St. Anne’s Parish Renewal

And so it begins…our new parish structure!

“Making parishes engaging and vibrant,” by Tom Gallagher, National Catholic Reporter

After a year and a half of searching, learning, planning and praying, a new organizational structure for The Church of St. Anne has begun to be built. We hope the following information helps to increase your awareness and knowledge regarding this new structure.

This new organizational layout creates communication links between the staff, lay leaders, ministries, committees and pastor in a partnership that shares in leadership and decision-making that affect the entire parish. Five new commissions have been formed to help in this effort: Administration, Sacred Worship, Outreach, Faith Formation and Community.

Each commission is responsible for the following:

Linking to each of the ministries or committee areas encompassed by the commission,
Assessing what is happening in each area and providing help, support and assistance’ where, needed.
Visioning what each commission area could look like if everything is going right, and funneling the tasks to each ministry or committee area, establishing timelines and accountability and arranging for progress reports.

Each commission has six to nine people who will each serve in staggered three-year terms. Each commission has two co-chairs chosen by the commission members as well as two people who

represent the commission on the Pastoral C’ouncil. Each commission member will serve as a link to a ministry or committee area within St. Anne’s so that each area can send and receive information to
and from the commission through this individual. One parish staff member will serve as a resource person to each commission.

This new structure is a shared leadership structure. For example, in the future, commission members will be nominated from their ministry or committee areas for service on the commission. Ultimately, the commission will select two members who will serve on the Pastoral Council. We are in the process of phasing into this new structure from our previous, more hierarchical structure.

All of the current ministries and committees will continue to operate as they currently do, but this new structure will help with communication and decision-making as well as helping us be more inclusive and effective by drawing upon the wisdom that each of its has. Great trust and a sense of ownership among the pastor, parish staff, lay leaders and ALL people of St. Anne’s Parish its a whole are important to the success of this model. With this new, flatter organizational structure, the Church of St. Anne is more reliant than ever on you in order to thrive. As we embark on this new structure as a parish, please offer your gifts and talents to your church to help us all realize the full potential of our parish community.

Please feel free to contact any of the people listed on the commissions with any questions you may have.

Renewal Links: