The Office of Strategic Planning hosted the second meeting of Parish Implementation Teams on Wednesday night, April 4, 2017.
Of the 39 parishes in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux 25 were in attendance at the Pastoral Center and an additional 9 met on their parish campus and watched the meeting live via LiveStream. By midnight the LiveStream had reached over 50 viewers!
This kind of participation, especially considering that we are merely four days away from Palm Sunday, is extraordinary!
What happened at the meeting?
Fr. Mark Toups opened with a summary of what the parish implementation teams do.
Fr. Mark emphasized the importance of discernment, using the image of how birds indicated to fishermen where the fish are. Then quoting Luke 5:5 he reminded everyone that when Jesus tells us where to fish the catch is extraordinary.
Fr. Mark spent the bulk of his time outlining the diffrence between a "maintenance-driven" parish vs. a "mission-driven" parish.
Each parish had 30 minutes for discussion.
Fr. Mark closed the meeting answering questions and challenging the group to move forward.