Developing Goals
What is a Goal?
Goals are brief, clear statements of outcomes to be reached within three to five years. Goals are broad, general descriptions that explain what is to be done and the desired result. The exact method of achieving the goal will come with the objectives.
In pastoral planning, goals are related to one of the areas of mission and must flow from the mission statement of the parish.
What are the parts of a Goal?
Goals are made up of three parts: an action verb, a description of what is to be done, and a quantity or quality.
Action Verb: A goal begins with an action. Something is done and this verb describes that action. Some good verbs are: establish, develop, create, institute, implement, expand, deepen, etc. Regardless of the verb you choose to use, be sure it clearly expresses what is to be done.
Description of What You Will Do: Be clear yet succinct about what you plan to do in three to five years. It is not necessary to go into great detail. Be brief.
Quantity or Quality: Expand the basic description enough so that you have some means of measuring its success either in quantity or quality.
What is a good goal?
- It is realistic.
- It addresses the challenges of the future.
- It clearly presents one central outcome.
- It directly relates to one area of mission.
Some examples:
- To develop responsible lay leadership in the parish by encouraging all members to share their gifts.
- To establish neighborhood faith communities in at least one-third of the parish.
- To develop a ministry of welcome and hospitality to new residents of the neighborhood.
- To promote Catholic Social Teaching in all religious education programs.
Goals are developed by the Parish Pastoral Council based upon questions from the parish assembly, responses from the one-to-one conversations, the results of the parish self-study, and relevant data regarding parish life.
The questions from the assembly relevant to goals and objectives are as follows:
- What do I as a member expect of my parish?
- How should we reach out to the broader community from our parish?
- What do our demographics and data suggest that we do for the future?
- Which of the seven elements do we need to focus on and why?
When writing a goal, the Parish Pastoral Council should clearly identify the area of mission related to the goal. This will be important when it comes to developing reflection groups or the second assembly and demonstrates the relationship between the stated goals and the mission of the parish.
Once the mission statement is written or reaffirmed, the Parish Pastoral Council convenes to write goals for the parish.
The Parish Pastoral Council does not need to create a goal for each area of mission. A good pastoral plan has between three to five goals.
After drafting each goal, the council should review the goal and ask the questions found above to determine if the goal is realistic, relevant, challenging, clear and mission-focused.
Once the goals are developed they are published along with the mission statement. These goals are then used as the basis for the Goal Sign-Up Sunday. During this weekend, parishioners are asked to sign-up for one goal that interests them. The next step is then to form reflection groups (or prepare a second assembly) and invite parishioners that signed up to brainstorm objectives for each goal. A more thorough description of these steps are found within this binder.