Parish Planning
"Making All Things New"
“Making All Things New” is a pastoral planning initiative of the Archdiocese of New York which seeks to address how the archdiocese can best meet the religious, spiritual, and pastoral needs of the people of God now and into the future. This initiative has completed its pre-planning process, begun in September, 2010. “Making All Things New” seeks to strengthen and maintain the vitality of the parishes within the Archdiocese of New York for present and future generations of Catholics.
In the pre-planning phase of this initiative each parish was invited to form a “Making All Things New” Pastoral Planning Team consisting of the pastor and three members of the parish who would serve as the conduit through which information would be disseminated to and solicited from the parishioners. In addition, each pastoral team was given a planning packet which included pulpit statements, bulletin inserts and survey forms which the pastoral teams distributed to parishioners at weekend Masses.
The response to the survey was extensive. Of the 370 parishes within the archdiocese, 82% completed the pre-planning survey which yielded thousands of responses. Many parishioners prepared separate comments and included them with their survey responses. The thousands of responses were reviewed, compiled and condensed so that the data collected could be used for the next phase of the planning process.
The survey responses generated many topics. The following areas were identified as being most important to the people of God in the archdiocese:
- Strengthen Life-Long Faith Formation.
- Engage Youth and Young Adults in Church Life.
- Promote Good Stewardship of parish and archdiocesan assets.
- Formation of and Encouragement of Lay Ministries.
- Encourage Vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
The pastoral planning process is now moving into its second phase during which the “Making All Things New” committees of each parish will review the results of the survey data for their particular parish and then compare the results with the data for the vicariate in which the parish is located. These teams, after studying, reviewing and analyzing the data will formulate recommendations for a pastoral plan for the vicariate.
If you would like to view the response to the survey from each vicariate, please click on the vicariate folder below.
