Diocesan Reports
Notes from the Mission Report:
1. Be Aware- Know the closest mission community to your parish.
2. Pray for them. Their health and vibrancy as Christian communities. For their clergy and pastors. For their faithful. That their flock may increase. For their strength and fervor to bring people to the Body of Christ. Add a petition to a litany remembering missions.
3. Donate – Adopt a mission community. (List here) Make them part of your budget. Make a special donation to the Midwest Diocese earmarked for “Missions”. Sponsor their travel to a Diocesan Assembly or conference.
4. Share resources – A deacon? Choir leader? Liturgical furnishings you no longer need? Service books? Books for a library?
5. Visit – Organize a field trip for a group of parishioners to a nearby mission for a feast day, Saturday vespers or Sunday Liturgy? Join them for a community picnic.
6. Plant – Consider whether it’s time for your parish to extend its reach by planting a new community? What holds you back from doing this – really? In what direction would be best? Can you partner with another parish? Why might mission communities planted and nurtured from an existing parish have a better chance of becoming a future healthy parish?
7. Transplant – Are their parishioners in your parish who would flourish as part of an existing mission– perhaps even moving their residence to become an active art of a mission? Could their particular gifts be put to good –perhaps better – use by a small mission?
8. Review – How would your parish’s participation in the above assistance opportunities help to strengthen your parish? Would it help your community to be less insular and consider the needs of other Christian communities? To feel and be connected to the larger church?
Prayer Before Good Work
O Lord Jesus Christ, our God, do Thou accept our fervent supplication and bless the good intent and work of the Diocese of the Midwest, that we may begin favorably, and may complete it unto Thy glory without any obstacle. Do Thou assist the workers and direct the work of our hands, and cause it to be brought speedily to completion by the power of Thy Most-holy Spirit. For Thine it is to be merciful and to save us, O our God, and unto Thee do we send up glory, together with Thy Father Who is without beginning, and Thy Most-holy, Good and Lifegiving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.