As pastor of St. Mary of the Angels and as Principal of St. Mary of the Angels School, we want to tell you about the exciting strategic planning process that we are doing here at St. Mary of the Angels… and we really want you to participate.
We began this process more than six months ago. After finishing the Renew My Church restructuring process with the Archdiocese—they decided not to merge us, but to keep our current configuration—and we saw the need to grow St. Mary of the Angels, and to grow as a family… as a family of families.
We brought in ISPD (Institute of School and Parish Development) to guide us in this process, which began with gathering information on the parish and input from you parishioners and school families: Do you remember the 2 minute survey? That was at the beginning of the process.
We formed an Executive Team of 8 to oversee the process, then formed a Core Team of about 20 to help us identify our challenges in St. Mary of the Angels. We came up with 10 challenges:
- How can we meaningfully engage more school families in the life and mission of the parish, and more parish families in the life and mission of the school?
- How can we (church and school) better communicate our mission to specificparish constituents/stakeholders/audiences, and to the community at large?
- How can we better communicate the true meaning and value that OpusDei brings to St. Mary of the Angels?
- How can we identify and communicate the “wow” points of our school and parish to potential families?
- How can we improve our hospitality in welcoming new members to theparish and school?
- How can we attract and coordinate more volunteers in order to better meet the needs of both school and church?
- How can we organize/manage resources (staff, volunteers, facilities,finances) and communications to create a strong synergy between church and school?
- How can we involve more young people and young adults in the life of our parish?
- How can we create a Site Master Plan that will address the facility needs of the parish and the school?
- How can we continue the trajectory of academic excellence in our school and achieve/receive the recognition of becoming a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence?
We also formed six planning teams that came up with some great solutions to those ten challenges. This help put solutions—such as a facility Master Plan that may include a Gym-Community Center!—in strategic plan to improve our parish and school, letting the Holy Spirit guide us in the process.
Now we need your help. Please come to our Convocation. You can help us identify more possible solutions and help us prioritize our efforts in a way effective to our mission for the next 3 to 5 years. I guarantee your positive input will be heard.
So Please join us on Wednesday August 31st at 6:30 PM in the school auditorium. Please RSVP: it will help us have enough materials for all.
We look forward to seeing you and to witness how the Holy Spirit is setting the St. Mary of the Angels family on fire with love in order to grow our family into a family of families. When you participate, you make a difference!
Thank you for your ongoing support to St. Mary of the Angels.
Fr. John, Pastor Beth, Principal
