OLPH and MBS Recommendations to the Archbishop concerning becoming Partnership Parishes

Since September, 2005, our parish has participated in the New Energies Parish Transition Project of the Archdiocese of Newark.  After studying our parish, we met with the team from Most Blessed Sacrament Parish, our assigned partner in this process.  Our task was to decide whether these two parishes should merge into one, or link together with a shared pastor, or become Partnership Parishes in which we remain as individual parishes but begin to share resources and cooperate in ministries.  We recommended to the archdiocese that we become Partnership Parishes.  This recommendation has been accepted by the archdiocesan Task Force on Parishes.  After discussing Task Force suggestions, the teams from OLPH and MBS developed this plan of cooperation:

Our two parishes will cooperate in six areas:

a.      Youth and Young Adults:  Youth ministers will meet regularly and will plan monthly youth masses alternating in the parishes, as well as joint retreats and other trips.  We will continue our present ministries to young adults, Theology on Tap at OLPH and basketball at MBS.  Each parish will invite the young adults of both parishes to these events.  In addition, the OLPH and MBS youth and young adult ministers will inform the young adults of the two parishes of activities and events offered to young adults by other nearby parishes.

b.     Social Justice:  Both MBS and OLPH will assign a staff person to devote part of his or her time and effort to exploring and developing a ministry of social justice education, outreach and public action on behalf of justice.  These staff persons in the two parishes will communicate with each other and cooperate in establishing this ministry in both parishes.

c.      Stewardship:  Both OLPH and MBS will form Stewardship Committees. Our two stewardship committees will participate jointly in a formation program to enhance their understanding of stewardship and of the needs of the local, national and global community.  We intend to facilitate this formation locally.

d.      Parish Nurse: MBS will explore the benefits of having a parish nurse.  OLPH will share with MBS its experience with having a person performing this ministry.  If MBS decides that having a parish nurse is beneficial to its community, the OLPH parish nurse will share information and her experiences with the nurse chosen for this ministry.

e.      Adult Education: Parish staff members will collaborate and jointly sponsor events and speakers.

f.      Religious Education of Children: We will establish a joint committee to explore best practices in our parishes and neighboring parishes.  From the committee’s recommendations, each parish will develop its own future plans.

We now await the decision of the Executive Committee of the Task Force on Parishes regarding our plan.  If they approve it, then the Archbishop must review and approve it.  Once the Archbishop approves a plan for our Partnership we will receive a calendar for implementation of the plan.

The New Energies, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, in tandem with Most Blessed Sacrament, will be examining Religious Formation (Education).  We will evaluate our programs and look at the programs of other parishes to see what works and what doesn't, what should change and what should remain the same. If you would like to be part of this Committee, please contact Father Lipnicki.