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Pastoral Plan Reference Group meets to reflect on Plan's ongoing development

January 31, 2025

L to R: Fr Stephen Dingley, Annie Condon, Jon Harman, Canon Kieron O'Brien, Bishop Richard, Canon Jonathan Martin, Laura Maydew-Gale, Nick St John, Mgr Tony Barry, Lizzie Wakeling, Sarah Kilmartin and Julie Oldroyd.

Members of the diocesan "Pastoral Plan Reference Group" gathered for their monthly meeting at The St Philip Howard Centre in Crawley this week, to reflect on the ongoing development of the Pastoral Plan "The Word Who is Life: The Call to Mission." Bishop Richard issued his third Pastoral Plan for the Diocese just over a year ago, with the publication marking an important new stage in the development of diocesan parish structures.

The principles of Prayer, Formation and Mission – central themes across each of the three Plans – are highlighted as "the measure against which we place every endeavour" creating new pathways for apostolic mission and focussing on the significant potential of our church communities to act as “beacons of light... not in an era of change, but in a change of era.”

In the Pastoral Plan, Bishop Richard writes:

"Mission is carried out in many different ways. It is carried out in the home and across the generations of the family, with grandparents often playing an important role. It is carried out in our schools, where both school staff and those for whom they are responsible, together with their families, benefit from the encounter in faith. It is carried out in parish communities, where the welcome offered to the visitor or enquirer as well as the explicit means of outreach in the local community, are powerful means of evangelisation."

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