Canadian Martyrs Church

Mission Statement and Backgrounder

Mission Statement & Backgrounder

Canadian Martyrs Parish

 

 

 

Thank you for your responses to the draft Mission Statement we presented to you on Nov. 10-11 and 17-18.  Pastoral Council amended the draft to reflect as much as possible the 45 written replies and 10 verbal ones that we received. The final text is as follows:

 

Holy Canadian Martyrs Parish is a welcoming Christian community reaching out to all who seek God. We joyfully live, renew and share our Catholic faith through worship, prayer and service, especially to those in need, under the leadership of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and our laity.

 

The rest of this note addresses some of the questions you raised and outlines where we go from here.

 

1. What is the purpose of this Mission Statement?

 

The purpose of the Mission Statement is to tell us (and anyone who is interested in Canadian Martyrs Parish) in as simple terms as possible the essence of who we are and what we do. We should be able to see ourselves in the Statement and say, “Yes, that is my Parish!”

 

However, as a living human community, we can always be more fully what we are and do better what we do. So the Mission Statement also expresses what we want to keep working at becoming and, in very general terms, where we want to go as a parish.

 

2. How was this Mission Statement arrived at?

 

Early in 2007 the new Pastoral Council held a weekend workshop with Finance Committee to look at where we are as a parish and the challenges facing us as a Christian community. We saw ourselves as a small parish (about 200 active family and individual members) with a large number of seniors, a growing number of children, but relatively few young people in the 20-40 range. We saw a lot of great people in our parish, a lot of diversity, and a warm and welcoming spirit. We saw ourselves trying to live Christian lives in a world which is often indifferent if not hostile to the religious and moral principles we hold as Catholics. We asked ourselves how we could grow as a parish, how we could attract more people, and how we as a community could live more fully the evangelical and pastoral mission Christ has entrusted to us.

 

We realized that what we needed was a clear and shared understanding among parishioners about who we are, where we want to go and what we want to do. And since we can’t be everything and do everything, we needed some goals and objectives, some priorities and a  medium-long term plan of action.  This is called Strategic Planning, and the first step is for everyone to agree on who they are:  hence, the Mission Statement.

 

A working group laboured through the spring and summer of 2007 to come up with a draft that was reviewed by Pastoral Council and given to parishioners for their comments in November. Most of your comments were positive or made minor editing suggestions that we have tried to incorporate. In some cases we felt that suggested words or phrases were already covered by existing ones (e.g., ‘welcoming’, ‘joyfully’, ‘our Catholic faith’, ‘worship’, etc.). We chose each word carefully and reflected on its meaning. We hope that you are satisfied with the result.  

 

3. What happens next?

 

Pastoral Council will set up a working group of Council members and non-members to continue the strategic planning exercise. The working group will have to reflect on what the Mission Statement means in more concrete terms (e.g., what does it mean to be “a welcoming Christian community” in our city today? how do our current activities help us to “joyfully live, renew and share our Catholic faith” in today’s world? how well do we serve “those in need”? etc.)

 

In other words, the working group will look at how the Mission Statement is expressed and advanced through the various pastoral ministries that already exist, at how the links with the Mission Statement might be strengthened, at what gaps there might be and how they might be filled. Because we have a limited number of people who are able to participate actively in the life of the parish, not to mention limited financial resources, we will have to look at what our priorities should be, how we can engage more people in parish activities, and how we can attract more people to the parish. We will endeavour to keep the parish as informed and involved as possible, so that the final result will be something that the parish as a whole is fully committed to.

 

Underlying all this is a deep sense in Pastoral Council that the parish is engaged in asking itself how we as a community respond to the mission that Christ has set before us: to spread the Good Word of His message, to draw closer to God in worship and prayer, to love and serve those around us, and to strengthen the community of faithful that is our Church.  In all of this we will need to pray and reflect, and we will need your prayers and participation.

 

(March, 2008)

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