Following a series of preliminary meetings held after their October commissioning ceremony, Priest Conveners and Core Teams have begun the meetings that will begin to prepare merging parishes to come together.
The 41 Priest Conveners and more than 300 Core Team Members will be working in the months ahead to develop a variety of community-building experiences among merging parishes, inviting merging parishes to worship and pray together, engaging parishioners in the process of suggesting names for the new parishes and developing parish mission statements. The meetings also will address parish organizations and activities, Mass schedules, and lay the foundations for sacramental life, worship and pastoral ministries in the new parish.
The Priest Conveners with their Core Teams also will address issues related to the care of temporal goods, including parish organizational structure, capital projects, operations and maintenance, real estate and facilities. They will review various finance and accounting issues, nominate Lay Trustees, will select a new Finance Council and prepare to establish new registers, accounts and record books for the new parishes. They also will attend to the range of canonical and civil considerations involved in bringing parishes together.
While about 14 monthly meeting agendas have been suggested as a general guide to prepare the parishes for merger, each Core Team will determine the pace, timeline and the number of meetings that will be necessary based on the needs of their parishes.
For more information, see www.GatheringGodsGifts.org