With the blessings of Metropolitan Nicholas, our Parish clergy and lay leadership has decided to pursue a methodical planning process that has been proven to be successful in many Orthodox Churches, Dioceses and Metropolises. To that end, we assembled a very diverse cross-section of our Parish family. With the help of our Strategic Planning Coordinator Bill Marianes, this team compiled a comprehensive SWOT list (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) from the Team and from the parish at large, and used that data to create a new and comprehensive Strategic Plan that will guide our parish for years to come.
This plan includes:
- New vision and mission statements for our parish.
- Core values to guide us in all our ministries and endeavors.
- Three Strategic Areas of Focus: Stewardship & Engagement, Adult & Youth Education, and Welcoming, Outreach & Evangelism.
- Seven WIGs (Wildly Important Goals) within those strategic areas of focus.
We invite you to read all of these in complete detail in the following documents. The Executive Summary contains only a brief summary of the statements, values, and goals that make up the plan. The Book contains everything in the Strategic Plan, including much of the research that Bill has gathered in his years of ministry.
We especially want to thank all of the members of our Strategic Planning Team for all of their prayerful hard work and dedication over this last year as we worked through this process, and even more our coordinator Bill Marianes who donated not only his time but his considerable experience and expertise to help our parish achieve this notable goal.
The next step - the implementation phase - has two parts to it. The Strategic Plan has set goals for us to achieve in each of these Strategic Areas of Focus, with a Strategic Task Force assigned to each goal. The first assignment for each Task Force is to recruit the necessary members for each Goal. The second assignment for each Task Force is to research, choose, and adapt the program, curriculum, or ministry plan best suited to our parish and particular circumstances, all within the time frame provided by the Strategic Plan. The third part of the Implementation Team's job is to recruit and train the people who will actually put these ministries into place, with the final part of the process being the achievement of the goal set by the Strategic Plan.
We want to engage EVERY member of our community in this process. To that end, we encourage each of our parishioners to fill out the Strategic Task Force Volunteer Form. As we begin our search for the best curricula, programs, and ministries for our parish community, we need everyone to prayerfully consider where in this Strategic Plan they are being called to minister: Stewardship and Engagement, Adult and Youth Education, or Welcoming, Outreach, & Evangelism.
Each WIG has a head coach in charge of coordinating efforts between the various task forces. These head coaches, together with Fr. Timothy, make up the Implementation Headquarters. The head coaches for each team are:
We also invite you to read through all the materials and notes from the Strategic Planning Team's two retreats and breakout meetings, which can be found on our parish page on the "Stewardship Calling" website of our Strategic Planning Coordinator, Bill Marianes.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact our team at strategicplanning@stdemetriosmi.org.