One Nativity 2035 Update

(This article was published in Fr. Patrick's "From The Hip" column in the August 16 parish bulletin.)

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

This month I’m offering a series of state-of-the-parish updates for you, post-reopening. My first two weekly columns ( finance and events updates) are now available here in the news section of the website.

This week I’d like to share our progress from the One Nativity 2035 initiative. As you’ll recall, One Nativity 2035 launched in July of last year to identify and recommend ways to better communicate, bolster, and sustain our parish mission in service of this vibrant Catholic community — today and well into the future.

In partnership with our lay trustees, Jerry Brennan and Dan Flanagan, as well as our school principal Kate Wollan, I launched One Nativity 2035 and identified two dozen individuals to best represent our entire parish from the Pastoral Council, School Advisory Council, and Finance Council, as well as the parish staff, parish lay organizations, and at-large parish members to better understand our challenges and better take advantage of our opportunities.

June Klaphake, an active parishioner and consultant on managing change in organizations, volunteered to facilitate the process.

The One Nativity 2035 team met monthly into the spring and gathered together for prayerful reflection at a parish lay leadership retreat in October. Later that month, we invited the entire parish to two open discussion opportunities to ensure that the project and its plans would be representative of the parish as a whole and not simply a select few.

In April, One Nativity 2035 synthesized its work and identified three key areas of opportunity for increased growth and progress at Nativity of Our Lord: faith, leadership, and volunteers. I’ll expand briefly on each of these areas below. (An executive summary of the report will soon be available on our website.)

• To support the growth and nurturing of our faith, and in complement with our excellent liturgical and sacramental life, we will focus energy and resources to ensure vibrant spaces to gather and pray, provide relevant multi-generational faith formation programs leading to spiritual growth, and demonstrate expanded Christian witness through outreach and service to the broader community.

• We will work towards a more structured and organized approach to governance and inclusive lay leadership, with the Pastoral Council as the hub; develop a robust, viable, and sustainable development program that supports parish-wide priorities and needs; and utilize data for decision-making and intentional engagement of parishioners and volunteers.

• Finally, to more deliberately and effectively invite parishioners to collaborate in the service of our mission, we will establish an engaging volunteer structure, strategy, and management approach, and develop a more comprehensive and dynamic dedicated hospitality program.

More than simply one-time recommendations, the One Nativity 2035 team is dedicated to continued work with me and Fr. Nick, the rest of the parish staff, and indeed our parish at large.

In particular, they are committed to better establish and empower our parishioners in collaborative leadership, beginning with the Pastoral Council, in ensuring progress toward these ambitious goals. In fact, this work is already well underway.

Our new Development, Data, and Technology (DD&T) team, led by Robert Wollan and Andrea Chinchilla, has begun to identify state-of-the-art tools to help us be more efficient and effective in serving the real wants and needs of our parishioners.

I am grateful for the hard work of the One Nativity 2035 team —- of which I have seen firsthand — and in particular to the co-chairs, Jerry Brennan and Erik Thurman, for their leadership.

I am very excited to continue this important project to ensure a united, vibrant, and sustainable Nativity of Our Lord for years to come.

Again, please check back next week for another state of the parish update. In the meantime, may God bless your week.

Fr. Patrick Hipwell, Pastor of Nativity of Our Lord