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! Let me share my preferred process for creating an evangelizing parish in ten months, called Mission Ignite:
- We discuss hopes, dreams, and challenges in this parish.
- I ask you (the pastor, or the bishop if a diocese) to gather a discipleship team of intentional disciples who are genuinely desiring a mission-focused, evangelizing Church.
- We begin with a retreat of that team, led by me, that is part spiritual retreat and part deep dive into the missional parish.
- That team works with the pastor to complete simple but powerful assessments and name strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities, in the mission field as the parish engages in a prayer campaign for this initiative.
- We begin implementing a variety of ways to get everyone in the parish “on board.”
- The team engages in some weeks of intensive study and discussion about different parish models of evangelization. Discernment prayers and tools are offered throughout.
- Decisions are made by the pastor and his team. We begin to work on setting up implementation and goals for the next 1, 2, and 3 years.
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 consulting. Dr. Susan helps on 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 one of those items.
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. 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.
Finally, Mission Masterminds. Need a sticky, specific mission problem solved? Consider this exciting possibility guided by an expert but enriched by your peers in parish leadership (other pastors, or a group of evangelization directors, a group of youth ministers, etc.). Susan Windley-Daoust is trained in this process and eager to bring it to the Church world!
In short, tell us what you need: we will suggest different ways we can help you, your parishioners, and your community thrive.
Testimonials
“Susan Windley-Daoust, Ph.D., facilitated our parish discipleship leadership team over a 12-month period with the goal of helping our parish to be more alive, welcoming, and active with evangelization of our parishioners through a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.
The outcome went beyond what we had hoped for during this year of discernment and personal growth! …The frequent statement that I hear from our parishioners is “a person would hardly recognize our parish from where we were three years ago. So much more is happening! People are enthusiastic about their faith and parish.”
This has been made possible by how Susan Windley-Daoust: (1) assisted the pastor in recruiting eleven parishioners through the discernment process to form the discipleship leadership team that met twice per month, (2) led a weekend working retreat for us at the beginning of this process, (3) met monthly on-site with the team, (4) had a “check-in” conference call monthly with the pastor, (5) led additional one-day retreats half way through and at the end of the year, and (6) helped us to “get going” and (7) evaluate where we had been and are now.
I strongly recommend Susan Windley-Daoust to pastors, staffs, and parishes having a mission to revive and renew your church community.”
–Fr. John Evans, Pastor of Church of the Crucifixion and St. Peter’s Church, La Crescent and Hokah, MN
“Context matters in this work, and Susan took time to listen carefully to the unique story deep within my parish community to help unearth a possible way forward that was both creative and sustainable. She assisted the group in learning the language of mission and evangelization and then translate it back to language that attended to our particular parish community.Susan is encouraging and joy-filled. She brings with her a wealth of knowledge and experience that brings a vision of what the future can look like and be. She provided clear, accessible and useful materials for our retreat and working sessions. Throughout the process Susan was both enthusiastic and supportive while also challenging us to stretch our imaginations. The end result of our year was a team empowered to share their wisdom with others and imagine creative ways to engage as church.”
–Prof. Emily Dykman, Chair of Religious Studies at Viterbo University; LaCrosse, WI