Design team named to launch new mission strategy process

Bishop Alan M. Gates has appointed a six-member design team to initiate the process that will lead to a new mission strategy for the Diocese of Massachusetts.

Members of the design team include three Diocesan Council members, Billy Boyce of Grace Church in New Bedford, Jim Daniell of All Saints Parish in Brookline and the Rev. Meghan Sweeney, Priest-in-Charge of All Saints’ Church in Attleboro, along with the Rev. Thea Keith Lucas, Episcopal Chaplain at MIT, the Rev. Derrick Muwina, Vicar of All Saints’ Church in West Newbury, and John Woodard, a congregational consultant and member of St. Paul’s Church in Dedham.

The Rev. Canon Libby Berman, Canon for Congregations, will be the team’s staff facilitator. 

“This initial group reflects rich experience in strategic planning, nonprofit management, congregational and diocesan life, involvement in newer ministries and longstanding ones, as well as deep faith in Christ and commitment to the church,” Berman said.  “Their blend of church and professional experience is a deep well from which to draw as we imagine what this process will look like.”

As the process progresses from design to implementation, the bishop and Diocesan Council will add members to the ongoing team as needed, Berman said.

“A mission strategy helps chart a future direction.  It is essentially a plan that prioritizes how financial and other resources are used to further mission and ministry in the Diocese of Massachusetts,” she said.  “Now more than ever we need to be responsive to changing contexts and needs.  Our mission strategy also should be informed by the charisms—the particular gifts—of this diocese and lift them up on behalf of the larger church.”

Diocesan canon stipulates that the bishop and the Diocesan Council prepare a mission strategy for Diocesan Convention’s approval, and that it be reviewed, amended and approved at least once every three years.

The mission strategy was due for renewal in 2015, but last year’s Diocesan Convention granted a one-year extension, Berman explained, “with the understanding that our new bishop needed some time to come to know the diocese and develop a sense of his personal priorities in this new time.”

In consultation with the bishop and the Diocesan Council’s Executive Committee, the newly appointed team begins work this summer to design the process for collecting input from across the diocese.  It will make progress reports to the Diocesan Council in September and October and plans to present to the Diocesan Convention in November the listening process it has designed and any resolutions needed to implement it. 

The input gathered through that listening process will then inform the drafting of the eventual mission strategy, to be presented for Diocesan Convention’s approval in November of 2016.

“Between now and then there will be ample opportunity for the people of the diocese to offer their hopes for the process and their suggestions and recommendations for our mission strategy,” Berman said.

--Tracy J. Sukraw