeting it was suggested that we proceeded to look at these key parochial issues under four headings:
1. Worship
2. Community building
3. Education and formation
4. Outreach
We were introduced the context of change and transition as well as what a Pastoral Council would look like:
· Context of change and transition
o Profound changes that have affected our world (governance, sustenance, sustainability and the ways of spiritual life).
o To understand that Christian life is at the core of the local parish and to look for ways to demonstrate and articulate this in a meaningful and practical way for the world around us, to be a person of faith is to be a person in community, a person in covenant.
o Turn our faces towards the future, take the essence of the Christian life and invent the practical form of the local Christian community for our age.
o At times we need to take responsibility for change.
· Pastoral Council
o A Pastoral Council, from among all the things it could do, decides on what it will do, plans how it will do, plans on how it will do what it has decided to do and does it.
o It is a leadership group that keeps the parish on the right course and maintains its’ focus.
Change
We heard how change can best be achieved when:
A + B + C > D = Change
A. Levels of dissatisfaction to be high.
B. Shared vision and shared plan one of the challenges.
C. Achievable steps – Clear steps.
D. Cost of making the change.
Cost
We then looked at the possible cost of change:
· More of Jesus and less of Church
· Core of Faith – what is it about
· Different levels of upsetting people
o By upsetting the systems
o By not doing something.
· How do you bring out in people the commitment to participate in the parish
· Time and energy
· Cost of change to the individual, to groups
Transition
We need to see this change as a period of transition:
· Hearts and minds have to change
· We need to let go of certain things
o The past
o How the Parish was
o What Priests have done in the past good or bad
Reflecting on the past
It became clear that there was a real sense of loss among those present:
· How things where
· On-going issues
· Knowledge of what is going to happen
· Natural event – formal acknowledgement
· Have we been informed well
· What will we gain in 50 years
· Boundaries are set, are we looking for a Parish Pastoral Council
· Disfranchised community the three areas of parish life - Bangor, Ballyholme, Donaghadee
· Parishioners not supporting existing groups
· Frustration / confusion and uncertainty
· Create something new
· Want to go back to the way it was
What is clear is that we need a new beginning and clear steps!
· It will be a challenge - like a marathon, the front runners take off – middle ground, not up to speed, they’ll get there, slow runners at back.
· We can’t stand on the side – work to be undertaken.
We need to communicate the following to the whole parish:
· Harm has been done.
· We need honesty.
· There is hope, encourage young people.
· What questions are we asking?
· Listening is happening
· How do we bring the young along?
· Community building
· Connecting people
· Education
What are the main goals that we want to achieve:
1. Lay participation
2. Open welcoming community
3. Priests
4. Faith/Worship
5. Passing on the Faith
6. Be realistic about what is achievable
There will be three responses for the first Listening Evening held in February 2011
1. Bishop
2. Parish
3. Living Church Committee/Report
Our Response – formulating practical solutions
The meeting was then broken up into four groups each looking at one of the four main headings. People were invited to join whichever group they wished.
1. Worship
2. Community Building
3. Education
4. Outreach
Each group was asked to do the following:
· Discuss the main priorities in terms of their particular key heading
· Discuss what gifts the parish had already in relation to the heading
· Come up with one achievable action that their group could do within the next six months.
Worship
· Key Concern(s)
o Evangelisation
· Gifts
o Experience of people
o People are willing
o Committed schools
o People have knowledge of the Bible and the Catholic Faith
o Excellent young people
o Committed group
o Priests
· Achievable Action
o The careful consideration of the Bishop’s report and how we can implement it here in Bangor.
Community Building
· Key Concern(s)
o How do we bring the three church sites to form one community
o Greater lay involvement
o Reach out to the lapsed
o The role of women in the parish
o We need a group of people to visit new parishioners
o Legion of Mary already established and visits parishioners but needs new members
o People need to be valued – existing groups in the parish and the work that they do
o How to encourage male attendance
o The ’15-40’ age group is missing
· Gifts
· Achievable Action
o To establish a ‘Welcome Group’ which would produce a welcome pack with information about all the groups in the parish and would then distribute it to new parishioners as well as looking at how hospitality is carried out in the parish.
Education
· Key Concern(s)
o The promotion of universal Christian Ethos/Values
· Gifts
o Catholic education is inclusive not exclusive
o Parents participation
o The schools work well with the parish/priests
o Sacraments
· Achievable Action
o A youth led All Age Festival of Faith
Outreach
· Key Concern(s)
o We need to care for the:
§ Sick
§ Elderly
§ Suffering
§ Poor
§ Vulnerable
§ House bound
§ Alcoholics and drug addicts
§ Single parents
§ Those in nursing homes
§ Mental Health
o We need to reach out to the:
§ Wider population of Bangor
§ Joint services with other faiths
§ Involvement in wider community
· Gifts
o The Legion of Mary, the St. Vincent de Paul and a group of committed parishioners already carry out much of this work but are in a real need of more members
· Achievable Action
o For Father Gunn - a rota for the local hospitals to be able to contact the priests
o To explore ways of improving how people’s needs are brought to the attention of the parish/priests (e.g. anointing of the sick). In addition, how we as a parish cater for the needs of migrant communities
The four groups will be meeting later in November to begin working towards their achievable goal.
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