Establishing A New Deanery Leadership Group

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Establishing A New Deanery Leadership Group
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The Current Deanery Leadership Arrangement

• Some significant collaborative achievements
• Prayer and training sessions
• Seminars
• Major liturgies
• Publications
• Social Justice

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BUT. It has struggled

• Role/Relationship with parishes not always clear
  - tension sometimes exists
• The reality that is Geelong
• diverse social economic settings
• mix of urban, rural, semi rural areas
• uneven distribution of human material resources
• easy to ignore/look past what is happening only a
  short distance from where we reside in the
  compartments that we call parishes

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Struggled also because ...

• Not a representative group - members have no
  mandate from their parish. There are no direct
  links into key parish groups, no flow of
  communication

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• All of us will struggle with the emerging reality
  of a changing church
• fewer active priests
• parish clusters
• the need for more collaborative activity as the
  Church of Geelong as some parishes become less
  self sustaining

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What The New Group Cannot Be

• Cannot replace parishes
• protections in canon law, archdiocesan procedures
• BUT
• Something that enhances parish life through
  greater sharing of personnel, ideas, programs
  and resources

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What it might be.

• Lay people and priests, nominated by their
  parish, with direct communication links into key
  parish bodies
• Central group of at least 13 people representing
  the 13 parishes
• What it is called how it works - to be resolved
  by the new group itself

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Additional Roles

• Specialist sub groups
• Publications
• Social Justice
• Liturgy
• Prayer groups
• Volunteers/co-opted members for particular areas
  of interest expertise.

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How we proceed ...

• Complete an expression of interest form
• Central group or
• specialised area of interest group
• These forms will be collected then forwarded to
  parishes for each to decide the most appropriate
  representation

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Our response ...

• Doom and gloom response - bury our heads to the
  emerging reality
• Complacent, comfortable response
• Respond to the Vatican Councils call to move
  with the signs of the times - positively,
  courageously and in recognition that we are part
  of a broader church sharing common interests and
  needs