Parish Renewal

The Holy Father has instructed the people to work to transform the Church by reaching out as missionaries rather than becoming inward looking.

As part of our strategy to rejuvenate our Parish and become Jesus-centred, kingdom-seeking disciples we will use the 'Divine Renovation' resources and strategies to help St Peter's to move from maintenance to mission.

'Divine Renovation'' is a system based on the experience and innovation developed by Father James Mallon , a Canadian Priest. In developing these programmes he has drawn heavily on links with Alpha and many other sources of wisdom on church growth. The underlying principles draw together many highly practical aspects for developing healthy parishes.

Below are some suggested sources for obtaining more information:

The Divine Renovation website

The website is well stocked with information, testimonies, blogs, podcasts and stories that support the impact that DR has made across the world. It is worth exploring along with the YouTube channel which has 439 videos at the time of writing.

Click https://divinerenovation.org/ to visit the website.

The Divine Renovation Guidebook

A specific step-by-step manual to implement DR principles for transforming parishes.

This book is most useful for those starting a new chapter of church life, looking to define vision and make coherent parish plans. It starts with the leader defining their own vision and then gathering a small team to refine and develop that vision into a strategic plan. It helps to prioritise time management and build an effective parish leadership structure. The book then encourages evaluation of your ten core values before looking at five systems that all need specific plans. There are sections on making missionary disciples and developing leaders. The aim in all of this is to become a church which makes disciples who have a personal encounter with Jesus. It is expected that this journey will take several years in order to implement the process fully.

The Divine Renovation Handbook

A great introduction for Church Leaders, 286 pages of practical wisdom, published 2014.

To get to grips with the concepts behind the Divine Renovation material the Handbook is the best place to start. It has five initial chapters which lay out the current position of the church and the reasons why we need to do things differently. There is then the central section in a chapter of 110 pages which gives details of how to transform our parishes. This gives details of ten common values that are needed for church growth. There is then a chapter looking at opportunities arising from the occasional offices and the book ends with a call to effective leadership and a conclusion. It is an easy and insightful read.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

Parish renewal is God’s work. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, transformative renewal happens and parishes come to life.

By drenching our work in prayer, we acknowledge that it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that the work of mission, evangelization, and parish renewal bears fruit.

The Primacy of Evangelization

The Church exists to evangelize. Your parish exists to evangelize.

When evangelization is the focus and people encounter Jesus, parishes grow.

The Best of Leadership

When parish leaders serve out of the best leadership principles, parishes thrive.

This includes casting vision, forming and leading an effective team, having a strong apprenticeship culture, and a focus on servant leadership.

If it’s important for a company that sells sneakers to have the best of leadership, how much more important is it for priests — who shepherd people to God and deal with questions of the eternal?