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Bishop Richard issued a new Pastoral Plan for the Diocese ‘The Word Who is Life: The Call to Mission’ in January. The Plan focusses on the significant potential of diocesan parish communities to act as “beacons of light... not in an era of change, but in a change of era”. As part of the plan, the role of dean is being replaced by a priest who serves as moderator, with the 11 church communities that currently form deaneries becoming 11 parishes.

Cathedral Deanery, which includes the church communities of: Arundel Cathedral and Storrington; Bognor Regis and Slindon, Chichester, Selsey and the Witterings; and Petworth and Midhurst, has just begun the journey towards becoming a moderated parish “community of communities”. As part of that journey, core teams from across the deanery gathered earlier this week:

More than forty core team members from current deanery parishes met with deanery members of clergy in Arundel on Wednesday 13 March, to talk about how the Pastoral Plan will be implemented across their church communities.

The Dean, Canon Peter Newsam, who will become the Moderator of the new parish when it is created, opened the meeting with a time of prayer, after which Fr Chris Bergin from Bognor & Slindon talked about the vision of the Pastoral Plan, in particular what "communities of saints" and "schools of discipleship" can mean in our present context.

Fr Chris shared how inspired he was on seeing, on a visit to Wadowice, Poland, the baptismal record of a child baptised in 1920, who would grow up to be ordained priest and bishop, and elected Pope John Paul II, with the last handwritten date on his baptismal record being "Beatus 01.05.2011" - the date of his beatification. He reminded those gathered that we are all saints in the making - saved, by Christ, but disciples following the Master, not yet at our final destination, and charged with bringing others with us on the journey.

The gathering then broke into small groups, made up of people from several church communities, to explore three questions:

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What are your hopes for the Church locally in the new model?

What are your anxieties?

What do you think are the most pressing priorities that we need to address?

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In the feedback session that followed, attendees shared their hope that gifts and talents from across the new “community of communities” could be harnessed in pursuit of mission and to spread the Gospel, and that priests' time could be freed up. Anxieties centred around the need for momentum, to avoid too much time being spent in discussion and not action. Priorities included communicating what is happening well and widely across the parish. All contributions were collected on paper, together with any questions people had that could not be answered on the night. Canon Peter is due to share them with attendees and local church communities in due course.

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Click here to read Bishop Richard’s third Pastoral Plan: The Word Who is Life: The Call to Mission.