What if there were a way to pray, discern, analyze, and decide what the next steps are for creating the thriving, apostolic parish God dreams for your community?
Engaging an educated and experienced consultant who lives, eats, and breathes mission and evangelization is the fastest and most effective way to make informed, supported decisions on how to get your diocese or parish to refocus on mission.
Some people call it coaching. Others call it accompaniment. Yet others, expert guidance. Call it what you will, but I prefer consulting because I advise and lead you through a process, but the decisions are your own!
The 10 month version of this consultative deep-dive is called Mission Ignite: Becoming an Evangelizing Parish in 10 Months. It is a process in which Dr. Susan guides the team and consults with the pastor (meetings once a month, and on retainer for questions that come up). But it is not a pre-set program. Decisions on paths forward are made entirely by the pastor, with the guidance of the team. Mission Ignite is designed to guarantee that your parish has the confidence and background to immediately implement a well-discerned plan backed by data and mission principles. There aren’t many guarantees in life. But this process is guaranteed to result in a carefully discerned plan to move mission forward.
There are other consultative possibilities as well:
Short term mission support consulting. Dr. Susan Windley-Daoust can help with one aspect of mission in your parish: mission field analysis, discipleship level assessment, visioning and mission statement creation, evangelization models education, mission shift discernment, and mission implementation. You and she can make a plan to meet 2-4 times to accomplish any one of those items.
ps. If you need a suggestion about where to start, she especially loves offering the Discerning the Lord’s Vision for Your Parish process–a full day or three gatherings of scriptural prayer, listening to the Holy Spirit, and discerning the Lord’s vision for your parish community.
Consulting for the parish social mission and family-based discipleship. Jerry Windley-Daoust (yes, married to Susan; Jerry has an M.A. in Pastoral Studies) is the author of multiple books on Catholic social teaching, and has served extensively with the Catholic Worker, Birthright, and local refugee resettlement organizations. He also helps offer content for Greg and Lisa Popcak’s innovative Catholic HOM (Households on Mission) family discipleship initiative. If the social mission is something you want to discern and implement more powerfully–or you want to assess your parish offerings based on Catholic social teaching–Jerry and Susan can work together with you.
Faith formation/Catholic education support. Heidi Indahl, M.Ed., is working with The Mark 5:19 Project on referral through her own organization, Designed for Discipleship. She is a former parent educator and school program director turned catechist educator and program consultant, with an advanced degree in instructional design. She works with schools and parishes to plan, modify, and design catechesis programs for all ages within the context of local community, challenges, and goals. She focuses on pairing best-practice in brain-based learning with authentic Catholic faith through the lens of catechesis as a vital means of evangelization and discipleship. Contact us if you want to work with Heidi…we currently have a deal that if one parish works with one of us, and that parish chooses to work with the other of us within 18 months, they get a financial break! Ask for more.
In short, tell us what you need: we will suggest different ways we can help you, your parishioners, and your community thrive.