By Joe Ruff
OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) – Archbishop George J. Lucas of Omaha has announced a pastoral vision and priority plan more than a year in the making, fashioned through a series of listening sessions, an 11-member envisioning team and guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The plan will guide the archdiocese for the next three to five years and is grounded in a vision statement: “One church, encountering Jesus, equipping disciples, living mercy.”
Three priorities encompassed in the vision statement are designed to keep Jesus at the center of all the archdiocese does, Archbishop Lucas said: creating a culture of encountering Jesus and equipping disciples, of enabling God’s mercy to be received and lived, and of unity.
Goals under each priority call for implementing strategies by 2018 or earlier, giving teams being formed by the archdiocese time to assess the current situation, invite new approaches and begin acting on them, the archbishop said in announcing the plan Oct. 21.
“In some ways, our challenges are very similar to the challenges faced by the first generation of Christians,” including fewer cultural supports for living the Gospel today compared with a couple of generations ago, Archbishop Lucas said.
Amid those challenges is the common “call to discipleship, the act of sending out of disciples to bring the light of the Gospel to others,” the archbishop said. “The challenges to unity but the desire to be one, with the diversity of gifts and diversity of cultures.
“The early church was known for the works of mercy and for being a place where you could receive forgiveness of sins and also where people would be treated with compassion and their human dignity would be respected,” the archbishop said. “That was part of what distinguished the Christian community in the early days from others. And the Holy Spirit was very powerfully at work in all of that.”
The listening sessions began nine months ago.
More than 100 people came to St. Gerald Church in Omaha Feb. 1 to contribute their ideas to the process led by the archbishop. In addition to St. Gerald, 90-minute sessions with small-group discussions, spoken and written suggestions were held through March in O’Neill, Norfolk, Wayne, Columbus and three more times in the Omaha area.
The archbishop attended each session. He also took into account suggestions given in nine focus group sessions held in the spring, and formed and met seven times in full-day sessions with an 11-member envisioning team from April through September.
Made up of the archbishop and clergy, religious and laity from urban and rural areas, the envisioning team studied parishioners’ comments and prayed about their contents, using them and the Holy Spirit’s guidance to form the pastoral plan.
In some respects, the process of establishing a pastoral vision began as far back as 2014, when Archbishop Lucas’ discussions about ministry with the Archdiocesan Council of Priests led to the idea of forming a mutually shared vision for Catholic life in the archdiocese.
And the listening process was similar to planning sessions that led to successful parish and school mergers in east Omaha, an archdiocesan capital campaign, a school and parish plan for growing areas of southwest and suburban Omaha, and in the next few years will be used across rural areas of the archdiocese.
Holding the listening sessions was an important way to stay close to people’s desires, the archbishop said.
“Really what we heard in the listening sessions was a desire for more. More in terms of faith, more in terms of belonging, more in terms of a way to reach others. And a desire for help and encouragement and a deeper experience of the faith,” the archbishop said.
“I think we heard that clearly,” he said. “And we find that is Jesus’ desire for us, too. … Life in Christ is the response to our deepest desire.”
Ruff is news editor of the Catholic Voice, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Omaha.