WORD of the effectiveness of Caloundra parish’s pastoral planning strategy has spread to Victoria.Parish priest Fr John Dobson, who is also dean of the North Coast, accepted an invitation from Sandhurst diocese in Victoria to visit recently to speak to various groups about the model Caloundra had developed over the past 10 years.
People from Sandhurst diocese had witnessed the way the model worked when they were holidaying in Caloundra and returned home with the suggestion that Fr Dobson be invited to speak to groups in the diocese.
Fr Dobson said Caloundra had worked on a pastoral planning strategy that enabled it to develop and sustain 11 churches.
“These churches, with an active lay leadership, have their own pastoral infrastructure, with their own mission and outreach,” he said.
He said the significance and effectiveness of the strategy was that its starting point was the Eucharist and the local community, “and moves to energise local communities to become more responsible for them being Church”.
“We are using a model that journeys from a temple model of Church to an upper room model of Church,” Fr Dobson said.
“The starting point in this planning model does not begin with structure and organisation, but rather as Paul did at Corinth, builds the community on the giftedness of the people in the community.
“Paul could then tell the Corinthian people ‘you are many parts that make up the one body that is Christ’.”
Fr Dobson said the initiating point for action was the community instead of the priest. It was a model that maximises lay leadership and places the priesthood in much clearer focus, with the priest not having to concentrate on areas such as administration.
Fr Dobson was keynote speaker at a conference at Harrietville, with 60 people attending from around Sandhurst diocese. He spoke to a gathering of clergy of the diocese, as well as to three gatherings of lay people.
He also spoke with people involved in pastoral planning in Ballarat diocese and to Bishop Peter Connors of Ballarat.
Pastoral development officer in faith education in Sandhurst diocese, Viv Williams, said Fr Dobson’s visit and input was “a great encouragement and exposure to the power of the possible”.
She said Fr Dobson “offered hope to find a more creative response to the demands of the Gospel in the local area”.
