Some good websites and some sample demographic material

There are some great sites out there from dioceses that are engaging the Pastoral Planning process in different ways. I’d suggest taking a look at:

The Diocese of Brooklyn, New York

The Diocese of Rochester, New York

The Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas - you should look especially at their document “A Model Parish” – it’s kind of interesting, and a good starting place for Parishes to think about themselves and their mission.

If you find any others of particular interest, let me know.

I also wanted to include in this post a sample of some of the demographic data we will be supplying for Collaboratives in Phase One.  I’m including data for a Parish – Holy Family in Amesbury – not because it’s in Phase One (it isn’t) – but just as a sample so you can see what it will look like.

There are four different reports for each area:  Quick,  Executive,  Full, and  Impressions.  This data is provided for us by a service called MissionInsite, and is drawn from a variety of census data and surveys.

This is a lot of information to absorb, and not all of it is relevant.  It does, however, give us some good basic sense of each area.