Pastoral Planning Overview
This section is the heart of this website, which breaks down in a concrete way how a parish or school can respond. We recommend free and affordable tools that you can put to use right away to animate your community. We include:
- Resources for leaders, to help them get started and put a plan into action.
- Ideas and tools for working with various parts of your community, including families & kids, youth, and adults.
- Suggestions for scheduling your efforts throughout the year.
Leadership & Teams
Use the tools listed on this page to gather a leadership team, learn about the challenge together, and put a plan in place to lead your community.
Creation care should not be addressed in one-time events and forgotten. Nor should it be limited to initial formation. It is part of our ongoing call to be disciples, lived out in action. The best way to keep the message of Laudato Si' at the forefront is to assign some dedicated leaders to a creation care team that will champion these efforts.
For Families & Children
Family faith formation is the beating heart of parish ministry. If you can engage the energy and spirit of your parents and children, it will fuel your whole parish-wide effort. We encourage you to make family faith formation the core of your creation care approach and to build your other initiatives around it.
For Youth (Tweens & Teens)
Springtide Research reports that environmental causes are important to 78% of young people, but only 57% of them think those causes are important to religious or faith communities. Chances are, your youth are already passionate about caring for the earth and would be enthusiastic about leading or joining efforts that lead to action.
We offer some tools designed specifically for use with youth, but we highly recommend that you also incorporate them into your events with adults. Youth will add a needed dynamism and a can-do urgency to conversations!
For Adults
Help adults in your parish to respond to Pope Francis' call to action. We recommend that you begin by introducing Laudato Si' with an introductory event and then invite participants into a small group faith-sharing experience to go deeper. Then invite your people to move toward action, while continuing to offer ongoing formation.
Planning by the Calendar
This section will help you consider how to plan events throughout the year and in tandem with the Church calendar.