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Pastoral Planning Through Communal Discernment

This website offers reflections and resources for pastoral planning by communities and organizations in the Catholic faith tradition and beyond. The information has been written with a broad-based audience in mind, since pastoral planning frequently and rightly involve a wide and diverse range of persons, whether as group members, staff, volunteers, or network partners, who belong to various faith and spiritual traditions, or have no religious affiliation. The suggested process for pastoral planning in this website can be used as a guide for each group to design its own steps in accord with its contexts and needs. The principles section can be used as material for background reading and reflection to help prepare participants or orientate those who are less familiar with the Catholic faith tradition. It is hoped that this website will aid many persons, communities, and organizations to experience a meaningful renewal of life and mission.

Who am I? Where am I going? What is life all about?

These questions seem to be etched deeply in the human heart. They come to the surface whenever we face a personal crisis and the road ahead is not so clear. These same questions also come to mind when we desire to live and act intentionally and authentically. In each season of life, they resurface to beckon new answers.

For a community or organization, these questions are relevant too. Who are we as a group? How did we come to exist? What is our common life all about? Do we have a unique contribution to make? Where should we go? What should we do now? Just as for an individual, these questions are often triggered when there is a crisis, or when the group finds itself at the crossroads, and new stages of its journey require a re-examination of its priorities and way of proceeding.

Confronting these questions and following through on the answers is not easy because it often involves uncertainty, tension, letting go, and being open to change. However, this is the path that potentially leads to greater fullness of life. Conversely, avoiding the struggle or pain of dealing with these questions will only prolong the drift and dispersion of the group, and eventually lead to desolation and despair.

Intentional and authentic living as a community entails journeying through these questions on a regular basis, and carrying out their implications faithfully, evaluating along the way. It is a process that engages the whole community in heart, mind, and soul. As a result, the community grows fruitfully in its identity, values, life, and mission. A corresponding integration at the personal level among its members often happens as well.

In this regard, the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola has been a powerful means of helping people move towards intentional and authentic living, through confronting these very questions. Its underlying dynamics and principles can also help a group to grow in its core values, identity, charism, and vocation in the world.

Some groups find that they no longer seem to be growing fruitfully, nor are their activities relevant to the present times. Other groups find that they are busy with many things, but seem to lack a clear impact. There are also groups which have become aware that they might have diverted from their core mission and values, and group members are divided.

Just as individual persons benefit from undertaking the Spiritual Exercises regularly in one form or other, communities and organizations also benefit from undergoing the Exercises regularly as a group. The underlying movement of the Exercises over its constituent “four weeks”, when adapted for a group, can lead the group to become more aware of its present lights and shadows, realize its need for conversion, deepen its connection with the Ultimate Principle and Foundation of life, and become more aware about its surrounding context. It also leads the group to rediscover its identity and mission, make specific choices for the road ahead, and pursue them faithfully despite the anticipated trials, with confidence in the ultimate triumph of good.

In the Christian faith tradition, pastoral planning has become a task undertaken by an increasing number of church groups from parishes and dioceses to religious associations, schools, charities, ministries, and other institutions. Sometimes drawing from the strategic planning field in secular management, pastoral planning is commonly regarded as the task of mapping out a church organization’s direction, objectives, key services, programs, and activities, and the consequent personnel and resource allocations for a defined period ahead.

Although this is not an unhelpful definition, pastoral planning can be more holistically viewed in the light of the Spiritual Exercises. As highlighted above, it can be regarded as a process that promotes a community's intentional and authentic living by bringing it through an inward journey of confrontation with foundational questions about identity, values, and purpose, a lateral journey of solidarity and reconciliation, and an outward journey of living out the implications in each contextual reality so as to bring about universal flourishing in the world.

The heart of this process is an intimate and reconciliatory encounter with God or the 'Universal Lifeforce' and 'Ultimate Source of Truth and Goodness'. It brings the group through a pilgrimage of the heart, enabling it to be touched by profound mystery, love, and truth once again, and emerge with renewed grace and energy as one body.

Hence, pastoral planning can help a group as well as its members to become better aligned and grow in closer union with the Divine Flow of Life dwelling in the universe and laboring for its greater flourishing.

In this regard, the Spiritual Exercises offer a good framework for pastoral planning in terms of both principle and process. An elaboration of some key principles for pastoral planning can be found here, and a suggested process is offered here. You can also download them as a text file here.

Additional information and resources on Discernment in Common in the Ignatian tradition as well as on Ignatian Spirituality can be found by clicking on these links.

Updated July 2020.

For more information, contact chriskheng@gmail.com.

Christina Kheng

The author of this website is affiliated to the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP) and the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI).