Spreading the Net Wide
Once the Parish Pastoral Council has received training in 1:1 conversations and practiced them with one another, you can begin going out into the parish to conduct these conversations with others. Try to be strategic when choosing people with whom you wish to speak. If you have conducted a nomination process in the parish to select members of the Parish Pastoral Council, you may wish to begin the conversations with this group since the parish felt that these individuals had some gifts for leadership.
The Parish Pastoral Council must decide how many 1:1 conversations each person will do. It is suggested that each member begin with five conversations over the course of a month. If there are 12 members of the council, then you will reach 60 parishioners in just one month.
As members complete the conversations, be sure to write down some salient notes from each conversation. Begin the next meeting with a review of some of the comments and a debriefing from each member regarding the results of the conversations.
Even as you prepare for the next step in the planning process or continue with other work of the council, you can continue to hold 1:1 conversations with members of the parish and provide a brief report at the meeting. In this way, 1:1 conversations can become an ongoing tool to listen to the needs, concerns, and desires of parish members.
Note for multi-lingual parishes:
1:1 conversations are done with individuals who speak a common language. In parishes with more than one language group, be sure that all groups are covered in the 1:1 campaign. When de-briefing at a PPC meeting, it would be appropriate to share the language and ethnicity of the person you interviewed. Listen attentively for the different viewpoints on parish life given by members of different ethnic groups.